Hormuz again
Open? Closed? Half-open?
You be the judge. See this:
The U.S. military has quietly established a shipping corridor in and out of the Strait of Hormuz to transport millions of barrels of oil each day — a notable success even as the broader war remains at a stalemate, two U.S. officials told Axios.
Under the operation, which has been underway for the last several weeks, 15–20 tankers have entered and exited the strait each night through a southern channel along the coast of Oman.
About 10 million barrels of oil a day — roughly half the pre-war volume — are being transported out of the strait and injected into the global energy market, the officials said.
And there’s this:
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has already enacted numerous sanctions and economic punishments against the Islamic Republic of Iran as the conflict with the U.S. grinds on, but President Trump took to Truth Social Wednesday evening to announce he’s taking things to a whole new level.
Using his trademark all-caps style, he promised to unleash an “ECONOMIC D-DAY” that will be the “MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY!” He also warned other nations that if they throw any lifelines to the mullahs, they will pay a steep cost courtesy of the U.S.
Seems to me we’ve heard this before.
Well, the Washington has arrived on station and replacing the Lincoln, so the firepower is there. I don’t understand what Trump is doing. He just seems unwilling to finish them off. I agree with Derek Hunter:
https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2026/08/20/heres-trumps-problem-with-iran-n2681542
VDH’s latest podcast points out the dichotomy of how effective DJT’s policies have been compared to the record-scratch moments of ridiculousness he puts out in the media/Twitter/etc. I really wish he’d shut up more, but I remain 90+% on board with the actions.
Let’s just call it Schrödinger’s Straits…Open? Closed? It all depends.
We’ve seen this claim before — I hear your skepticism.
I believe the bigger picture puts things right.
YouTuber Steve Turley builds on the story late last afternoon from Axios (top link).
But Trump has reworked the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf using a Southern route, using night cover.
Over 80% of the half+ pre-war volume of traffic now goes through it, astonishing the experts and flooring Trump’s flying monkeys in the establishment. COVERED 4-8m HERE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vclXus0qR0c
Turley then covers the new economic isolation of Iran, Trump just announced yesterday. This means the UEA stops trading with Iran. Can he get China to fall in line? (SEE 8-10m ABOVE LINK.) This remains a task yet to be completed to starve Iran, financially.
And before 14m (after a promotional advert), Turley uses a map of oil trade routes to widen the lens of attention on his ultimate analysis.
The President is either absorbing or neutralizing or bypassing global oil energy chokepoints. For example, US based refineries are now processing half of Venezuela’s oil output!
Trump is thereby resetting the terms of trade in the Master Resource, oil and hydrocarbons.
He’s making trade to reach markets more secure for the US and the world abroad, just as Europe — after the start of Putin’s Ukraine War 4 years ago — has left energy dependence on Russia, now replaced by US Liquid Natural Gas!
Amazing geopolitical work. But does the deal-maker Meistro get credit? Hell no — NEVER!
I think that Trump hopes the blockade will bring Iran down. In my view, Iran is running out of time and soon will need to do something dramatic. My prediction: in the next month or two, Iran will start releasing videos of innocent children starving in Tehran because of the blockade. America’s enemies, such as the UN and Democrats, will accuse Trump of genocide. The Democrats will promise to send Trump to the Hague for war crimes prosecution once they regain power. You heard it here first.
In the Second World War the German economy did not finally and fully collapse (Stunden Null) until April 1945. It held out that long even while it was being subjected to a prolonged strategic bombing campaign that inflicted scarcely comprehensible levels of destruction on the Reich.
Keep that in mind when you find yourself growing impatient with the bombing campaign against Iran.
The latest energy news is that crude oil supply is OK, but the diesel “crack spread” is widening a lot, signaling a reduced supply of diesel and higher prices.
The conflict in Iran plus the ongoing conflicts with Russia have taken about 10% of global refining capacity offline. Things like agriculture and shipping are greatly affected by diesel prices. People are predicting higher prices at the supermarket.
What does the economic squeeze make Iran do? In blockades, the last ones to miss a meal are the big-shot decision makers. Takes a long time for food shortages to get up that high, considering they have an army of goons confiscating it wherever it can be found. OTOH, any use of munitions offers an opportunity to find the launch site and possibly its manufacturing location. We have the intel and surveillance plus the weapons to deal with them. Eventually the will be ground down.to nothing, But…..how long?
