Zohreh Kharazmi, associate professor at the University of Tehran, says Iranian forces will fight back against any US naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

“This is not the first time,” she said, pointing to 1953, when the United Kingdom responded to the nationalisation of Iranian oil by Mohammed Mossadegh, Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, in a similar way.

He was who subsequently overthrown in a CIA and MI6-backed coup.

“This kind of imperial show of power, trying to dictate to others, is something very familiar to Iranians,” Kharazmi said.

Iran’s control over the strait, she added, carried a deeper significance. Similar to Egypt’s decision to nationalise the Suez Canal in 1956 to break the UK and France’s control over the waterway, Iran’s assertion of control over Hormuz “gives a sense of honour that Iran has made a sovereign decision over its own territorial waters”, she said.

Kharazmi noted that Iranians have fought against the US military in the air and on the ground. “The naval dimension is no exception,” she said, adding that reaching naval vessels may be easier than targeting an F-35.

Kharazmi also raised the possibility of Chinese intervention, saying China “may choose to escort its ships, that would put the United States and China in direct confrontation”. Iran, she noted, had also threatened to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen.

“If this blockade becomes a contest between the resilience of the Islamic Republic and the resilience of global markets, it will not take long to see who is losing,” she said. “Technically, they cannot control the situation. With Hollywood-style strategies, they cannot prevail in this battleground.”