How the Strait of Hormuz is testing the Iran–Oman alliance

The US-Israeli war on Iran has transformed the strategic waterway into a new flashpoint, placing unprecedented pressure on relations between Tehran and Muscat.

Fereshteh Sadeghi

The Cradle 

Iran and Oman have been allies for decades, with ties predating the Islamic Republic. That continuity is now under strain, as the US-Israeli war on Iran and Washington’s pressure on Muscat begin to test the terms of the relationship in the narrow waters of the Strait of Hormuz.

The question now unfolds at sea, in ports, and in exchanges between officials trying to manage a crisis that has moved beyond diplomacy.

On 12 July, Iran announced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz until further notice, amid rising tensions with the US and what Tehran describes as repeated violations of a ceasefire reached on 8 April 2026, after 40 days of war imposed by the US and Israel. 

The decision to close the strategic waterway was presented as a direct response to Washington’s violation of the Pakistani-mediated memorandum of understanding (MoU) that followed the ceasefire, which Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian and US President Donald Trump separately signed on 18 June.

Tehran’s grievances were laid out in detail. Contrary to Article 1 of the 10-point MoU, the US failed to halt Israeli attacks on Lebanon. At the same time, Washington opened what Iranian officials described as an “illegal route” in the southern belt of the Strait of Hormuz, in Omani waters – contradicting Article 5, which granted Iran authority to “make arrangements for the safe passage of commercial vessels through the waterway.”

A corridor and a dilemma

Iran’s complaints over what it calls an illegal corridor, reportedly made operational under US pressure on Oman – pressure the Iranian Foreign Ministry says has hindered efforts to establish a joint mechanism – have created a dilemma between Tehran and Muscat, whose relations have long been defined by trust, mutual respect, and good neighborliness.

On 11 July, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visited Muscat to discuss “Article 5 of the MoU, coordination between the two Persian Gulf coastal states and administrative measures regarding the passage of vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.”

The talks, attended by Qatar, did not yield the outcome Tehran had expected, with Oman proposing a third passage through the strait, toll-free, which Araghchi rejected and referred back to Tehran for review.

That hesitation soon gave way to escalation, as US and Iranian forces resumed attacks on each other’s positions, with Tehran targeting vessels escorted by the US Navy through the so-called Omani corridor.

Strikes extended beyond the strait, as Iran targeted US military facilities in the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan.

A day after Araghchi returned from Muscat, Iran said it had struck US aircraft carrier support and refueling platforms at the port of Duqm, prompting Oman to summon the Iranian ambassador and deliver a formal note of protest over drone attacks targeting sites in the governorates of Musandam and Al-Wusta.

It is worth noting that Musandam is an Omani exclave overlooking the Strait of Hormuz, and is a strategically vital territory that has drawn interest from both the UAE and Israel.

Muscat between pressure and posture

In the early phase of the 40-day war and the subsequent closure of Hormuz, Oman maintained a position of neutrality, neither endorsing nor opposing Iran’s plans to impose transit fees on vessels.

That position shifted by late May, as US pressure intensified, including threats from Trump that Washington would “blow up Oman” if it became involved in disputes over transit fees.

Muscat tried to find a middle way, stating, “Although it is not in favor of transit fees, prohibited under international law,” it backs “Environmental dues and navigational services” if Iran levies on ships entering or leaving the Persian Gulf.

In his early June visit to Muscat, lead Iranian negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf announced that “Tehran reached an agreement with the Omanis to manage the traffic at the Strait of Hormuz.”

Iranian doubts resurface

Iran did not expect Oman to allow the US to open a rival corridor in its waters. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said: 

“In the last round of talks in Muscat, we tried to reach a mechanism to guarantee the safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, in consultation with Oman. Unfortunately, we did not reach that objective due to hidden and clear pressures from the US on Oman.” 

Former diplomat Mohammad Javad Larijani, in a state TV interview, criticized the negotiating team for bringing Oman into the talks. He implied that, “Oman is not a powerful player in this region and Americans would never allow it to have a say about the critical waterway, which one-fifth of oil energy consumption passes through.”

West Asian affairs expert, Seyyid Reza Sadr al-Husseini, told Fars News: 

“Americans put immense pressure on Oman and activated one of its inactive military bases in Duqm. That military installation had no activity against Iran before, but was recently used by the American army in strikes against Iran.”

Husseini adds, “Iran had spared Oman from attacks for months, but now makes no exception anymore, it will strike back at any military base used as a platform for attacks, and Duqm was one of them.”

