Nobody is talking about how big of a failure this has been on the part of the U.S. Navy. Controlling and securing shipping routes has been a fundamental function of a navy since Roman times. The U.S. Navy was unable to achieve that objective in this war. Ill-advised American wars often end up as losses because we fail to achieve our political objectives. But this may be one of the few times we have been unable to achieve a purely military objective.
I think this is really because ship crews are abused and have no choice. The companies don’t have executives on ships. It’s some maritime crew, often from India, that’s told to just take the risk with their own lives. And if they want to keep their jobs they have to comply.
Captain Blood surely couldn't imagine that corsairs of the future will use rocket-propelled, remotely controlled cannonballs that can fly from a location beyond the horizon.
So, Trump claimed the closure and the attack "was a “foolish violation” of the ceasefire". However - that is not the case. The first and foremost item of the Iran-US MOU is the following:
1 — The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran and their allies in the current war are signing this MOU to declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and undertake from now on not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other, and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon.
But Israel has continued to attack intensively in Lebanon, killing dozens (if not over 100 since the MOU was signed, not sure), and continues to have a sizeable invasion force in Lebanese territory. Lebanon was explicitly and specifically mentioned to stress its significance - it is the country suffering the most right now, with hundreds of thousands of internally displaced due to threats from the Israeli forces against the civilian population of the south.
With that being the case since day 1, the MOU cannot be said to have even gone into effect. Certainly, the closure of the straights should be seen in this light, rather than a violation.
It's about time to have a serious talk with the Saudis and redirect all that money that is being stupidly spent on all those vanity projects such as NEOM and The Line towards pipelines running through the Desert , end point the port of Yunbu & Jeddah and make the Strait of Hormuz irrelevant .
This is the quintessential American project, the U.S. has invented and developed the oil industry in Saudi. Saudi Aramco was originally the "California-Arabian Standard Oil Company".
I don't know why this hasn't happened during the last 40 years where Iran has always been an enemy, Saudi Arabia has always been an ally and the U.S. has always had enormous amount of access to the Kingdom for the purpose of building oil infrastructure.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 25.5 ms ] thread1 — The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran and their allies in the current war are signing this MOU to declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and undertake from now on not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other, and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon.
But Israel has continued to attack intensively in Lebanon, killing dozens (if not over 100 since the MOU was signed, not sure), and continues to have a sizeable invasion force in Lebanese territory. Lebanon was explicitly and specifically mentioned to stress its significance - it is the country suffering the most right now, with hundreds of thousands of internally displaced due to threats from the Israeli forces against the civilian population of the south.
With that being the case since day 1, the MOU cannot be said to have even gone into effect. Certainly, the closure of the straights should be seen in this light, rather than a violation.
This is the quintessential American project, the U.S. has invented and developed the oil industry in Saudi. Saudi Aramco was originally the "California-Arabian Standard Oil Company".
I don't know why this hasn't happened during the last 40 years where Iran has always been an enemy, Saudi Arabia has always been an ally and the U.S. has always had enormous amount of access to the Kingdom for the purpose of building oil infrastructure.