The Strait of Hormuz is thirty kilometres wide and it has held the world hostage before. Not since 1979. Since 1901, when a foreign company was handed three quarters of Iran's land and told to take whatever oil it could find.

What does it feel like when the same argument arrives in a different decade wearing different clothes? The thing being taken changes, from raw crude to territorial leverage, but the logic stays exactly the same. Somewhere between 1901 and today, a country became a mountain fortress that nobody could unlock, and the math of who profits has never really changed.

The military answer doesn't exist. The geography guaranteed that before the current conflict started. And the strait everyone wants opened is, and always has been, the answer to a question nobody in power has been willing to ask.

Topics: Strait of Hormuz, Iran oil history, Western oil imperialism, Persian Gulf conflict, global oil supply

GUEST: Dr. Ian Wereley | https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianwereley/

Originally aired on 2026-04-14