Iran Owns the Strait of Hormuz

Enough time has passed for a conclusion: Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, and there is essentially nothing we can do about it. No new deal, no cease-fire, no umpteenth round of bombing will change this reality. It is the outcome of dominoes that fell months ago, which the Trump administration has proven incapable of standing back up.

Within the first month of the war, we made it so that Iran had almost nothing left to lose. We assassinated its leadership, sunk its navy, buried its nuclear material, ravaged its industrial base, and destroyed its missile facilities — the ones we could hit, anyway. Yet the regime survived. Correctly recognizing the fight as existential, and seeing that America had already thrown everything it had at the regime, Iran activated its economic nuclear weapon. We had nothing left to punish its aggression in the strait, because we had nothing more than what Iran had already sustained. Having run out of targets, the U.S. military is reduced to polling its troops for ideas.

About the Author

John R. Puri

John R. Puri is the Thomas L. Rhodes Fellow at National Review.

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Enough time has passed for a conclusion: Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, and there is essentially nothing we can do about it. No new deal, no cease-fire, no umpteenth round of bombing will change this reality. It is the outcome of dominoes that fell months ago, which the Trump administration has proven incapable of standing back up.

Within the first month of the war, we made it so that Iran had almost nothing left to lose. We assassinated its leadership, sunk its navy, buried its nuclear material, ravaged its industrial base, and destroyed its missile facilities — the ones we could hit, anyway. Yet the regime survived. Correctly recognizing the fight as existential, and seeing that America had already thrown everything it had at the regime, Iran activated its economic nuclear weapon. We had nothing left to punish its aggression in the strait, because we had nothing more than what Iran had already sustained. Having run out of targets, the U.S. military is reduced to polling its troops for ideas.