The strait that broke Washington’s illusion of control

When the United States and Israel opened their war on Iran on 28th February by assassinating Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the calculation in Washington was simple: overwhelming force would force capitulation.

Nearly six months later, that calculation lies in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz, where a tugboat sits sunk, a dozen seafarers are dead or missing, and a waterway that once carried a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil trade has become the clearest evidence yet that American military dominance does not translate automatically into political victory.

Iran’s response to the assassination of its own supreme leader was not surrender.

It was closure.

Tehran shut the strait to foreign shipping, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps declared that […]