As the Strait of Hormuz moves back to the center of Gulf politics, Muscat’s careful diplomacy with Tehran is becoming a test of whether regional security will be managed by Gulf states or dictated from outside.
The cradle
The Sultanate of Oman sits at the center of that calculation. Tehran has included Muscat in discussions over the future handling of the strait, partly because Oman has long been viewed as a dependable mediator, and partly because geography gives the sultanate an unavoidable role.
Muscat is not merely hosting talks or passing messages between rivals. It is being drawn into the question of who sets the rules for Hormuz, how far Iran can formalize its position there, and whether the GCC can live with an arrangement that gives member state Oman a central role in keeping the waterway open.
Washington has made clear that it will not accept any arrangement that weakens its ability to police the waterway or limit Iran’s regional leverage. Oman is now paying the price for its own usefulness. The “Switzerland of the Middle East” is no longer only the quiet host of talks between enemies; it is becoming a target of pressure because its diplomacy points toward a Gulf order less dependent on US coercion.
Muscat’s diplomatic capital
Oman’s value in the Persian Gulf rests on a combination of geography, restraint, and accumulated trust. For decades, Muscat has acted as a channel between states that cannot speak directly, from the US and Iran to rival Gulf capitals and the de facto government in Sanaa and Saudi Arabia. Its relations with Tehran predate the Islamic Republic, and have usually been guided less by ideology than by the hard facts of coastline, trade, and security.
Ships entering or leaving the Strait of Hormuz must move through the Gulf of Oman, while the established traffic separation scheme runs through waters adjacent to the Omani exclave of Musandam. This makes Oman indispensable to every actor involved: Iran, the GCC states, Pakistan, India, China, the US, and the European energy markets that depend on Gulf supply.
Dr Mohammed bin Awad al-Mashikhi, an Omani academic, writer, and researcher specializing in public opinion and mass communication, who has written on Hormuz and commented on regional affairs, tells The Cradle that the present crisis has deep roots.
“This is an old-new issue,” he says, pointing to the 1974 Oman–Iran agreement during the Shah’s era, when the two sides divided responsibilities in the Strait of Hormuz. He says Oman’s role later developed around supervising passage, protecting its territorial waters, preserving the marine environment, and guiding vessels through the strait.
In Iranian foreign policy, Oman’s utility is obvious. Unlike Riyadh during the peak years of Saudi–Iranian confrontation, Muscat never tried to turn its relationship with Tehran into a sectarian or ideological battlefield.
It maintained communication, protected its autonomy, and refused to become a platform for maximum-pressure campaigns. That posture has now given Oman room to speak to Iran at a moment when few others can.
Inside the GCC, Oman has rarely acted as a spoiler. But in Iran, Yemen, and Palestine, Muscat has often kept its distance from the more openly aligned policies of Abu Dhabi and Riyadh.
Dr Abdullah Baabood, an Omani scholar of Gulf affairs and international relations, tells The Cradle that Oman’s current position on the Strait of Hormuz fits within its long-standing balancing strategy:
“This strategy is best understood as an attempt to balance three objectives simultaneously: preserving freedom of navigation and the strait’s international commercial functions; maintaining its strategic relationship with Iran and preventing escalation; and avoiding a direct confrontation with the US, western powers, and the Gulf countries. The difficulty for Muscat is that these objectives are becoming increasingly difficult to reconcile as the Hormuz issue becomes more politicized.”
That is why Oman’s mediation between Iran and the US in 2025 and 2026 matters. In the 2026 track, Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr bin Hamad al-Busaidi was reported to have extracted from Tehran a major nuclear concession, including language on zero enrichment. Whether that understanding can be revived after the war is unclear, but the episode underlined how seriously Iran treats Oman as a channel.
For Tehran, Oman is a Gulf state that has preserved relations through multiple crises, refused to join the Abraham Accords, and continued to argue that regional security cannot be outsourced to extra-regional powers. For Washington, that same independence has become increasingly uncomfortable, especially as Muscat refuses to fold its mediation into the US-Israeli normalization track.
The Iran track
The core question now is whether Oman is only working to preserve safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, or whether it is moving toward a more formal understanding with Iran on how transit, security, and possibly fees will be handled.
Muscat’s public language remains cautious. Omani officials speak of “safe and sustainable” navigation, de-escalation, and arrangements that protect international trade. Tehran’s language has been more assertive, particularly around regulation and payment.
Ahmed al-Mukhaini, an independent public policy analyst, tells The Cradle that Oman does not view Hormuz as “a bargaining chip,” but as “a function of sovereignty and consequential responsibility to maintain the strait as a shared strategic artery.” Oman’s role, he says, is “to keep navigation open, lawful, and predictable, while preventing the strait from becoming a theater for escalation.”
Baabood says Omani statements have consistently emphasized “safe passage, maritime security, international law, uninterrupted trade and supply chains, and diplomacy as the means to guarantee navigation.”
Recent Omani–Iranian meetings, he adds, are publicly framed around “principles governing freedom of navigation” under international law rather than exclusive control arrangements.
