1) Saudi Arabia has a 750 mile pipeline to The Red Sea from the Persian Gulf.

Presently 4 million barrels are going there a day and the capacity reported is 7 million barrels a day. They produce 10 million a day, export 7 and keep 3 million to run the country every day.

The Saudis are now shipping over 50% of their exports on ships that are not in harms way and could be totally independent of The Straits of Hormuz down the road.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/saudis-bypass-hormuz-oil-exports-yanbu-surge-toward-5-million-target

2) Kharg Island is 350 miles from The Straits of Hormuz. That is where Iran exports its oil. One or two B-2 bomber missions can take out the stupid island. No need to have any ground troops there whatsoever.

One of the many things I notice about your comments here is that, although the text of my post was very short and rather simple, you seem to have either failed to read it or failed to understand it..

Unfortunately that’s pretty par for the course for Bushehr Bauxite. As I detailed in this post here, I was able to show how Bauxite very, very clearly did not read or understand the content of the links he sent in an attempt to condemn me and others gainsaying them.

https://thenewneo.com/2026/03/25/iran-talk/#comment-2845826

It takes a particularly sick, twisted mind to uncritically regurgitate Iranian regime propaganda even when it is conformably false (and go further even than most Iranian regime sources claim), ignore what he himself linked, and then compare others with Baghdad Bob.

To be honest at this stage I view him as a particularly malignant, malevolent, gaslighting troll who can’t engage well and is fundamentally dishonest. Sometimes I wonder why I even continue engaging with him beyond hoping to illuminate others. How and why you keep up with him is beyond me, but you’re far more patient and generous than I. I’d have hit him with the ban hammer long ago.

It’s obviously too much to ask Bauxite to be able to read the mind of President Trump or his senior staff, or the Pentagon war planners. Fair enough. It’s also apparently too much to ask for him to keep up to date with events such as public announcements by the Iranian regime or other governments. Ok.

But I’d settle for Bushehr Bauxite being able or willing to read the sources they themselves put up. Apparently that’s too much.

Chuck – Good luck. Turtler lives in a version of reality where the Strait of Hormuz is open and suggesting otherwise is clear evidence of TDS.

A “version of reality”? You mean using the sources you yourself linked?

Ag-gain. Let’s go back to Lloyds of London’s post.

https://lmalloyds.com/safety-concerns-not-insurance-availability-driving-reduced-vessel-traffic-in-the-strait-of-hormuz/

According to Lloyd’s List intelligence which covers cargo carrying vessels of more than 10,000 dwt, there have been 111 transits in total, although there may have been more who transited with their satellite tracking switched off.

Again, this was the source You Used. This was the source You Linked. The fact that you were dumb enough to think that it helped your case speaks poorly of your judgement, but what else is new?

This is in sharp contrast to the delusion you live in, where you claimed that the only ships transiting the strait were those Iran allowed. Which even the Lloyds report put the kibbosh on, and which you made zero apology for or acknowledgement of. Likewise the fact that Iran has greatly lowered the bar for what constitutes its approval due to inability to actually inflict crippling damage on tankers.

Ignoring the evidence you yourself put forth because it doesn’t say what you want it to is evidence of TDS in more than one kind. It’s also evidence of stupidity and incompetence in source analysis. Because apparently a full 30%+ of ships transiting with their AIS on that do not agree with Iran’s terms and have openly defied them and even more transiting without AIS on just gets swept under the rug for not agreeing with your delusion.

As does the news.

Brian E – Trump has often said that his preferred strategy is been to “bomb the @#$^” out of them and then leave. That’s what I suspect he has always been planning to do here. The question is whether that’s going to work.

Agreed there on that front, but what you “conveniently” ignore (because you’re a dishonest idiot) is that he also has happily used intel assets to help, and he’s fighting alongside Israel, who we know has significantly greater ambitions towards Iran. Likewise the Iranian opposition.

How that will turn out is beyond me, and it’s certainly beyond someone who flat out refuses to acknowledge what their own source says or the Iranian regime declaring the strait open for “non-hostile transports”. But we’ll see.

Unless he gets shipping in the Strait of Hormuz back to normal BEFORE there is a peace, the optics are going to be terrible, regardless of whether Trump claims his objectives have been met.

