[tantalor]

The problem is the fee has nothing material to do with the straight itself. There are no maintenance costs for the open sea. Coordination is also not a big concern, you can tell because previously ships were able to pass without incident and coordinate among themselves.

Actually, this is extortion. Meaning that it is done under threat of violence. Worse yet, the US military may end up enforcing this, and collecting on a share of the fees.

It won't take very long for Iran to recoup the damages. After that, why keep the fees going? Because it's free money, that's why.

The strange this is, if the US and Iran can partner on this, that would lead to a weird peace, because they both stand to benefit, meanwhile countries that depend on the straight (Korea, Japan, etc.) have to pay the bill.

[ux266478]

> There are no maintenance costs for the open sea.

There are massive maintenance costs for the open sea with how we utilize it. Maritime security and policing, navigational infrastructure, weather reporting, radio repeaters, international bureaucracy, etc.

Global maritime trade is extremely costly. It's simply hidden behind opaque public spending on things you don't think about. In all likelihood it's a sunk cost that would ballpark around a few hundred billion dollars annually, invisible money spent just to keep things running at the scale and reliability that they do.

Now the maritime traffic passing through the Strait of Hormuz may only partially overlap with this spending, but people greatly overestimate just how "cheap" maritime activity actually is.

[orwin]

I don't think this count as open sea. The rule is 12 miles from the coast (12 nautical miles btw, i don't know what it is in freedom units). i'm pretty sure the strait is narrower than that at the place where the toll is paid (if you count both side, i.e less than 24 miles Between Oman's peninsula i forgot the name of, and Hormuz/Qeshm islands).

So basically, Iran say "here, you have to pass through our or Oman's waters, we will let you, but please pay a toll for the derangement, that we will share with Oman."

[insane_dreamer]

> extortion

not really; you would have to pay to run an oil pipeline through another country's territory even if that country wasn't bearing the cost of maintaining the oil pipeline

the strait isn't international waters -- it's part of Iran and Oman's territorial waters

[citrin_ru]

For land pipelines thiere no eqauvalent of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea according to which both Oman and Iran should allow free passage of ships. And "normal" path lies on Oman's waters which dones't stop Iran from attacking ships there. The strait toll is a pure racketeering.

[surgical_fire]

What does the UN convention says about killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure?

I think any such pretenses were abandoned right off the start.

[ithkuil]

You make it sound that there are only two sides in this story.

Spain, Argentina, Kenya, Indonesia, Kuwait and countless other countries haven't bombed any civilian infrastructure either and yet they will be affected by the aggressive posture around international maritime traffic.

Are you expecting that Iran will not apply the fee to ships that sell oil Malesia or South Africa?

[surgical_fire]

For the Iranian perspective it doesn't matter.

Their only defense against being bombed was using their geopolitical position to its advantage. Their own civilian infrastructure was bombed by the US-Israel axis, with the support of the Gulf states.

I fully expect Iran to apply fees on every ship going through, and they should.

Spain, Argentina, Kenya, Indonesia and countless other countries are paying for the aggressive and reckless actions of the US-Israel axis.

That's the situation of the country where I live btw. I don't blame Iran for using the weapons at their disposal for survival, I blame the rogue states that attacked Iran and forced their hand. Let's not forget that Iran could have done it at any time in the past decades, and showed restraint in doing so, even with all the sanctions and Israeli aggression.

[insane_dreamer]

The UNCLOS, you say? Guess which two countries haven't signed/ratified it: US and Israel.

So yeah, I don't see Iran paying much attention to the UNCLOS.