The Most Strategically Important Place No One Is Talking About
At Musandam’s narrowest point, only 21 miles of water separate Oman from Iran
Stand at Harf Ghabi — the rocky headland above Khasab, the capital of the Musandam Province — and you can see the Iranian coast. On a clear day, you can make out Qeshm Island, where the IRGC has built what one reporter called “a veritable military fortress.” Since February, the wooden smuggling boats that made Khasab’s economy have rotted in port. The dhow tours are cancelled. The docks are empty.
Before the war, roughly 3,000 vessels transited the Strait each month — around 15 million barrels of oil a day, about a fifth of global supply. Since February, that has collapsed to a fraction of pre-war levels: on some days, fewer than five crossings have been recorded, compared with a daily average of over 100. War-risk insurance premiums — which stood at around 0.25% of vessel value before the war — rose to a peak of 10% in the worst weeks, and now sit at 2–6%. On a $200 million tanker, that means a single voyage now costs up to $12 million to insure, against a pre-war cost of around $500,000.
This sliver of land, where the war’s leverage lies, belongs to Oman.
A Geographical Accident With Extraordinary Consequences
Musandam is an Omani exclave — physically detached from the rest of Oman, cut off by a wedge of UAE territory. It sits at the absolute tip of the Arabian Peninsula, jutting into the Strait of Hormuz like a finger pointed at Iran. The southern shipping lane of the Strait runs through Omani territorial waters. Most tankers, in peacetime, hug the coast on their way out. That makes Musandam not just strategically important — it makes it the southern anchor of the chokepoint that has destabilised energy markets for nearly three months.
Iran understands this precisely. In May, Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi declared at the BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi: “The Strait of Hormuz is located in the territorial waters of Iran and Oman. There are no international waters in between.” He was rejecting the idea of an international corridor and positioning Tehran and Muscat as the gatekeepers of the world’s most important maritime passage.
Oman immediately rejected the framing. Its transport minister told parliament, “The Strait of Hormuz is a natural passage, not an artificial canal. Oman has signed all international maritime conventions and cannot impose any tolls.” Crucially, both the US and China have now agreed — in a rare alignment — that no nation may charge tolls on passage through the Strait under international law.
Under UNCLOS, “transit passage” through straits used for international navigation cannot be impeded, even where the lanes run through territorial seas. That’s the legal hinge here.
But Iran’s claim is now on the record, and Musandam is at its centre.
Britain Has Been Here Before
This is not the first time a great power has recognised that Musandam controls the Strait.
In December 1970, just before the UAE federation was formed, Britain launched Operation Intradon. This covert counter-insurgency in Musandam displaced the de facto control of the majority Shihuh tribe. According to declassified analysis by Khalifa University, the goal was to force the Sultan of Oman to take administrative control of the ungoverned Musandam enclave. This would protect the Strait of Hormuz oil route and remove a threat to the process of federating British-protected states into what became the UAE.
In 1970, Britain decided that Musandam had to be Omani. This decision was not because of any great affection for Omani sovereignty, but because a stable Oman controlling the southern Strait was the safest outcome for Western energy security. The UAE was being assembled next door; Musandam needed an owner it could rely on.
That logic has not changed. What has changed is who can be relied upon and for what.
The British-Omani Relationship Today
The UK–Omani defence partnership is one of Britain’s most significant and least discussed strategic assets.
In February 2019, a Joint Defence Agreement was signed to formalise the relationship. The UK Joint Logistics Support Base at Duqm, a permanent naval hub on Oman’s central coast, outside the Strait, capable of berthing aircraft carriers, is operated by Britain. UK forces have conducted joint military exercises in Musandam, specifically: “Musandam Fort,” an annual event held in Khasab that involves amphibious landings and Special Forces operations. British officers are embedded at senior levels in the Sultan’s Armed Forces, a relationship that has run essentially unbroken since the 1950s.
Omani and British diplomats quietly brokered US–Iran nuclear talks for years before the war in Oman. The Muscat channel — the back-channel through which Washington and Tehran communicated without admitting it — ran through Omani territory and under Omani trust. Both sides used it. When the ceasefire was eventually brokered in April, it came via Pakistan, after Muscat’s credibility took a hit when Washington went to war despite Omani assurances that an off-ramp was “within reach.”
Oman, the country that has been bombed by Iran, refused to join any military coalition, rejected Iran’s Hormuz toll scheme, quietly welcomed the ceasefire, and maintained its diplomatic relationships with everyone simultaneously, is the most disciplined neutral in the region. It sits on the southern shore of the Strait.
The Question the War Is Forcing
Iran’s position is now explicit: the Strait belongs jointly to Iran and Oman. No international waters. Any ship transiting without their approval does so at its own risk.
Washington’s position is equally explicit: the Strait is an international waterway under UNCLOS, and no tolls will be recognised. For once, China agrees.
Oman’s position is the pivot. It has — correctly, from its own interests — sided with international law, UNCLOS, and freedom of navigation. But Oman is also a country with limited military capacity, approaching $38 billion in public debt, and a foreign policy built on being indispensable to everyone. Its neutrality is not just a diplomatic preference. It is an economic survival strategy.
The structural question is: what happens to Musandam’s strategic status as the UAE builds its Hormuz bypass and the US–Israel–UAE axis deepens?
The UAE’s new west–east pipeline to Fujairah bypasses the Strait entirely. Abu Dhabi will be able to export its oil without passing through Omani or Iranian waters at all. But Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, and Bahrain cannot do the same. Their exports still depend on the Strait, which means they rely on Oman’s willingness to keep the southern lane open.
The Basing Question
The uncomfortable question: could Musandam become a platform for a Western military presence on the southern Strait, legitimised through Oman’s British-backed security architecture?
