As Day 35 of Operation Epic Fury unfolds, Iran is making its boldest strategic gambit yet — moving to seize permanent control of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow chokepoint through which 20% of the world’s oil supply flows. With three U.S. Navy carrier strike groups now converging on the region and Houthi missiles targeting Israel, the conflict is rapidly expanding into a multi-front crisis that threatens to reshape the global energy order.
Iran’s “Tehran Tollbooth”: A $100 Billion Power Play
In a dramatic escalation that has sent shockwaves through global energy markets, Iran announced this week that it is drafting a formal “protocol” to monitor and control all tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz — not just during the war, but permanently.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, Kazem Gharibabadi, declared that tanker traffic through the narrow waterway “should be supervised and coordinated” between Iran and Oman, the two countries bordering the strait. The move represents Tehran’s most aggressive assertion of sovereignty over international waters in modern history.
Iran’s parliament has already passed legislation to charge tolls of up to $2 million per vessel — a system maritime analysts have dubbed the “Tehran Tollbooth.” According to Bloomberg, some ships are already paying fees in Chinese yuan or cryptocurrency to transit the strait under IRGC escort. At full capacity, this toll system could generate as much as $100 billion in annual revenue for Tehran — roughly equivalent to Iran’s entire pre-war annual oil export earnings.
“It’s a colossal win,” Gregory Brew, a senior Iran and oil analyst at the Eurasia Group, told NBC News. “If Iran gains long-term control of the strait, it would be more powerful than it was before the Trump administration attacked it.”
The implications are staggering. For decades, the Strait of Hormuz has been an international waterway — controlled by no country — through which ships from all nations could freely transit. Iran’s unilateral seizure of control effectively gives Tehran veto power over global energy supplies.
Three Carrier Strike Groups: The Largest Naval Buildup Since 2003
The U.S. military is responding with its largest naval concentration in the Middle East in over two decades. According to The War Zone’s carrier tracker, three full Carrier Strike Groups are now deployed in support of Operation Epic Fury:
- USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) — Operating from an undisclosed location in the Arabian Sea, conducting nonstop combat operations against Iran
- USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) — Deployed for over nine months, recently departed Split, Croatia, on April 2
- USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) — The latest to join, departing Naval Station Norfolk on March 31 to relieve the Ford
Additionally, two Amphibious Ready Groups with Marine Expeditionary Units are converging on the region: the Tripoli ARG with the 31st MEU arrived in CENTCOM last week, and the Boxer ARG with the 11th MEU is transiting the Pacific en route.
This massive naval buildup underscores the seriousness with which Washington views Iran’s Hormuz gambit. Yet military analysts warn that even three carrier groups may not be enough to break Iran’s stranglehold on the waterway.
F-15E Shot Down: First US Warplane Lost in Combat
The stakes escalated dramatically on April 3 when an F-15E Strike Eagle — one of the most capable aircraft in the U.S. arsenal — was shot down by Iranian air defenses, marking the first American warplane lost to enemy fire in the five-week conflict.
The fighter jet was carrying two crew members. U.S. forces successfully rescued one pilot, but a search is still underway for the second crew member. Iranian state television broadcast images of what it claimed were the wreckage of the aircraft, and Iranian authorities urged civilians in the rugged southwest of the country to search for the missing American crew member.
A second U.S. combat aircraft also crashed in the Gulf region the same day, though its pilot was rescued. Iran claimed to have shot down the second jet as well, while the Pentagon has not confirmed the cause of that crash.
The shootdowns represent a significant psychological and military milestone. While the U.S. air campaign has overwhelmingly dominated Iranian airspace since February 28, the loss demonstrates that Iran retains meaningful air defense capabilities — and the political will to use them.
Houthi Escalation Opens a Second Front
Compounding the crisis, Yemen’s Houthi rebels have entered the war with a vengeance. Since joining the conflict on March 28, the Iran-backed militia has launched at least four waves of ballistic missiles targeting southern Israel, opening a new front that stretches coalition resources even thinner.
The Houthi attacks force Israel to maintain active missile defense over its southern border while simultaneously conducting its own strikes on Iranian targets — a two-front challenge that military planners had hoped to avoid.
NATO on the Brink of Collapse
Perhaps most alarming for Western security architects, the Iran war is threatening to shatter the 76-year-old NATO alliance. According to Reuters, the conflict has “nearly broken” the bloc and threatens to leave it in its weakest state since its creation.
President Trump has publicly demanded that European nations take responsibility for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, but experts say Europe simply lacks the military capability to challenge Iran’s naval forces in the waterway for any sustained period. Austria has been denying American combat aircraft permission to fly over its territory since the war began.
The UK and allies have agreed to explore sanctions to pressure Iran into reopening the strait, according to BBC News — but sanctions take months to bite, while global fuel prices are surging now. French and South Korean leaders announced they will work together on the Hormuz crisis, signaling that nations outside NATO are beginning to organize their own response.
The “Tehran Tollbooth” Strategy: Playing Multi-Dimensional Chess
Former senior CIA official Ted Singer, who oversaw agency operations in the Middle East during a 35-year career, told NBC News that Iran is executing a sophisticated multi-layered strategy.
“The Iranians are good at doing more than one thing at a time,” Singer said. “Why not stake out a maximalist position on tolls, then toss out options to roil the waters?”
Iran appears to be courting Oman as a partner in its Hormuz control scheme, potentially driving a wedge between Gulf states. The UAE is “adamantly opposed” to Iran taking control of the strait, but Oman — with less oil wealth and a traditionally pragmatic relationship with Tehran — may be willing to cooperate.
“The Omanis are probably hedging; they’ve always tried to manage their relationship with Iran,” Brew explained. “The bigger question is whether they continue to cooperate after the war.”
Global Energy Crisis Deepens
The economic fallout is already devastating. Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has sent oil and gas prices soaring worldwide. According to Foreign Policy, jet fuel prices are emerging as the “real harbinger” of a deepening energy crisis, with concerns mounting about food security as fertilizer costs skyrocket.
The IRGC has established a de facto toll booth regime, routing select vessels into Iranian-controlled waters where each ship is vetted before being granted passage. Some vessels have reportedly been charged millions of dollars to transit — payments demanded in Chinese yuan or cryptocurrency, effectively creating a parallel financial system that bypasses Western sanctions.
If Iran succeeds in formalizing this arrangement, analysts warn, it would represent the single largest shift in global energy geopolitics since the 1973 OPEC oil embargo — except this time, Tehran wouldn’t just be setting prices. It would be controlling the physical flow of oil to the entire world.
What Comes Next
As Operation Epic Fury enters its sixth week, the conflict has evolved far beyond the initial air campaign against Iran’s nuclear and missile infrastructure. What began as a targeted strike operation has become a sprawling multi-front war involving carrier battle groups, downed fighter jets, Houthi missile barrages, and a geopolitical chess match over the world’s most important shipping lane.
President Trump stated on April 2 that U.S. strikes destroyed the B1 (Bileghan) Bridge connecting Tehran and Karaj to disrupt Iran’s ability to transfer missiles to western Iran, warning Tehran to “make a deal before it’s too late.”
But with Iran now moving to permanently control the Strait of Hormuz — and potentially emerging from this war with more strategic leverage than before it started — the question is no longer just whether the U.S. can win the air war. It’s whether military superiority even matters when your enemy controls the tap to the global economy.
This is a developing story. List25 will continue to bring you the latest updates as the situation evolves.