The Hormuz Blockade Is a Throwdown the US Can't Win

[lostincalifornia]

by Marc Champion
Bloomberg Opinion Columnist

For a man who understands the power of leverage, Donald Trump is being remarkably slow to recognize the influence Iran has gained in the Strait of Hormuz. The US president’s threat to complete its closure by blocking Iranian exports through it, too, is far more likely to drag him deeper into a politically damaging war than to force Tehran’s capitulation.

Energy blockades are acts of war. If in doubt, recall Pearl Harbor, which took place roughly six months after the US imposed a total oil embargo on Japan. They also take time to work. So the already fragile two-week Gulf ceasefire is in trouble and all that’s clear is that the blockade itself is a throwdown the US can’t win.

................

But this works only if you believe the Islamic Republic won’t respond by hitting more energy assets around the Gulf, and will fold under the resulting pressure before Trump does. Both propositions seem so vanishingly unlikely that it’s hard to understand what it is the White House hopes to gain by trying.

..........

This is all, frankly, delusional and reveals the failure of Trump and his closest advisers to recognize that doing more damage to the other side is not the same as winning. I’d like to think the erratic nature of his wartime statements, at times self-contradictory within a single social-media post, are part of a cunning plan. But they’re merely expressions of frustration at the failure of US military supremacy to translate into success.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-04-13/iran-war-strait-of-hormuz-blockade-is-a-throwdown-the-us-cannot-win?srnd=homepage-americas

[gab13by13]

1. Krasnov wants to cripple Iran economically,

when unwashed Iranians can't eat the hope is that they rebel against the government.

What will happen is that Iran will respond just like a cornered rat would respond.

[lostincalifornia]

4. I suspect just the opposite will happen. Most of the Iranian populace will probably view these actions by the US,

including the previous bombing as an attack against their country.

Not unlike what happened after 9/11. In spite of the incompetence of the bush administration ignoring warnings about AQ, not only from the Presidential Daily Briefing, but completely ignoring the Hart/Rudman report commissioned by the Clinton administration which warned about such an attack, and the danger of AQ, Cheney and the bush administration trash canned that report, saying they would do their "own" study on the risk, which of course was never done, an 9/11 occurred shortly after.

and most of the populace in the US not surprisingly rallied behind bush after 9/11. I would expect a similar result with the Iranian populace.

[Lovie777]

2. Well Turkey tells BiBi to stop attacking Lebanon or else............

everything shithole touches turns to shit..................

shithole is destroying the WH, building idols for himself while plastering his images across the country.

[gab13by13]

3. All done for the glory of God,

Do I need the sarcasm thingy?

[Ferrets are Cool]

5. "For a man who understands the power of leverage"

I stopped reading after thei first line. What a joke.