The Iranian expert went on to say, “As a friendly and neighboring country whose relationship with Iran was always based on trust, Oman was expected to resist coercions by the United States or some regional countries and refuse to allow its soil to be used for creating insecurity in the region.”

Oman under pressure

Not all assessments in Iran align with that view. Javad Mir Galvi Bayat, an expert specialized in Iran–Oman relations, argues that Muscat faced limited options under the scale of pressure exerted by the US, western states, and regional actors:

“Nobody can imagine that Muscat could resist Donald Trump who was threatening to blow up Oman or the treasury secretary who was bullying Oman with sanctions. Oman does not have military capacity nor a prosperous economy to withstand sanctions, neither its citizens can resist economic sanctions.”

Bayat even hails Oman for going beyond its military and political limits, noting that “up until now Muscat has refused to allow Israelis and Americans to use its airspace or land bases for attacks on Yemen or Iran. It cannot hold out more than that.”

Tehran’s next steps  

Iranians have seemingly decided not to expect much from Oman.

Member of the National Security and Foreign Affairs Committee at the Iranian Parliament Ali Khedhrian said:

“The Islamic Republic of Iran with or without Oman, will not step back from this strategic waterway. It will exert its power. The Sultanate of Oman can cooperate with Iran in this matter but if it decides not to cooperate or (even worse) help the enemy behind the scene, it would be not spared from Iranian missiles.”

 Bayat agrees that Oman has so far managed to stay away from this (regional) war: 

“They know the bigger the conflict becomes, the more it would drag them into. So, they seek to resolve this regional conflict through their usual approach, which is diplomacy. Though diplomacy has failed and is unacceptable for the time being.” 

He suggests “Iran must use soft military power, including strikes on the American base in Musandam or depositing naval mines in the Omani side of the strait. That would eventually rescue Omanis from Washington’s pressures.”

Iran has already adopted this strategy. In addition to targeting the port of Duqm, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy has destroyed America’s long-range air surveillance radar and maritime detection radar sites in Oman.

War pressure and durable ties 

Despite the escalation, some Iranian assessments continue to view the relationship as resilient.

Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Al-Busaidi, writing in Le Monde, said, “It is time to shift from assigning the blame of conflict (on Iran) to building mechanisms to prevent future conflicts.”

Busaidi noted, “The post-1979 (Persian) Gulf security architecture that was based on containing Iran has failed and needs re-assessment.” He added, “Recent events showed many of the region’s security challenges stem from decisions made outside this region rather than inside the region.”

For Bayat, “The Islamic Republic has never faced any essential challenges with Oman, geographically, religiously, or discourse-wise.” 

Therefore, he believes, “For many reasons, the Iran-Oman relationship is stronger than being destroyed by challenges created by this war. Of course, if the current conflict does not get out of control, (in the long term) Iran’s military activities in the Strait of Hormuz could benefit Oman, too.” 

“Oman has some (legitimate) concerns regarding its neighbors such as the UAE and other countries. Muscat’s alliance with Tehran reduces those concerns, as well,” he concludes.

The space for mediation, however, is narrowing. A channel once managed through quiet coordination between Tehran and Muscat is now exposed to direct confrontation, with decisions driven by events on the ground rather than negotiated understandings.

The Strait of Hormuz has shifted from a controlled passage to a pressure point, where each escalation risks pushing the confrontation further. 

Pakistan 'fears' being dragged into new Yemen–Saudi war: Report

Last year’s defense pact between Islamabad and the kingdom declares that an ‘attack against one is an attack against both’

News Desk

Pakistan is concerned that the Ansarallah resistance movement and the Yemeni army’s recent retaliatory strike on Saudi Arabia could “draw” it into the conflict – particularly given its new defense agreement with the Gulf monarchy, Reuters cited sources as saying on 16 July.

The recent attack has “frustrated” Islamabad and may “complicate” its continued role as a mediator between the US and the Islamic Republic of Iran, according to the report.

“The attacks this week … pushed Islamabad's frustration with Iran to a new level [because] they raised the prospect of a new [Saudi–Ansarallah] conflict,” sources said.

The report adds that Pakistan was frustrated with Tehran earlier in the war due to its retaliatory strikes on US sites in Saudi Arabia – which opened up facilities to Washington for attacks on Iran and, according to reports, carried out its own direct strikes against the Islamic Republic.

“Our top civil and military leaders have conveyed to Iran at the highest level that the attacks on Saudi ​Arabia are attacks on Pakistan. It is our red line,” a Pakistani official told Reuters.