“This is very much in line with Oman’s traditional position: the strait is a shared waterway whose stability benefits everyone, including Oman itself,” Baabood explains.
Mukhaini says Oman’s engagement with Iran is rooted in geography rather than ideological alignment. “Iran is a neighbor across a narrow and sensitive waterway; engagement is therefore not a luxury but a security inevitability,” he says, adding that recent Oman–Iran discussions have focused on “smooth and safe passage through the strait.”
Mashikhi, meanwhile, has warned before that unilateral Iranian moves in Hormuz would invite precisely the kind of outside intervention Tehran says it opposes. He went on to say that during the late Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi’s 2022 visit to Muscat, he told Iranian state television that Tehran should avoid militarizing the strait or acting without coordination with Oman.
“I warned at the time that if Iran did not coordinate with Oman, this passage would turn into an international corridor and major powers would enter the file,” Mukhaini adds. In his view, the latest crisis has confirmed that warning.
The more intricate part of the story is economic. Oman and Iran have been steadily trying to deepen trade, transport, energy, and port connections, giving Muscat an interest in a settlement that stabilizes the strait without surrendering it to Washington’s military logic.
At the same time, Mukhaini argues that Oman’s engagement with Iran is not a departure from its Gulf commitments:
“It is how Oman protects them. Muscat’s value to its neighbors lies precisely in its ability to speak to Tehran directly and candidly without becoming Tehran’s proxy, and to reassure the GCC without becoming part of a confrontational bloc.”
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and Pakistan all have reasons to watch the file closely, but Oman’s most immediate coordination is with the states directly exposed to the waterway.
Mashikhi says Muscat continues to coordinate with Gulf states on Hormuz, particularly those most exposed to the waterway. During the recent crisis, he says, Oman coordinated with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait over the passage of some vessels through Omani territorial waters, “and of course in coordination with Iran.”
But he adds that Oman does not want to carry the burden alone: “In my personal view, Oman does not want to be the policeman of the Strait without compensation for the risks it faces.”
None of this means Riyadh, Doha, or Islamabad will simply endorse an Iranian tolling scheme. It does mean that Oman is not operating in a vacuum, and that its Iran-facing diplomacy may be easier for these states to tolerate than a direct Iranian–US confrontation over the strait.
Mukhaini summarizes Oman’s position in three anchors: “neutrality is not passivity; balance is not ambiguity; and dialogue is not alignment.” Oman’s standing, he says, remains based on “mutual respect, non-interference in internal affairs, and respect for international legality,” which in turn requires regional responsibility and global cooperation.
According to Baabood, Muscat is probably moving toward a practical security understanding with Tehran, but not a joint political control regime:
“The likely reality is that Oman is trying to negotiate deconfliction arrangements, shipping coordination, crisis-management mechanisms, and confidence-building measures, without endorsing Iran’s broader geopolitical claim to regulate international shipping. In other words, Oman seems to be seeking a functional arrangement, not a strategic alliance over Hormuz.”
Trump’s threat to ‘blow up’ Oman
On 27 May, US President Donald Trump escalated the pressure with a threat that shocked even some of Oman’s critics. Commenting on Oman’s role in the Hormuz talks, he warned: “Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we’ll have to blow them up.” The remark was understood across the region as a warning that Washington’s patience with Omani mediation had thinned.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei condemned Trump’s threat as “dangerous” and “bullying,” saying that threats to “destroy” a UN member state that has long played a constructive mediating role violated the basic prohibition on the threat of force.
A day later, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he had expressed Iran’s “solidarity with Oman in the face of any threat” during a call with his Omani counterpart.
The deeper US concern is not only the tolling question. Washington is trying to prevent any settlement that weakens its ability to police the Gulf’s maritime chokepoints, while also tying post-war arrangements to the broader normalization track with Israel.
In Oman, the normalization push runs into a foreign policy tradition built on the Arab Peace Initiative, Palestinian rights, and a refusal to treat recognition of Israel as the entry fee for regional stability.
Omani analyst Dr Mohammed Alaasmi captured the mood in a post on X, arguing that Trump’s pressure was less about fees in the strait than about Oman’s firm position on the Abraham Accords file. In his reading, the threat reflected US frustration over Muscat’s refusal to move the normalization track in a direction useful to Washington and Tel Aviv.
Oman’s stance has also been shaped by events in Yemen. The UAE-backed, now-disbanded Southern Transitional Council’s (STC) open alignment with Israeli interests, combined with threats toward Omani sovereign territory, reinforced Muscat’s caution about the strategic spillover of normalization.
The sultanate understands that an Israel-friendly order on the Arabian Peninsula would carry direct consequences along its borders and maritime approaches.
Abu Dhabi watches Hormuz
Any settlement that strengthens Oman’s role around Hormuz will unsettle the UAE. Abu Dhabi has spent years trying to build itself into a regional logistics, finance, and shipping empire, while projecting influence through ports, islands, and maritime corridors from Yemen to the Horn of Africa. A Hormuz mechanism in which Oman and Iran gain a recognized role would place a strategic lever near the UAE’s most exposed artery.
