Special correspondent to Khasab (Oman)The future of the world is being decided these days in the petroleum-blue waters of Hormuz. The headline is blunt, but it didn't scare Captain Ibrahim. Business comes before Trump's war. And business is in crisis because of Trump's war.
—Sir, I offer you a special price because of the war. You don't have to worry about anything.
—But is it safe to sail? The strait is blocked and boats have been bombed.
—Sir, there is no problem. If we don't stray from the coast, there won't be any problem.
—But do you have permission to leave?
—Yes, of course. If we don't exceed the limit, there's no problem. Sir, don't worry, you'll see many dolphins and you will be able to swim.
Captain Ibrahim prevailed in the negotiation, and his boat would be the only tourist vessel to set sail on Friday from the port of Khasab, a fishing town in Oman blessed and cursed by geopolitics: located just in front of the most strategic strait in the world, now the epicenter of the third Gulf War, now in decisive moments.
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Iran
IRAN
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of Hormuz
UAE
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Oman
Saudi
Arabia
Khasab
Oman
Persian
Gulf
Gulf
of Oman
UAE
Dubai
Fujairah
50 km
Oman
Iran
IRAN
Pakistan
Strait
of Hormuz
UAE
Arabian
Sea
Oman
Saudi
Arabia
Khasab
Oman
Persian
Gulf
Gulf
of Oman
UAE
Dubai
Fujairah
50 km
Oman
Iran
IRAN
Pakistan
Strait
of Hormuz
UAE
Arabian
Sea
Oman
Saudi
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Khasab
Oman
Persian
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Dubai
Fujairah
50 km
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The context is known by everyone by heart. Iran, on the other side of the sea, has blocked the Strait of Hormuz in response to the war launched by the United States and Israel, and war and economic chaos has imploded: about two thousand super-tankers are stranded and threatened with bombs if they move. 25% of the world's oil trade and 20% of liquefied natural gas passed through the strait. Transit has fallen by 90%. Markets are trembling, the global economy feels suffocated, and pressure is mounting on the White House, which is improvising the future of an increasingly dangerous war.
“Do you remember when I gave Iran ten days to accept a deal or open the Strait of Hormuz? Time is running out. There are 48 hours left for hell to take over them”, Trump fumed yesterday on X. A hell over Tehran that threatens a hell over the capitals of the Gulf, punished with missiles and drones by the ayatollahs for a month.
But while waiting for Monday's hell, the Strait of Hormuz seemed like paradise on Friday.
Captain Ibrahim's tourist fishing boat ventured into a beautiful, brutal landscape, an arid version of the Norwegian fjords. The blue and turquoise waters coexist with steep white stone mountains, and white sand beaches. A group of dolphins approached the boat and escorted us for almost the entire journey. The shiny animals jumped, danced, never losing the rhythm of our speed. Perhaps they came from the other side of the war. Perhaps at night they would sleep under the protection of the ayatollahs. I asked the sailors if on the Iranian coast, just 30 kilometers away, the scenery also has this beauty. They said yes, and that Qeshm Island – which is shaped like a shark and which Tehran has already turned into a fortress – is even more beautiful. Captain Ibrahim played music. An electronic version of Rivers of Babylon was playing, a cheerful song with a sad origin: it is based on the 137th Psalm from the Bible, which speaks of the Jewish people exiled in Babylon after the destruction of Jerusalem. Destruction in a loop.
On the horizon, some of the merchant ships waiting for hell, the reopening of Hormuz, or both, could be seen. On clear days, the Iranian coast is visible and, for a month now, the black smoke from American and Israeli bombings. It is believed that more than 1,400 people have died in Iran since February 28, the night the war began. We don't know for sure because the regime has cut off connections and does not allow journalists in. An Iranian friend from Barcelona wrote to me when she learned I was a few kilometers from her country. "Send a hug to my parents." She hasn't received any news for two weeks.
"That ship is military; it's from the Omani navy," said another sailor, an immigrant from Bangladesh, who does not want his name written in these lines. The Omani warship was the limit.
—What would happen if a ship crossed the limit?
—I wouldn't. The sea is mined.
—But that has not been confirmed. It's just Tehran's version. How do you know there are mines?
—The fishermen here say so. They know the sea better than anyone.
If they know this sea so well, the fishermen of Khasab could help Trump's "priority" goal of reopening Hormuz.
