From maritime trench warfare to a ‘sloppy peace’: Here’s how the Strait of Hormuz standoff could play out, according to Goldman Sachs

Unless Iran’s regime collapses, the Strait of Hormuz will never be open like it was before the war, according to Jared Cohen, co-head of the Goldman Sachs Global Institute and the bank’s president of global affairs. Since the U.S. and Israel launched their war in late February, Tehran has discovered how much leverage it can wield over the global economy by closing off the Strait of Hormuz, he said Friday on CNBC . As a result, Iran will not let go. “You may have traffic flowing through, but the Iranians will likely maintain partial or unilateral control,” Cohen predicted. For now, both sides are observing a “sloppy ceasefire” where they refrain from launching ballistic missiles and drones at each other. But the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is firing on commercial ships in the Persian Gulf with a “mosquito fleet” of small fast-attack boats, keeping the strait closed and energy markets in crisis. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy has imposed a blockade on Iran-linked ships, even sending boarding parties of Marines to seize control of them, aiming to choke off Tehran’s top source of revenue. Cohen described the standoff as “maritime trench warfare” with the U.S. and Iran each betting economic coercion will force an eventual surrender. But from the perspective of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Arab monarchies neighboring Iran, a comprehensive peace deal is unlikely as long as the Islamic republic remains, he said. Instead, their goal is to buy time and diversify away from the Strait of Hormuz, finding ways to get their energy to customers via other routes. “My guess is the North Star on this, and where it goes is: you go from a sloppy ceasefire to a strong, enduring ceasefire and a sloppy peace,” Cohen explained. “And a sloppy peace is basically a bunch of half solutions on all the big issues.” That could mean oil tankers transit through the Strait of Hormuz freely, but the Iranians can close it again at any time for any reason. It could also entail Iran agreeing not to…