Today, I am announcing the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY! This will be Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I am also announcing that ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREENDOUS Economic Consequences.”
As a proud user of hyperbole ,I will call this a damn lie by the Donald. If he
meant this he would eliminate all imports from China. Which would collapse the economy. Not that I’m opposed to collapse, but the ptb want to delay as long as possible.
He should shut up or do it
Iran as a dominant local force is no more. Fanatism dies hard, but supplying and paying proxies throughout the area is over. A new reality in that area is emerging and it looks good.
Trump may find more ways to damage them and we can hope he is successful, but the Twelvers are over no matter how it turns out.
IMO he has done a great thing, and a number of very important good things have resulted.
We now know we have a problem making our major weapons and we have the sort of pressure that will bring about new designs sooner than in any other scenario. AI has already progressed to the point of being very valuable in their designs.
Vive La Trump.
I worry that the current war in the Middle East is leading to seismic changes on the ground like nothing we’ve ever seen before. And Washington doesn’t appear to have taken notice.
When Iran first began to shoot missiles into the UAE, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, (all the while avoiding Israel at that point in the war), I thought “wow! Persians against Arabs! That’s gonna change things in the neighborhood.” And I thought the change would be beneficial to us.
Then last week, Türkiye, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed a mutual defense agreement, and I thought “whoops! That turns everything on its head.” If Pakistan goads India into an attack then Pakistan invokes the mutual defense agreement, will Türkiye go to war with India? Will Saudia Arabia?
And what does this do to NATO? Türkiye is a NATO member. If Iran attacks Türkiye, does NATO respond under Article V?
And curiousity of curiosities, why is Iran shooting Missiles into the Arab states and American bases in those countries, but not into Israel?
No matter what all this means, I think America is losing relationships that it has had for generations. And along with the relationships, America is losing its leadership role, I’m afraid.
TJ,
All well and good, but the average voter is going to respond to gas and supermarket prices. The GOP loses the midterms it’s game over as there will be continuous impeachments…and the IRGC is counting on that.
Road Warrior, good prediction on the starving children propo…and our media/Dems will be all over it….again, the midterms.
I’m coming around to a basketball metaphor for the Iran War. It’s a lot of bobbing and weaving, head-fakes, probes and surprises that depends on the moment-to-moment status of the game.
It’s not like finding a three-move mating combination in chess.
I was certainly surprised to learn that the UAE was just now terminating trade with Iran.
This whole episode has an ‘other world’ feel to it.
Today we have Israel threatening Turkey in response to perceived Turkish threats. For reasons that baffle me, Turkey is a NATO member. So, what if?
Saudi Arabia vs the Houthis. One speculates, ‘couldn’t the Saudis simply crush Yemen, including the Houthis if they had the will?’
Yemen’s army has conducted ops against the Houthis. Who knew that Yemen had an army? Have they been AWOL all of this time?
The Royal Navy and the French Navy were allegedly dispatched several weeks ago to open the Straits. Do you suppose that they got lost enroute?
The Europeans were allegedly forming a coalition of forty plus nations to deal with the Straits problem Are they still debating the seating arrangements at the conference table?
Trump says this/Iran says that. Over and over. I am developing PTSD, formerly known as combat fatigue. (I think they had to update the term to accommodate all of those who become traumatized by the lengthy lines at the Starbucks drive through.)
Will it never end? It certainly will if the Dem-Socialist crowd win the mid-terms and Trump has to devote all his energy defending against impeachment.
I suppose that if that comes to pass, citizens of California will have to add Iran to the lengthy list of the aggrieved to which we owe reparations.
Speaking of war weariness. I just did a bit of research, and found that we have lost 18 service members attributable to actions against Iran (RIP good and faithful patriots.) By contrast, we lost approximately 405,000 during WWII. As a country, we weary easily these days.
Here is a chart of diesel prices, in US dollars per liter.
https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/diesel-price
This will increase supermarket prices and will not be good for the midterms, if it stays high.