Pakistani security analyst Muhammad Amir Rana told the outlet that Islamabad was not “anticipating that the tensions will rise so suddenly."

According to the anonymous sources cited in the report, there is frustration and growing concern in Islamabad that involvement by the Ansarallah-led Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) “may be more likely to draw Pakistan into the conflict” than Iran’s previous strikes on the kingdom.

The sources explained that Pakistani troops are stationed near Saudi Arabia’s border with Yemen and increase the risk of their exposure to harm.

Islamabad is also concerned about Red Sea shipping and the YAF’s ability to shut the Bab al-Mandab Strait. 

Iran struck US sites in Saudi Arabia multiple times throughout the war. Tehran, however, denied a number of particular attacks on the kingdom and referred to them as Israeli “false flags.”

Reports at the time also indicate that Mossad agents planned bombings in Gulf states with the aim of implicating Tehran and further inflaming tensions. 

But a recent Saudi airstrike on Sanaa International Airport, the first in years, prompted a serious Yemeni retaliation. 

The YAF targeted Saudi Arabia’s Abha Airport with missiles and drones. These were also the first direct Yemeni strikes against Saudi territory since 2021. 

The kingdom waged war against Yemen in 2015 at the head of an Arab coalition, after Ansarallah seized the capital and ousted the Saudi-backed president from Sanaa. 

A 2023 Saudi–Yemeni peace process nearly resulted in an agreement between the two sides. 

The peace talks stalled but prevented a major escalation from erupting. Yet the kingdom for years continued its illegal and deadly blockade on Yemeni ports and airports. 

Ansarallah had already begun mobilizing to expel Saudi forces from Yemen when the kingdom bombed Sanaa airport on 13 July.

The movement and the YAF are now vowing to respond harshly to any more Saudi attacks. “We will spare no effort in confronting Saudi Arabia with everything we possess,” Ansarallah’s leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said this week. 

This would potentially involve more direct Yemeni strikes on Saudi territory and energy infrastructure, as was the case in 2021 and 2022.

Pakistan would be required to confront any such attack as part of their defense pact with the kingdom reached in September 2025. 

That pact declares that “any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both.”

The making of a spy: Inside Israel’s recruitment war against resistance movements

Through financial desperation, personal compromise, security lapses, and hidden grievances, Israeli intelligence has refined a recruitment system designed to penetrate resistance movements from within.

A Cradle Correspondent

The question of spies began to take on greater significance in Palestinian and Lebanese resistance thinking in the 1970s, particularly after Israel responded to the Munich operation with a wave of assassinations.

Assassination, by necessity, relies on intelligence, and intelligence relies on people. At every stage of a military or security operation, from planning to execution and beyond, someone is providing information.

Agents had always existed. What changed in that decade, according to specialists, was scale and structure. What had once been scattered became organized, systematic, and embedded.

Beyond scale, the intelligence confrontation extended beyond state services, moving from a contest between Israeli agencies and their Egyptian and Syrian counterparts into a wider field that included non-state actors: Palestinian factions such as Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), operational arms like Black September, and later Islamic groups including the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), followed by formations that emerged during the Second Intifada.

This expansion forced Israel to adapt. Its intelligence work could no longer rely on familiar hierarchies or centralized structures. It was now dealing with fluid networks, some local, some external, others operating across both. 

That required a different distribution of roles and a different reading of how recruitment works in fragmented environments.

How recruitment works in practice

Former Mossad director Yossi Cohen outlines recruitment methods in his book ‘The Sword of Freedom.’ In both its older and newer forms, recruitment centers on identifying vulnerability, exploiting it, and sustaining leverage over time.

Cohen describes recruitment as a process of establishing complete control over a source. “It is ownership. I need his intel. I need him to be mine ... I will use him,” he writes, arguing elsewhere that “betrayal must be a conscious act.”

Palestinian and Lebanese sources often reduce the issue to money, women, and blackmail. The picture that emerges from field accounts is broader. It can be grouped into five recurring pathways.

Gaps in awareness

Despite efforts to build security awareness during recruitment and training, understanding remains uneven. Military cadres tend to focus on operational roles, while media, cultural, and institutional sectors often receive limited exposure to security discipline.

This creates vulnerabilities. Not necessarily because individuals underestimate the seriousness of a message or contact, but because they do not recognize the process that turns interaction into recruitment. Those doing the recruiting are trained to read behavior quickly and identify weak points.

Speaking to The Cradle, one Lebanese security source puts it bluntly: 

 “A small mistake can lead to disaster. The first mistake in this world may be the last. Fear of scandal or ignorance of the corrective step – let alone preventive measures – can quickly drag the target into the swamp.”