The geography explains the anxiety. Oman’s Musandam exclave sits at the mouth of the strait, cutting the UAE off from any direct command over the chokepoint. Abu Dhabi can build ports, pipelines, and overseas maritime networks, but it cannot move the mountains and waters that put Oman on the edge of Hormuz. That fact has long made Muscat’s independence an obstacle to any Emirati strategy built around regional shipping supremacy.
Even the Habshan–Fujairah pipeline, built to bypass the narrowest point of the strait for crude exports, cannot free Abu Dhabi from the wider maritime environment around Oman. Shipments from Fujairah still enter the Gulf of Oman, where Omani ports, insurers, logistics providers, and naval calculations carry growing weight.
A formal tolling system would be even more disruptive. Article 26 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea prohibits charges for passage through territorial waters except for specific services rendered. Oman has signed and ratified UNCLOS, while Iran and the UAE have not.
That legal asymmetry limits how far Muscat can go in publicly endorsing any fee mechanism. It also gives Oman a reason to frame its role in terms of safe passage, technical arrangements, and regional coordination rather than outright control.
This is also where Mashikhi’s legal warning matters. He notes that Oman accepted the strait as an international passageway in the early 1980s, limiting the role of Oman and Iran to supervision, environmental protection, navigation guidance, and security in their respective directions of passage. Iran, he says, later held back from ratifying UNCLOS during the Iran–Iraq war because it feared constraining its emergency options. That history, in his view, is why Oman is careful not to let Hormuz become either an Iranian military instrument or a free arena for major-power intervention.
This does not mean Muscat will oppose Tehran. It means Oman will try to prevent the issue from becoming a legal and diplomatic trap that isolates it from the GCC. Omani foreign policy has rarely sought confrontation for its own sake. It prefers leverage that can be converted into mediation, and influence that can be presented as collective benefit.
That approach also shapes how Muscat handles Abu Dhabi. The UAE is not treated in Oman as an enemy to be defeated, but as a difficult neighbor whose ambitions must be managed. The two states have already clashed indirectly through the STC episode in Yemen. Hormuz now adds a maritime dimension to an existing regional rivalry.
Baabood believes the UAE is where tensions are most likely to emerge, given Abu Dhabi’s skepticism of Iranian intentions and concern that any Iran–Oman arrangement could legitimize Iranian leverage over shipping.
“At the same time, the UAE also benefits from Oman’s mediation role because no Gulf state wants a permanent closure or militarization of the strait. So there is likely a mixture of concern about Iranian gains and appreciation for Oman’s stabilizing role.”
For Saudi Arabia, Baabood argues that Oman’s diplomacy complements Riyadh’s current preference for de-escalation with Tehran, provided it does not amount to recognition of Iranian dominance in the Strait of Hormuz.
“The key distinction is that Saudi Arabia supports dialogue with Iran, but not a regional order in which Iran becomes the gatekeeper of Gulf commerce,” Baabood says. Qatar, he adds, is probably “the GCC state most comfortable with Oman’s approach,” because Doha, like Muscat, has maintained communication with Iran while preserving strong ties with western partners.
Endgame at Hormuz
The next phase depends largely on Washington and Riyadh. If the US abandons regime-change objectives in Iran and returns to a negotiated settlement, Oman may be able to revive the nuclear and maritime understandings that were taking shape before the war widened.
If Washington insists on linking Hormuz, Iran’s nuclear file, and normalization with Israel, Muscat’s room for compromise will narrow.
Saudi Arabia will also have to decide whether Oman’s role is a buffer or a risk. Riyadh does not want Tehran to monopolize Hormuz, but it also does not want another open front in the Gulf. A framework in which Oman acts as a balancing partner could serve Saudi interests, especially if Qatar and Pakistan also support the arrangement.
The challenge for Oman is to turn pressure into diplomatic value without crossing the legal and political lines that keep it credible to all sides. Muscat cannot afford to appear as a junior partner in an Iranian tolling project. It also cannot afford to be seen as enforcing a US-Israeli security order over a waterway that lies at the heart of Gulf sovereignty.
Trump’s threat has therefore accelerated a reassessment already underway. Oman’s traditional policy of quiet mediation is being tested by a war that has made neutrality more expensive.
The sultanate’s answer is likely to remain cautious, legalistic, and diplomatic. But the balance has shifted. The Strait of Hormuz is no longer only a question of passage. It has become a test of whether Gulf security will be written by regional states, or imposed from outside.
As Baabood puts it, the real question is not whether Oman is choosing between freedom of navigation and cooperation with Iran:
“Muscat is trying to ensure both. But the challenge is that Iran increasingly appears interested in transforming temporary wartime leverage in Hormuz into a more formalized political role in regulating the strait.”
Oman’s strategy, he adds, is to remain in the middle: rejecting military escalation, preserving dialogue with Tehran, defending navigation, and preventing Hormuz from becoming “a permanent arena of great-power confrontation.”
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