Writing in his regular column "My Take," SCMP columnist Alex Lo contends that Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz — through which approximately one fifth of the world's oil and gas passes — could fundamentally redraw the global order. Lo cites University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape, who argued in a New York Times analysis that Iran is rapidly emerging as a fourth centre of global power alongside the US, China, and Russia, deriving its newfound leverage not from economic or military parity but from its grip on the world's most critical energy chokepoint.
The SCMP column quotes researchers Mohammad Eslami of the University of Tehran and Zeynab Malakouti of the National University of Singapore, who argue that Iran views the Strait not as a temporary bargaining chip to end the war, but as a permanent strategic fixture for the post-conflict order — a source of revenue, influence, and deterrence that could, according to some analysts, yield Iran more income than its oil exports.
Lo also highlights what he describes as Washington's strategic miscalculation: while the US is focused on winning the battle, Tehran is focused on winning the war. The piece notes that Iranian conditions for a ceasefire include the withdrawal of US military bases from Gulf states and international recognition of Iranian control over the Strait, with toll fees reportedly to be paid in cryptocurrency or yuan — not US dollars.
The Hong Kong-based columnist frames the conflict in sharply anti-Western terms, describing the US and Israel as "aggressor states" and drawing a pointed comparison between Iran's demands and the grievances that motivated the September 11, 2001 attacks. He recalls that ordinary Iranians held candlelight vigils for American victims after 9/11 and that Tehran cooperated with Washington in the early phase of the "war on terror" — before the US and Israel, in Lo's words, "chose hostility."
The piece concludes that, short of nuclear escalation — which Lo does not discount — Iran may ultimately prevail in the conflict and that its emergence as a regional and global power could serve as a corrective to what the column terms American hegemony and Israeli state terrorism in the Middle East.
The publication of such a perspective in the South China Morning Post — owned since 2016 by Alibaba and widely seen as broadly reflective of Hong Kong's post-handover media environment — underscores the sharply divergent framing of the US-Iran conflict across Western and Chinese-sphere press.