FYI: Iran doesn’t “control” the Strait. It can threaten it. Geography gives Iran the northern shore and some islands. The main deep-water lanes sit mostly on the Omani side. The U.S. Navy can still project more force there than Iran can permanently deny. Closing or selectively bottlenecking the Strait is a suicide lever: Iran’s own oil exports, grain imports, and shadow fleet all run through the same choke point. China and Russia buy discounted Iranian crude, not infinite pain tolerance. “We survived sanctions and the Iran-Iraq war” is nostalgia, not strategy. Those were different eras with different oil prices, different Chinese demand, and no sustained U.S. naval presence choking their ports. A regime that needs hard currency to pay its security apparatus does not get to “wait out” a president while its storage tanks fill and its customers quietly reroute. Selective opening for “friendly” ships sounds clever until insurers refuse coverage, shippers refuse risk, and the U.S. simply interdicts Iranian-linked traffic harder. Midterm politics cut both ways: high oil and fertilizer prices hurt Republican voters, but prolonged Iranian intransigence also tanks the very Chinese and Indian demand that keeps Tehran’s shadow economy alive. Iran’s parliamentary tough talk is cheap. The calculation that America will blink first while Iran bleeds slower has been tested before. History is not kind to the side that mistakes temporary disruption for permanent leverage. I need to put this here too. If your foreign policy team is Iran, China, Russia, and India, the only thing you’re really fighting for is your hatred of Trump. Everything else is just the costume.
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