Depends on the nature of the peace or how it turns out. Some kind of Baghdad 2003 public spectacle of old regime icons being publicly toppled as a new government is established probably will outweigh the optics of continuing to play minesweeping role in the Strait and whack a mole with remaining drone launchers or rocket platforms. But we’ll see how that goes.

For one, Trump hasn’t been able to hide his need to get Strait of Hormuz shipping back to normal. Its as clear as day that Trump doesn’t want to into the mid-terms with the Hormuz closed, gasoline a dollar or more higher than it is now, and the potential of the associated recession.

That’s true as far as it goes, but you’ve again pointedly ignored how the Mullahcracy hasn’t been able to hide the fact that their ability to interdict or inflict significant damage to shipping in the Strait is paltry. They tried to block the strait altogether like the year was 1986. That failed. They tried to extort agreements of free passage in exchange for host nations turning out US and Israeli diplomats. This failed so completely that not even the likes of the DPRK, Laos, or Cuba took them up on it. So now they’ve essentially abandoned decades of naval doctrine and declared that essentially all “non-hostile” shipping that is not expressly Israeli, American, or tied to them is free to go.

Whether or not this will be something they STICK to or can get every given IRGC command to abide by is another question, but it is a major milestone. Quite literally changing Decades old Iranian doctrine and the accepted assumptions of conflict in the Gulf held for nearly half a century. And in any case recent performance indicates the ability of the Mullahs or IRGC to inflict significant casualties or hull damage on shipping is minimal.

Again, back to *your source*, Lloyds:

A statement from the International Chamber of Shipping on 19 March, highlighted the plight of the vessels’ crews (around 20,000 of whom are impacted). There have been at least 11 fatalities, including on a tug trying to assist an abandoned vessel.

This is not nothing, and those people were not nobodies, but this is also nowhere near what the Iranian dictatorship needs to actually be effective at harming Allied or neutral shipping through force of arms, and it’s background noise compared to losses elsewhere like in the Straits or the Horn of Africa.

https://www.tradewindsnews.com/casualties/piracy-in-key-malacca-strait-waterway-hits-19-year-record/2-1-1925306

I realize you want to make this all about Trump. I also realize you are so aggressively dishonest and delusional you will ignore what your own chosen sources say. I also acknowledge you really have no independent frame of reference or way of evaluating how things go (which is why you have said absolutely farq all comparing this to other conflicts or shipping risks either back in the day – like the Tanker War of the 1980s that was the Iran regime’s preferred touchstone, or “mundane” horrors like piracy in East Africa and the Straits). But that doesn’t change the fact that Iranian ability to directly harm shipping is marginal and that the US and Israel and their newfound johnny come lately allies in Hormuz Strait coalition and friendly neutrals like India have already made major progress to fully securing the strait and getting traffic back to normal.

If Trump makes peace now to re-open Hormuz, it is going to look like he backed down in response to Iranian leverage. Not good. And claiming that he met his objectives isn’t going to make that one smart any less.

Agreed, but the chances of that actually happening are basically nil. Especially since the Mullahs have all but thrown in the towel about keeping Hormuz closed and – again – openly declared “non-hostile shipping” comprising the VAST MAJORITY OF SHIPS ON EARTH can transit the strait without asking further.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-says-non-hostile-ships-can-transit-strait-hormuz-ft-reports-2026-03-24/

“Non-hostile vessels, ?including those belonging to or associated with other States, may – provided ?that they neither participate in nor support acts of aggression against Iran and ?fully ?comply with the declared safety and security regulations – benefit from safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz in coordination with the competent Iranian authorities,” it read.

In short, they abandoned the old doctrine of Nobody Non-Allied passes. They abandoned the new offer of Free Passage for Persona Non Grataing US and Israeli diplomats. Now they accept the bare minimum of transit so long as ships are from a non-hostile nation, communicate with the “competent Iranian authorities” as per normal maritime practice, and follow safety regulations.

Because that is totally, 100%, the sort of action a regime that believes it controls the Strait of Hormuz and has an iron grip on the throat of all shipping going through will do. Nevermind how the Mullahs could barely go a year without interning or arresting some foreign ship in peacetime or how in the Tanker War they freely sank dozens of neutral flagged ships.