The world and especially the US has been struggling with having enough refinery capacity for a few decades. I’ve always wondered about Chevron having a big footprint in California, and then recently it sounds like they’ve about had their fill with CA politics hamstringing them and that has reduced their refinery capacity.
I didn’t realize until a couple decades ago that a lot of the tanker ships moving around the globe are moving refined product and not crude oil. In the past, the gas you put into your tank may have been refined in France or Italy, as their refineries produced too much gasoline and not enough diesel.
Western Europe’s transportation profile has reduced its diesel consumption in recent years. So things change, and tanker ships move product around as needed.
Turkiye? Nope, Turkey.
Not Turnkey nor Ottomanland.
Nor The Exalted Land of Fezites.
The true homeland of Hasan Piker and Czenk Underwear.
”I didn’t realize until a couple decades ago that a lot of the tanker ships moving around the globe are moving refined product and not crude oil.”
Another recent factor is that Ukraine has so reduced Russian refining capacity (they’ve knocked about 40% of the Russian refining capacity offline) that Russia is now *importing* gasoline & diesel from Belarus, Kazakhstan, and India to meet domestic demand. That reduces the supply for everybody else.
Oldflyer:
Why should Trump spend any energy fighting impeachment? At this point, he may be going for the trifecta. Impeaching Trump has lost most if not all of its meaning. The Senate won’t convict, so why should he care?
OM:
I’d agree with your comment about names — new and old — except for one thing: the NYTimes continues to call the Department of War by its old name — the Department of Defense. That strikes me as petty, but I expect no less from the NYTimes. Anyway, that made me think about Erdogan changing the name of his country. Do I want to come across like the NYTimes? No — I’ll accept Türkiye’s new name.
Neo,
Assuming the GOP retains the Senate. I’m not so sanguine about that.
If America survives to this point, there will be GREAT changes in the.population and government.
But how to do the funky “u” on a smart phone?
Is it The Gulf of America now at the New York Times?
And of course will the NYT accept Orangeland or Tannedland instead of Greenland if that great, wonderful, amazing deal comes to pass?
”…the NYTimes continues to call the Department of War by its old name — the Department of Defense.”
That’s because the “Department of Defense” is its name. Congress created the department and named it at that time. President Trump has no authority to rename it. Furthermore, Congress verified the name in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2026, which passed the House, passed the Senate, and was signed into law in February by President Trump himself.
”Anyway, that made me think about Erdogan changing the name of his country.”
The Turks can call their country anything they want in Turkish. That doesn’t mean that their new name can be expressed in English.
”Türkiye”
Case in point: there is no such word in the English language. It can’t be typed on an English keyboard (I had to cut and paste it here.). It can’t even be displayed on many computers in the English world (such as my other one). It’s probably not even pronounceable by a native English speaker (I say “probably” because I have no idea how to pronounce it.).
The b-ball bobbing & weaving seems like a good metaphor. I’m glad Trump isn’t putting US boots on the ground, and almost no body bags are coming home.
Still, I wish the mullahs would lose their whole regime, but that doesn’t happen without boots.
The boots could be Iranian, including unpaid Iranian army guys who figure out the economics are only gonna get worse until the IRGC loses power. That could happen anytime, tho especially after Reps win in the midterms.
The really bad affordability issue is housing, tho with inflation other market prices seem a bit high, but here in Slovakia not too much. Wages for non-college workers have been going up, and investment is way up. Including shipbuilding.
Sadly, the deficit is much worse and interest on the debt is higher than defense spending. Until Dems say deficits are a problem, or in the next crisis, reducing spending is called immoral. The reason Ds think Rs are evil, the immorality of reducing govt spending.
Great that there are many anti fraud programs.
This news has been circulating for a couple of weeks, but it is difficult to get hold of valid statistics apart from the easy stuff. The dark, escorted ships passing the strait are the wild card, and it isn’t like the Navy advertises what is a clandestine operation. The word is that the last series of attacks before the current cool down did a lot to degrade Iranian control. In any case, I think oil prices are probably the most reliable information available to the public. Grok:
WTI crude oil (US benchmark) is trading around $86–$87 per barrel, and Brent crude (global benchmark) around $93 per barrel as of August 20, 2026
Which is significantly higher than it was a year ago, but still under $100, Whatever the situation is, the system has coped so far.