Washington, cornered by initial miscalculations, would be studying directly opposite options. On the one hand, Trump has threatened to consider the war over and abandon Hormuz, and has recommended that Europeans, if they want oil from there, they should go looking for it. He doesn't need it. On the other hand, he has hinted that he is preparing a military operation to unblock the strait. European allies, who have denied support to the Pentagon, insist that both paths are madness and that diplomacy must be pursued. Tehran, empowered, will not be easily bought: it demands full sovereignty of the passage and the option of a toll of up to two million dollars per tanker.
The illustration shows a map of the Strait of Hormuz and a 3D-printed miniature model representing the President of the United States, Donald Trump.Dado Ruvic / Reuters
But the United States continues to deploy troops in the Gulf –is it just a military bluff?, the world wonders–, and videos of soldiers saying goodbye to their families at airports are accumulating on US social media. In the comments, users denounce that the uniformed personnel are being sent to die in the name of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. International analysts have been theorizing for weeks about how a US assault on Persian land could be carried out. Experts agree that the beauty of Hormuz would not help the Americans: the mountainous beaches favour defense operations, not attack.
Medieval fortresses still visible in Hormuz seem these days an uncomfortable reminder of the nature of the human species. Sailor Ibrahim's boat stopped at Telegraph Island, a historic islet, where in 1864 the British installed a telegraph station to communicate with British India. They are carrying out works on Telegraph Island. They are part of a tourism and heritage development project to promote the area as a cultural and leisure destination. The war will tell.
“Are there sharks in Hormuz?”, I asked sailor Ibrahim before diving into the water. “There are, but further out. You can swim here without worry… you'll only see colorful fish”.
Where there are sharks, however, is in the sky. One of the models of military fighter jets that the United States is using to wage war on Iran are the A10 Warthogs, known for evoking the shape of a shark and having the eyes and teeth of the marine predator painted on their nose. On Friday, as we were sailing around Hormuz, an A10 Warthog crashed in the strait. These fighter jets know the area: they were already used by the Yankee army in the first two Gulf Wars.
The monarchies want silence
The Greek Theodor Kallifatides wrote that the best thing about traveling by boat is the possibility of slowly assimilating the landscape towards which you are heading.
On Friday, returning to Khasab, the landscape was easy to assimilate. The port was full of idle boats, a symptom of a declining economy. The large fishing boats continue to wait: they don't have sea to sail. The tourist boats, waiting: customers from Dubai – only a two-hour drive away – are afraid to come swim with dolphins. The smugglers' speedboats, which used to come and go from the Iranian coasts to trade mainly gasoline, are also waiting: crossing to Iranian territory is suicide.
International politics are like these boats, they also waits. And Omanis also wait - and Emiratis, and Saudis, and Qataris... - but they do so in silence. Where is the war heading?
“We can talk about whatever you want, but not about politics”, a man dressed in dishdasha white and a turban told me in the port of Khasab. The answer, formulated in other ways, was repeated among the inhabitants of Musandam. Those who dared to answer did so to evoke a mantra: “The war will be what God wills it to be”. What the God of Washington –or of Tel Aviv– wills.Silence is imposed. The Gulf monarchies warn the population not to speak publicly about the war. Oman, which mediated until the end to avoid the bombs, prohibits the dissemination of information related to the military escalation on the internet and, at the border, obliges visitors to sign documentation in this regard. In the United Arab Emirates, neighbors to the south and the country in the region most punished by the ayatollahs, dozens of people have been arrested for posting interceptions of Iranian missiles and drones on Instagram.
The governments' great fear is that the impact of the missiles will shatter their reputation as an oasis of security, which had made them, in the eyes of lucrative foreign investments, guarantors of stability and economic prosperity. Now the golden foundations of the desert are trembling.
A mosque stands out on a road crossing the Musandam peninsula, in Oman.Francesc Millan
Amidst so much silence and trembling, the only sure answer I found was in the car on the way back, on the road to Oman, at the border with the United Arab Emirates, a journey into the future: from the camels, mosques, and ochre villages of Musandam, to the Ferraris, parties, and glass skyscrapers of Dubai. The driver, an Indian who had lived for years in the Omani monarchy, spoke freely thanks to the intimate setting of the vehicle.
—Are people worried about how the war will evolve?
The dolphins of Hormuz, intelligent animals, may feel the same. They are also at risk. In the Black Sea, the bombs from another war, that of Russia against Ukraine, have killed up to 50,000.
![The illustration shows a map of the Strait of Hormuz and a 3D-printed miniature model representing the President of the United States, Donald Trump.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 3500 2333"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
![A mosque stands out on a road crossing the Musandam peninsula, in Oman.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 4032 3024"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
