One clause in US-Iran MOU blamed for Strait of Hormuz conflict

As the United States carries out airstrikes against Iran for a third straight day, a single clause in the ceasefire memorandum of understanding the two countries signed has emerged as the trigger behind escalating tensions in the Strait of Hormuz. Washington has interpreted the clause as a guarantee of free passage through the strait, while Tehran sees it as formal recognition of Iran's right to control the waterway — a fundamental disagreement that analysts say underlies the recent wave of armed conflict.

On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal identified Article 5 of the MOU as the central source of the dispute, in a report headlined "The Hormuz Conflict Comes Down to One Badly Written Clause in Trump's Deal."

Article 5 states that Iran will take the steps necessary to restore transit through the Strait of Hormuz, which was blockaded during the war. It also includes a commitment by Iran to ensure safe navigation and work to remove military obstacles such as mines.

The US maintains that the clause obligates Iran to guarantee safe passage through the strait. Iran, however, reads Article 5 as recognition of its exclusive right to control the Strait of Hormuz, offering a directly contradictory interpretation.

In practice, Article 5 includes language stating that Iran will consult with Oman and neighboring countries on future management of the strait. That wording was reportedly pushed hard by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Officials who mediated the US-Iran negotiations said both sides accepted deliberately vague language at the time in order to get a deal done. A US government official familiar with the negotiations said Iran "is exploiting the fact that the agreement does not explicitly state that the United States will establish safe shipping lanes," adding that Tehran "is using that as a basis to attack vessels using routes coordinated by the US."

Since the agreement was signed, the IRGC has maintained a hardline interpretation that Iran holds effective control over the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC has demanded that ships passing along Iran's coast declare their cargo and size and obtain transit permits, threatening to impose tolls on vessels that do not comply. The Iranian government has also established the Persian Gulf Strait Authority to collect fees for passage through the strait.

Iran has gone further, insisting that commercial vessels use only designated routes along its coastline and launching drone and missile strikes against ships that take other paths. Tehran has made clear it will not recognize any route outside what it considers its zone of control.

The US has rejected Iran's claim to control over the Strait of Hormuz, an international waterway. President Donald Trump has revoked Iran's oil sales permits and ordered airstrikes targeting the strait area and nearby Iranian sites, signaling a hardened US stance.

Another contentious provision requires Iran to guarantee safe passage for commercial vessels without collecting tolls for 60 days. The Wall Street Journal said the agreement "places responsibility for opening the Strait of Hormuz on Iran while giving it grounds to exclude other countries' efforts to assist with transit," and noted that the toll exemption is limited to 60 days, "leaving the door open for Iran to impose fees afterward."

The agreement also requires Iran to clear mines and other military obstacles and normalize transit within 30 days, but attacks on vessels have continued, meaning those commitments have not been honored, the Journal said.

Experts say the interpretive gap exposed by the Strait of Hormuz dispute is likely to resurface in future negotiations over Iran's nuclear program.

Raz Zimmt, an Iran expert at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, said "the lack of trust between the two sides and the ambiguous wording of the agreement have produced the current conflict," warning that "if more sensitive issues like the nuclear question are on the table, the tensions could grow even worse."

Eric Brewer, a former senior Iran analyst at US intelligence agencies, said the MOU's "biggest flaw is not that it sidestepped the nuclear issue, but that it papered over the fundamental disagreements between the US and Iran on the very questions the agreement was supposed to resolve — the truce, the status of the Strait of Hormuz, and the easing of sanctions against Iran." He added that "the US may not have recognized those differences, or may have chosen to ignore them."