The refinery issue is a problem due to decreased exports from the Mideast and Russia, along with US and European refineries shutting down. I’d like to see more done to increase US capacity.
Iran has claimed that the US is clearing rocks from the southern channel to deepen it. Shrug, who knows? I would think it would be hard to hide that. Reminds me that rocks were cleared from the channel under the Golden Gate bridge for the same reason.
I think America is losing relationships that it has had for generations
Such as? Turkey has been a problem since 2003, they have their eyes on Ottoman glory, Syria was a step in that direction. As Putin’s Russia pines for its old empire, so does Erdogan’s Turkey, and Xi’s China. Western Europe wants to fold and die. We live in interesting times. On the bright side, we are cultivating friends in the Western Hemisphere. At least those not spelled C-A-N-A-D-A or B-R-A-Z-I-L
Given the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons and a potential set of delivery systems:
Thought experiment:
If some (credible) private sector mercenary group (US or non US based) had advertised to the American public that they would remove said nuclear threat upon being paid $200 by each US family making over $30K/year [so some scheme of pay on delivery equivalent], would we have coughed up $200 per family for that peace of mind? [I presume $200 is about the avg yearly cost premium from the Iran war on fuel prices at the pump — then again I don’t use much fuel myself so maybe the real premium number is closer to $600?] Still a bargain for that cohort of people, right?
Department of War controversy, yep that’s another impeachable offense.
He can’t call a spade a spade because that would be a racist dog whistle.
Congress can’t get out of the continuing resolution funding addiction nor get the Senate to pass legislation to make vote fraud inconvenient.
So spare me the drama about President Trump actually doing things (that aren’t fascistic).
Vive
LaLe Trump!Open with threats by groups of two, three, and as little as one, which require policing.
Re: Impeachment – The world may look a heck of a lot different to Senate Republicans a few months from now, and in unpredictable ways. Everybody is going to be acting based on what they think the post-Trump political landscape is going to look like. In 2021, there were 57 votes to remove. It is unlikely, but not inconceivable, that they could get to 67 this time around. The open corruption and self-dealing is just too grotesque, made worse by the tone deaf ego-building. (Have you seen the news about re-naming the in-construction carrier from honoring the African American sailor hero of Pearl Harbor to honoring Trump?). Don’t think 67 votes to remove in a few months is impossible. That’s all I’m saying. (That said, I’ll bet Trump is thanking his lucky stars that he didn’t pick a boring, competent VP like Burgum.)
Re: Iran – We’re well past the point where any reasonably intelligent person can believe a word that Trump says. Watch what he does, not what he says. That said, I acknowledge that there are signs that the blockade might be working. If Trump manages to salvage a good result in Iran, he will deserve all of the credit for doing so.
Who is this “we” that Bauxy is besties with?
Bauxy is….DREAMING…And as the old late 70s song goes “Dreaming is free!”
@ F and om > “Türkiye’s new name.”
Can’t pass up a cue that obvious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XlO39kCQ-8
On the current Israel-Lebanon-talks front:
“IRAN IS VIP BUT DON’T FORGET LEBANON: Secretary of State Marco Rubio certainly hasn’t forgotten Lebanon…. Richard Pollock reveals details behind the barely-noticed special talks launched by Rubio between Israel and the Lebanese government.”—
https://instapundit.com/818153/
Any progress WRT Lebanon would seem fanciful.
OTOH, Erdogan’s recent ratcheting up of the anti-Israel rhetoric—which is already dialed up to 11–might indicate that something could be happening that, from Erdogan’s POV, is important enough to try hard to scuttle.
That Pollock link:
“An Historic Breakthrough Is Occurring In Lebanon;
“Can Ongoing Lebanon-Israeli Talks Strike a Real Blow Against Hezbollah?”—
https://richardpollock.substack.com/p/an-historic-breakthrough-is-occurring
Aesopfan:
Thanks for the song link!
> I really wish he’d shut up more
The problem is that Trump is practicing diplomacy via social media. Whenever he’s talking about Iran, etc., we citizens are not the audience. I don’t think a lot of people realize this, and of course, the Left will go out of their way to deliberately misinterpret this.