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Iran hit 16 vessels so far in Strait of Hormuz. That’s all it takes for Iran to control 20% of the world’s oil and become an oil hegemon — the number 1 strategic outcome US has sought to prevent in Middle East since 1970s. Iran is not weakening— it is gaining power. pic.twitter.com/UOCNEqfDyB

— Robert A. Pape (@ProfessorPape) March 13, 2026

I read recently (and have since lost the story) that the White House didn’t anticipate Iran even threatening traffic in the Strait. If you look at a map (and don’t know independently), the entire northern border of the strait is Iran. No country shares the northern boundary with Iran.

To not imagine Iran might threaten the Strait of Hormuz is to ignore information from both military and intelligence agencies (which, despite Trump and Hegseth, are not uniformly idiots), as well as fucking common sense. 

Planning around preventing this exact scenario — impossible as it has long seemed — has been a bedrock principle of US national security policy for decades,” the former US official, who served in Republican and Democratic administrations, told CNN. “I’m dumbfounded.”

This is idiocy so bad even Fetterman can’t (well, shouldn’t) excuse it. 

The people in charge of our government (and I include Congress in this) aren’t fit to run a lemonade stand.