No, Oman has no US bases and has refused them throughout the war. Its neutrality is the product of a deliberate, consistent, decades-long policy that Sultan Haitham has maintained under extraordinary pressure. The Majlis al-Shura — Oman’s consultative assembly — reflects a domestic public that has historically been deeply resistant to foreign military entanglement, and any formal basing arrangement would face significant internal political constraints.
The dynamic is shifting structurally. Britain conducts annual amphibious exercises in Khasab. The UK Joint Defence Agreement gives London influence over Oman’s security decisions. US and Israeli interests in having a counterweight to Iran’s northern shore dominance are acute and growing. And Oman, whose economy has been battered by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, needs investment and security guarantees that only Washington can ultimately provide.
The path from here to a quiet US or UK forward operating presence in Musandam — not a base, not annexation, but a Khasab-anchored capability that gives the Western-aligned axis a foothold on the southern Strait — is not a straight line. But it is not inconceivable either.
What makes it conceivable is that the Fujairah pipeline reduces Abu Dhabi’s dependence on the Strait, which, paradoxically, increases its ability to pressure Oman. If the UAE no longer needs the Strait to export oil, it can afford to be more assertive about who controls the southern approaches. Musandam, physically surrounded by UAE territory on three sides, is in no position to resist Abu Dhabi’s preferences indefinitely.
The countervailing pressure is that Abu Dhabi has every incentive to avoid openly destabilising Oman. A weakened or internally divided Oman is a gift to Iran — and any move that looked like a UAE land grab on Musandam would detonate the GCC’s already fragile collective front.
The Eighth Emirate Question
The idea that Musandam might one day join the UAE is not new. When the federation was assembled in 1971, the question of whether it should join was live. It didn’t — Oman took administrative control, in part because Britain made sure it did. The strategic logic then was the same as now: a stable, neutral Oman controlling the southern Strait was safer for Western energy interests than having it absorbed into a nascent federation of uncertain stability.
That calculation may be changing. The UAE is no longer uncertain in its alignments. It is Washington’s and Jerusalem’s preferred Gulf partner, a Pax Silica signatory, and the host of the first overseas Iron Dome deployment in history. A Musandam under UAE sovereignty — or under UAE-facilitated US basing rights — would give the Western-aligned axis effective control of both the northern approaches (via allied naval and ISR capacity) and the southern shore of the world’s most important strait.
Iran would read it exactly that way. This is precisely why it would be extraordinarily provocative — and why Oman, whose survival depends on not being seen as taking sides, will resist it for as long as it possibly can.
The Line
Musandam is 21 miles from Iran. It is surrounded on three sides by the UAE. It is defended by Britain. It sits at the legal-military seam that Tehran wants to redefine.
The war has turned it from a backwater exclave into a contested fulcrum in the world’s energy geography. Whatever happens next in the Strait — tolls, transit rights, military presence, post-war settlement — happens here first.
Watch Musandam.
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## Sources
- New York Times — In Sleepy Town on Strait of Hormuz, War Rages Just Over Horizon (27 Mar 2026)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/27/world/middleeast/khasab-oman-hormuz-strait.html
- CNN / Kpler / Lloyd’s List Intelligence — How traffic through the Strait of Hormuz shrank to a trickle (29 Apr 2026)
https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/29/world/iran-war-gulf-hormuz-shipping-maps-intl-vis
- Euronews — Hormuz becomes world’s most expensive waterway after 300% surge in risk premiums (15 Mar 2026)
- Reuters — Maritime insurance premiums surge as Iran conflict widens (6 Mar 2026)
- The Guardian — Iran and Oman coordinating future management of Strait of Hormuz, says Tehran (15 May 2026)
- Chosun / Oman state media — Oman Rejects Iran’s Hormuz Toll Plan (10 Apr 2026)
https://www.chosun.com/english/world-en/2026/04/11/MYWSLJ2X4JC6ROCDGJLHKTSP3E/
- Reuters — China and US agree on opposing Hormuz tolls (12 May 2026)
- Al Jazeera — What is Iran’s Strait of Hormuz protocol? (8 Apr 2026)
- Reuters — Iran now defines Strait of Hormuz as far larger zone, IRGC officer says (12 May 2026)
- Khalifa University — Lessons from Operation Intradon in the Musandam (2022)
https://www.ku.ac.ae/lessons-from-operation-intradon-in-the-musandam
- Defence in Depth — The Forgotten Intervention: Operation Intrados, the Musandam Peninsula (2023)
- AOAV — Britain’s military interests in Oman examined (18 Mar 2026)
https://aoav.org.uk/2026/britains-military-interests-in-oman-examined/
- Oman Observer — Musandam Fort 2022 concludes (9 Nov 2022)
https://www.omanobserver.om/article/1128263/oman/musandam-fort-2022-concludes/
- UK Government — UK and Oman sign historic Joint Defence Agreement (20 Feb 2019)
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-oman-sign-historic-joint-defence-agreement
- Washington Times — Egypt, Pakistan join neutral Oman in trying to mediate end to Iran war (26 Mar 2026)
- Le Monde — Trump’s rejection of Oman’s mediation reveals his drive for war with Iran (20 Apr 2026)
- AGSI — Iran War Tests Oman’s Foreign Policy (12 Mar 2026)
https://agsi.org/analysis/iran-war-tests-omans-foreign-policy/
- Al Jazeera — Oman renews push for diplomacy, says off-ramps available in Iran war (3 Mar 2026)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/3/oman-calls-for-immediate-ceasefire-says-off-ramps
- India Today — Not just Iran: Why Oman is crucial in the Strait of Hormuz (4 Mar 2026)
Oman is rubbish country