Conrad Black: Trump has humiliated Iran Conrad Black

Backdropped by ships in the Strait of Hormuz, damage, according to local witnesses caused by several recent airstrikes during the U.S.-Israel military campaign, is seen on a fishing pier in the port of Qeshm island, Iran

Canada Yahoo : Regular readers will note that most of what was predicted about the Iran War in the last three weeks in this column is coming to pass.

The Iranians entered into the Islamabad discussions exuding confidence that the Americans were suing for peace and that Iran had found and struck the Achilles’ heel of the West by closing the Strait of Hormuz. This revealed the infirmity of the Western Alliance and exploited the consumptive flabbiness of the American public itself with the terrifying spectre of somewhat higher gasoline prices.

As was predicted here, the United States has now shut the Hormuz Strait to Iran so its revenues from the world have abruptly collapsed and as an incidental strategic benefit, between Venezuela and Iran, China has lost much of its oil supply. At the same time, the United States is opening the Strait to other countries and at time of writing the passage of non-Iranian tankers through the strait has risen significantly.

While Friday, Iran declared the Strait open, Trump said the U.S. blockade of Iran put in place last weekend would remain. Minimal research reveals that the United States Navy possesses the ability to open the Strait or close it to whomever it wishes: America has held the scepter of the seas for 85 years.

Having wrung from the Iranians the concession that it would cease to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, by threatening to “destroy its civilization,” which was referred to in American government circles as “bridge and power-plant day,” a fearsome havoc in Iran’s infrastructure but with no implication of extensive civilian casualties, the Americans were, as generally occurs with Iran, affronted by the bad faith of the ayatollahs who purported to close the strait to everyone except themselves and the Chinese, and those who paid them a toll of $1 million per tanker.

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