Friday, April 10, 2026, Istanbul
You can’t totally blame Donald Trump for not being able to imagine that Iran would close Strait of Hormuz. Nader Itayim, Mideast Gulf editor at energy and commodities focused Argus Media, said many energy analysts long doubted Iran would pull off such a move, even as it regularly warned that it would.
“I was part of that group that believed this was not a thing that could happen—at least not in the way that it did,” the energy analyst told me in a 30-minute interview.
He speculated that even Iran would have no idea whether it could close the Strait and what impact it would have on its strategic position.
Provocatively, Itayim suggests that the Houthis occasional closures of the Bab al Mandeb Strait may have served as test runs for the Hormuz gamble.
We also discussed the state of the Strait of Hormuz now, and how Iran was enforcing the closure, as well as the overall economic impact of the crisis for the prices of energy and other commodities, and how higher energy prices are boosting the profits of oil and gas companies.
Please listen or watch.