Drumpf will have no choice but to accept the Mullah’s terms in order to restore traffic as normal to the strait so that the Marshallese, Greek, Panamanaian, Liberian, etc flagged ships that make up the majority of shipping using this waterway will get back to normal slightly faster and so that US and Israeli flagged vessels will be free to go through the strait without suffering the below 50% hit rate the Mullahs have mustered so far. Totally makes sense.

Pull the other one Bauxite.

By which I mean try pulling your head out of your ass and doing some minimum of research. You can start by reading your own sources and actually understanding what they’re saying.

You have to clearly set forth one consistent set of objectives before you can credibly claim to have achieved those objectives. Trump has been all over the map on that one.

No you don’t have to “clearly set forth one consistent set of objectives.” I’d like to say that would be the case but strategic ambiguity has a purpose.

It’s also worth noting that once again, were it not for double standards you would have absolutely zero standards beyond hating Orange Man and everyone else, because you NOTABLY do not apply this “clearly set forth one consistent set of objectives” standard to the Mullahs. They claimed they would close the strait to all non-allied traffic and did so repeatedly over the decades. They have failed to do so. Hence the goal post moving on a scale even impressive by your standards.

Now they’re basically going to try to impose tolls on “non-hostile” ships in the Strait, having acknowledged they can’t actually stop all the ships they want. That’s not going to work because the Indians, Saudis, UAE, US, UK, French and a host of others will throw a conniption fit and note that it’s in violation of international maritime law, but that’s what they’re going to do in spite of trading at worse than 1 boat of theirs along with crews and equipment for 1 sailor from an allied or neutral country as per the Lloyds link.

But that’s what they are going to try and do, or so they say. And I’m guessing they’re not going to be successful in doing so.

Basically, I think that Trump has maneuvered himself into a no-win situation.

Because of course you do.

Though I think that “think” in your case would be phrasing it very generously. I think very little actual cognition is involved here, given how you pushed blatantly false claims that not even the regime’s propaganda has echoed, linked sources that undermined your claims while misreading them, did not understand basic terming, whined about me like a petty biotch, and now concocted fantasies about how Trump is in a no-win situation regarding Hormuz traffic while ignoring Operation Praying Mantis’s success earlier or what Iran has recently stated it will do.

I suspect that he’ll declare victory and leave, but that’s no good.

I suspect you’re a gaslighting, dishonest idiot who is forgetting a few very important things.

Namely that where the Strait is concerned it’s no longer purely Trump’s concern. He got a bunch of nations on board and in writing with promises to secure the strait, hence the big old multinational declaration by the UK, Japan, France, etc. And how the Indians are also committed to escorting their ships and neutral ones.

Which has had their effect since Iran has been progressively backing down, step by step, from tis decades old traditional claims of shutting the strait and sinking or capturing any ship from even neutral powers that do not bend the knee.

He will have degraded the mullah’s current military capabilities, but he will not have affected their revenue sources or their ability to rebuild.

Because nothing says “not have affected their revenue sources or their ability to rebuild” like blasting significant holes in the IRGC (which like most totalitarian regimes is not only a political or military entity but also a shadow economic empire), killing sizable chunks of its leadership, cratering much of its infrastructure, and threatening to do more.

And that’s leaving aside how crippled the Iranian ability to rebuild would be even separately. I’m guessing you neither know nor care about things like the IRGC’s catastrophic dam building projects and overexploitation of water leading to the drying up of most of the goddamn Iranian Plateau.

He will have created a situation where we have to keep going back regularly and, as set forth above, I just don’t see that happening.

I’m sure you don’t see that happening, but as we’ve already seen there’s a lot happening right now you don’t see. Heck, there’s a lot in the links you yourself posted that you don’t see.

So forgive me if I find this unimpressive, Bushehr Bauxite. Indeed I find this a particularly malevolent, dishonest form of concern trolling. And I know I am not the only one.

One of the many things I notice about your comments here is that, although the text of my post was very short and rather simple, you seem to have either failed to read it or failed to understand it..

