The small group of Islamist regime loyalists now ruling Iran by committee may be able to fool the world with AI-generated propaganda videos, paper statements attributed to an invisible ayatollah and ChatGPT-scripted posts on X, but they can’t escape the reality of an American naval blockade pushing their economy off the cliff.
President Trump has the upper hand.
His best path forward is to pursue three lines of effort in parallel: Sustain the blockade and accompanying economic warfare to destabilize the regime’s hold on the state; remake the world in America’s energy dominance image to mitigate long-term price impacts while undermining China’s global ambition to defeat the United States; and order the US military to forge a path through the Strait of Hormuz to restore freedom of navigation on our terms not Tehran’s.
You might call the latter Operation Epic Passage — a combined naval and air mission of self-defense that offers escort to tankers and restores freedom of navigation, all while making clear to Tehran the devastating consequences of breaking cease-fire.
You might also call it “Blockade Plus.”
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