The Cartel Cracks: How an Ungoverned Strait Corrodes Cooperation
The crisis is damaging two institutions: the transit authority that does not exist, and OPEC, which does. Iraq is threatening to leave after the UAE quit on 1 May, and the reopening’s flood of returning Iranian barrels makes restraint impossible just as the price falls. The connection: ungoverned chokepoints are centrifugal, teaching the states that depend on them self-reliance over cooperation. The same instinct that argues for a transit authority is dissolving the production cartel. This post reads both failures.