if the americans wanted to control the strait, they should have had that as an immediate objective and the fact that they didn't is a failure at central command. trump approves the strikes, but he doesn't write the contingency plans. i'm sure the contingency plan exists - 100% sure. somebody failed to put it in motion.
it's really little more than a minor annoyance. the americans will easily take control of the strait once they get the process in motion.
however, i have been clear that i think the americans should be blockading the iranians. my best guess as to why they aren't is that they don't want to upset the chinese, which is just another layer of nonsense in the americans' thinking. who do they think just launched a missile at diego garcia?
the houthis?
the taliban?
i mean, c'mon.
if the americans towed away a few tankers worth of iranian oil intended for the chinese market to it's strategic reserve, that would be a long-deserved kick in the teeth. truly.
in the end, these outcomes are't mutually exclusive. the americans can take control of the straits and blockade iranian oil exports. but they don't appear to be interested in the latter. in fact, that waiver for iranian oil is to replace kuwaiti or gulf oil. the americans are actually functionally encouraging the iranians to eat into the market controlled by their gulf allies, who they are bombing on behalf of. it's all absurd.
right now, it's a matter of time before they take control, and the media's analysis and suggestions otherwise are idiotic. it's a mixture of anti-semitism, anti-americanism and rank morally righteous conservatism.
i find myself with odd allies today, but i'm driven by ideas and not by allegiances, and i call them as i see them. there's a right-wing, conservative giddiness setting in at the idea of decadent america losing to the religious extremist islamists. it's absurd wishful thinking, but it lets us know what these people are thinking about when they're wishing. it's a longstanding problem in the west; the secularism is in many ways a thin veneer that hides a longing for a return to complete backwardsness.
the sooner that trump stops pretending he can negotiate with these psychotic lunatics, the faster the americans are able to get in there and take over. if he continues to delude himself and delay the inevitable, he runs the risk of looking weak and stupid, as he eventually goes in with a whimper rather than a bang. and if he waits long enough, he might find the chinese beat him to it.