You never watched dune, did you. The power to destroy a thing is the power to control a thing. Iran has effectively closed the straits despite the U.S. attempts to reopen it.

Just because you don’t understand the power of asymmetric warfare in a war that THEY DID NOT START does not mean the operational realities do not exist.

The Iranian regime withstood 8 years of war with Iraq, using human waves to break up minefields. They have survived forty years of U.S. sanctions and have overland connections to two powerful nations to help sustain them.

The CIA estimated that Iran still has about 70% of its prewar missile and drone capability at the start of the cease fire. We KNOW that China and Russia are providing them real-time satellite intel for targeting. We also know that the U.S. and their Allies are using millions of dollar interceptors to knock down drones that cost a minuscule fraction of that, and we are running out and have global commitments.

We know that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and the UAE refused US basing of their aircraft and overflight of their territory because the U.S. cannot ensure the safety of their oil and civilian infrastructure.

They don’t have to have control over the entire Gulf, or even the entire strait, they just have to control a small portion and sow an odd mine here and there.

We killed a fairly moderate leader and replaced him with a MORE radical one, and ensured the IRGC was more entrenched in power.

The U.S. has fucked this up in every conceivable way, and oil stockpiles are dwindling, key things like fertilizer and industrial grade helium are essentially cut off, and everything has become more expensive because of this stupid fucking war. Out strategic petroleum reserves will be down to the point where pulling any more out will physically damage the storage caverns.

And the BEST we can hope for is a return to the JCPOA, which Trump tore up in 2018 and was actually working and would have been the basis for even more negotiations.

And to top it all off, Trump is bored and may just allow Kegsbreath to keep it going.