Although the Americans, the Europeans and the rest of the world so far perceive Iran's threats to shut down the Hormuz Strait as being a mere maneuver stemming from its state of weakness and an exposed attempt to increase the pressures and shift the attention away from what is happening in Syria, the provocative threat to close the water passageway actually constitutes a natural conclusion for Tehran's reading into the regional and global balances. It also marks the logical outcome of its political and military leaders' strong belief in the beginning of the end for the American and Western influence in the Middle East. In 1990, Saddam Hussein thought that his regime and army could – and had an obligation to – fill the vacuum resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union. He thus adopted the cursed decision to invade Kuwait, and the Iraqi people are still paying the price of these false and delusional calculations out of their blood, wealth and future. Today, some of Iran's leaders believe that their regime and army can fill the vacuum resulting from the “American collapse” which in their opinion will be seen following the withdrawal from Iraq and the programmed pullout from Afghanistan, one which is definite from the region in general and the Gulf in particular. Hence, they started acting as the alternative superpower and talking about the closing of the Hormuz Strait and the prevention of the American ships' presence in the Gulf waters, as though there was no else but them over there. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait featured many lethal mistakes. It featured the invasion by an Arab country of another country in clear violation of the Arab League charter and the relations between sovereign state, but also the international charters guaranteeing each country's sovereignty and independence. This step also threatened regional and global security, and consequently regional and global economic security, by taking over the Kuwaiti oil wells then burning them. This had led to a coordinated international and Arab response, to prevent this precedent from turning into a law governing the relations between countries. Today, Iran is voluntarily heading toward a mistake of the same caliber, considering that the Hormuz Strait is not a purely Iranian maritime passageway and that there are two Arab countries – i.e. the Sultanate of Oman and the United Arab Emirates – which located on its shores and also enjoy rights over it. Secondly, the passageway is the maritime lung of other Arab countries, namely Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Qatar, and its closing would affect their regional and international interests. Thirdly, the Strait constitutes the point of exit of Gulf oil shipments to the world. Consequently, its closing would threaten global economy, result in a major rise affecting the oil prices and obstruct the attempts to end the stalemate on the international level. However, Iran is not settling for displaying its maritime muscles, but also its land ones, through maneuvers staged near the Afghan border. It is also resorting to escalation at the level of its nuclear file with the launching of the uranium enrichment operations in the new Fordo site, which even forced the reluctant Russia to express its sorrow and concerns and pushed the European Union to hasten the issuance of a decision increasing the sanctions to affect the Iranian oil sector and Central Bank. But did the Iranians truly believe they could adopt such dangerous steps without being met with the appropriate response? Have they become so imbued with their own strength to the point of not only ignoring the Arab states and the West, but also the states whom they still consider as being friends such as Turkey, Russia and China which enjoy interests in seeing the free navigation of oil across the Gulf and cannot show leniency towards its jeopardizing? Tehran's mere threat to undertake such a step does not only constitute a violation of the good neighborly relations with the Arab world which it claims to uphold, but also a foolish disregard of the outcome reached by a painful experience on its Western border.
