Iran's Khatam al-Anbia Central Headquarters, the operational command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), declared the Strait of Hormuz closed on Saturday 20 June and called the move "the first step of response to the enemy's breach of trust"1. The order came from the corps, not from Iran's Foreign Ministry. IRGC boats told all commercial shipping to stay clear. The stated grounds were that Israeli strikes in Lebanon broke Article 1 of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the deal Iran and the US signed on 15 June under Pakistani and Qatari mediation.
This is the IRGC's second Hormuz closure declaration of the war. The first came on 11 June, an order US Central Command (CENTCOM) also rejected at the time. CENTCOM rejected this one too: spokesman Navy Captain Tim Hawkins said "Iran does not control the strait of Hormuz"2, and reported commercial traffic continuing to move. The pattern is now set across two declarations in nine days, with the corps closing the waterway by announcement and the transit data answering back.
The closure exposes the same fracture visible at the Switzerland talks the next day, where Araghchi and Ghalibaf were negotiating the MOU even as the corps declared its central provision void. Khamenei has not appeared in public since 8 March and communicates by sealed courier, so the corps runs the war while the civilian ministry runs the diplomatic track. The two arms of the Iranian state point in opposite directions on the same calendar day.
Article 1 of the MOU governs the ceasefire, and Iran's case is that Israel's Lebanon offensive broke it. Yet Israel never signed the MOU and rejected its terms outright. Iran is invoking a breach of a deal by a government that is not party to it, which makes the closure a pressure instrument aimed at Washington over Lebanon rather than a maritime measure with a legal spine.