You write in your comment at 1:15 PM:

And I’m not so sanguine about neo’s comment suggesting that we’ll have to go back again and again. If we don’t finish this now, I just don’t see us going back.

That’s not what I wrote. I wrote this (and now I’ve bolded the important words in order to help you notice them):

although it would be great if this war would bring down the regime, it may not happen and we (Israel, in this case) are prepared to fight another war and another as needed.

Israel.

I’ll add that assertions that you have TDS are not based merely on your comments on this thread. It is long established. Plus, you have demonstrated over and over your inability to read his mind. And yet it doesn’t deter you from continuing to believe you can.

According to Wikipedia the IRGC had 125,000 troops as of 2024. That is a lot of fanatics. If peace breaks out they will have nothing to do, their ability to get to Paradise will be gone. They thirst for death.

Iran must be destroyed. Cut off the electricity, the water they have still available can no longer be delivered. They will run out of fuel for generators. Launchers and other military installations will be ineffective. Occupy Kharg and shut off all their revenue. It will be a mostly safe occupation.

After the total collapse a joint force from surrounding Islamic nations, all Sunnis to mostly avoid infighting, will have to occupy Iran for at least a generation.

You might have better information.

Iran Announces the Strait of Hormuz is Closed to the US & Israel | For Everyone Else, $2M Please!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5dipK6o7Mo&t=422s

Brian E – Trump has often said that his preferred strategy is been to “bomb the @#$^” out of them and then leave. That’s what I suspect he has always been planning to do here. The question is whether that’s going to work.

Unless he gets shipping in the Strait of Hormuz back to normal BEFORE there is a peace, the optics are going to be terrible, regardless of whether Trump claims his objectives have been met. For one, Trump hasn’t been able to hide his need to get Strait of Hormuz shipping back to normal. Its as clear as day that Trump doesn’t want to into the mid-terms with the Hormuz closed, gasoline a dollar or more higher than it is now, and the potential of the associated recession. If Trump makes peace now to re-open Hormuz, it is going to look like he backed down in response to Iranian leverage. Not good. And claiming that he met his objectives isn’t going to make that one smart any less. You have to clearly set forth one consistent set of objectives before you can credibly claim to have achieved those objectives. Trump has been all over the map on that one.

Basically, I think that Trump has maneuvered himself into a no-win situation. I suspect that he’ll declare victory and leave, but that’s no good. He will have degraded the mullah’s current military capabilities, but he will not have affected their revenue sources or their ability to rebuild. He will have created a situation where we have to keep going back regularly and, as set forth above, I just don’t see that happening.

There are not many ships transiting at this time.

Maybe but there’s a lot more ships transiting than people say. Even Lloyds of London’s admitted to tracking 111 transits during this period with their AIS/Transponders active and thus broadcasting their location, while they claimed 60% or so were Iranian or Iranian-linked. So at least a third of those identifying themselves as not.

But that’s in sharp contrast to the number transiting with their AIS and Transponders off, which makes up for a lot of it. But because basically everyone is conditioned to counting ships by the number of AIS broadcasting, nobody is sure how many there are or when unless they flat out tell people what they did after going through. We know it’s happening but nobody is entirely sure how much.

And the problem is not just ships carrying gas and oil, the problem is ships. There are a limited number of hulls worldwide, and a fair percentage are parked in the gulf, and as long as they are there, they are not available for transport from other sources. It is the maritime version of JIT inventory and logistics, vulnerable to unexpected stresses. Whatever happens, there will be an extended period of catch up

Agreed indeed, and that’s the big issue. The picture is a lot better than what Lloyds or Argus News or Bauxite and a lot of the Chicken Littles say, but it’s not good and as far as I can tell nobody able to speak publicly knows the exact situation of how many hulls there are, how many are needed, or the pace of transiting. Hopefully the Iranian regime admitting transit for non-hostile ships and us continuing to pound their threats to ships will help clear that up.

There are not many ships transiting at this time. And the problem is not just ships carrying gas and oil, the problem is ships. There are a limited number of hulls worldwide, and a fair percentage are parked in the gulf, and as long as they are there, they are not available for transport from other sources. It is the maritime version of JIT inventory and logistics, vulnerable to unexpected stresses. Whatever happens, there will be an extended period of catch up.