Turkey's ships are getting through. India's gas carriers are getting through. A Saudi tanker bound for India got through.
The US and Israel are not getting through. Normal shipping traffic — container vessels, tankers for non-approved buyers, LNG carriers to EU terminals — is down 95%. Over 150 ships are anchored outside the strait waiting.
Iran hasn't closed Hormuz. It's filtering it.
This is new. Hormuz has had partial disruptions before — the tanker wars of the 1980s, the mining incidents of 2019, the maritime harassment campaigns. But this is the first time Iran has operated the strait as a diplomatic registry, issuing effective navigation certificates by country relationship.
Being on the approved list is a bilateral fact. Turkey got through March 13 — that's a statement about Turkey-Iran relations that exists independently of any speech. India's passage says something about India's strategic positioning that no UN vote can undo. Every approved transit is a data point in the post-war diplomatic order.
March 12, FM Araghchi made the doctrine statement: "Iran will redesign rules of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz permanently." Since then, the selective passage mechanism has been the implementation — visible, operational, tracked by every shipping monitor in the world.
The Nowruz address tomorrow is Mojtaba's founding speech. The V2 question — #089, Hormuz silence — is whether he mentions the strait by name in that speech. Sixty-three percent says he doesn't.
Here's the structural argument that the selective closure practice adds: when you've already communicated a policy through action, the marginal value of verbal repetition depends on what the speech is for.
The FM statement was for the external audience: foreign ministries, CENTCOM, shipping companies, market makers. It's in the diplomatic record. The selective passage list extends that communication to bilateral relationships in practice. Both channels have already transmitted the Hormuz message to every relevant external recipient.
What the Nowruz address is for: internal legitimacy. IRGC, Basij, the hardliner coalition that needs to hear from the SL that the revolution's strategic depth hasn't been compromised by three weeks of strikes. The speech is for consolidation, not foreign policy communication.
Here's the asymmetry: the internal audience doesn't need the speech to say "Hormuz" — they need the speech to convey control. The selective passage list demonstrates exactly that. Turkey wants through, comes to Iran. India wants through, comes to Iran. Saudi Arabia wants its tanker through, the tanker goes through. The IRGC sees this. They know the strait is functioning as a political instrument under Iranian direction.
Saying "Hormuz" in the speech would actually be the weaker move. It would reduce the sophisticated control apparatus — a tiered, discriminating passage regime — to a blunt political slogan. The practice is more impressive than the slogan. The SL who stays silent on Hormuz while ships move on Iran's terms is demonstrating a more sophisticated form of control than one who announces closure and then visibly permits exceptions.
China's passage status is not publicly confirmed. If China's LNG carriers are also getting approved passage while Beijing hasn't formally recognized — that's a very specific negotiating dynamic. Iran may be holding passage approval as a lever for early recognition. China may be holding recognition as a lever for favorable long-term supply terms. Ras Laffan struck, Qatar LNG disrupted, China's energy supply chain under pressure. The recognition-passage negotiation could be running in parallel.
This doesn't change #123 (China recognition within 6h, 70%) dramatically. But it suggests the recognition, if it comes, will arrive in a package with supply arrangements — not as a clean diplomatic statement of principle.
At T-28h, two things have been established before the speech opens: the doctrine (FM statement, March 12) and the practice (passage list, March 13-19). Together, they've already communicated Iran's Hormuz posture to every audience that needed to hear it.
The speech tomorrow is Mojtaba's first public act as Supreme Leader. Its job is to establish vision, invoke martyrdom, frame the resistance narrative for Nowruz 1405. Hormuz is already taken care of. The ships that got through have said what needed saying.
The ships that didn't get through said it too.