Curiosity plays its part. Browsing certain platforms, engaging unknown contacts, or experimenting with remote work offers can become entry points. Recruiters often construct complete scenarios, guiding the target step by step until the line is crossed.

In some cases, individuals attempt to outsmart the Israeli handler, for example, by taking money without providing services, intending to report themselves later or even to act as double agents. However, outcomes are not guaranteed, and “the Israeli is neither naive nor simple,” as the source notes.

Financial pressure and incentive

Most cases begin with money. Either the pursuit of fast income or the pressure of need.

In many of the environments in question, economic conditions are severe. Limited opportunity, weak labor markets, and prolonged instability create constant financial strain. While these conditions help explain vulnerability, they do not legitimize it in the eyes of the surrounding society.

Multiple sources inform The Cradle that the Israeli handlers are selective rather than generous. Payments may start high, then taper. In some Palestinian cases, they fall to between $50 and $100 per month. Larger sums are reserved for specific roles, higher-value information, or long-term operatives.

Some agents remain active for decades. A few effectively reach the end of their operational life after more than 25 years of collaboration. 

The turning point often comes when an individual tries to step away. Payment begins to matter less than pressure, and the relationship tightens. Threats and exposure follow, leaving little room to disengage.

For some, the only exit is to reverse course and cooperate with resistance structures. Even then, the outcome is uncertain, with trust issues on both sides, especially if the individual has been involved in lethal operations. 

Blackmail and fear of scandal

In many cases, blackmail drives the process, pulling recruits in and keeping them in place. 

Individuals are drawn into financial traps, debt networks, or compromising relationships. These situations are then used to secure compliance. The method relies less on persuasion than on limiting alternatives.

In Palestinian society, social conservatism once acted as a barrier. That barrier has weakened under economic pressure, particularly after the disruptions of the COVID period and ongoing financial decline.

Similar dynamics are visible elsewhere. Syria’s prolonged conflict, Lebanon’s economic collapse, and the economic strains in Iraq, Iran, and Yemen all create conditions where recruitment becomes easier, and resistance to it becomes harder.

A particularly sensitive issue involves Palestinian workers entering areas occupied in 1948, whether legally or illegally. Both scenarios create opportunities for recruitment, often through threats related to work permits or legal penalties.

Resistance groups have, at times, used the same channels to send couriers or information gatherers. Following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in October 2023, Israel has sharply restricted labor access due to security concerns.

Social proximity and inherited pathways

Differences in how Palestinian and Lebanese societies deal with collaborators have sparked debate. 

In Palestine, harsh measures – including social ostracism of families – have sometimes created a cycle in which the children of collaborators are pushed toward similar paths due to stigma and lack of reintegration.

Unresolved cases have resurfaced years later in the form of revenge or renewed accusations. The absence of consistent legal or social frameworks has allowed the issue to persist.

Lebanon presents a different model, where the consequences have generally been less severe, though still present.

Additionally, Israel has in some cases instructed existing agents to nominate others from their social or organizational circles, creating networks of recruitment based on trust and proximity.

One documented case involved a Hamas infiltration prior to Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. An individual placed a flash memory device into an isolated server, extracting more than a decade of sensitive data within minutes. The breach depended less on technology than on access and position.

Grievance as motive

In the most dangerous cases, individuals initiate contact with Israeli handlers themselves, sometimes without financial motive.  

Motivations range from personal grievances against superiors or organizations to broader feelings of marginalization, jealousy, or resentment.

Structural issues – such as lack of internal accountability, limited rotation in leadership positions, and absence of democratic processes – can exacerbate these dynamics.

According to sources, some of the most damaging security breaches have been carried out by such individuals, as they are often highly experienced and operate in sensitive areas. They are typically discovered only after significant damage has already occurred.

Investigations frequently reveal deeper psychological factors, but only after the consequences have unfolded, including exposure of entire networks or high-level assassinations.

One example involved an individual whose personal grievance shaped his conduct toward trainees under his authority. His actions contributed to repeated fatalities before the pattern was recognized and traced back to him.

How recruitment endures

Across all five pathways, a consistent pattern emerges. Espionage begins through coercion, access, and timing.

The environments in which resistance movements operate are defined by constraint. Economic hardship, social strain, internal divisions, and constant surveillance create conditions where small gaps carry large consequences.

What appears, at first, as an individual failure often reflects a wider structural weakness. Recruitment succeeds not simply because of what an individual does, but because of what the surrounding system allows.

This is what gives the intelligence war its persistence.