re: Official US/Israel vs Iran war thread

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Here is a first-hand account of what’s happening right now inside Tehran. What follows describes a city that is no longer functioning normally, but operating under heavy militarization and systemic breakdown.

* Streets filled with Toyota Hilux pickups mounted with DShK machine guns, turning the city into a militarized zone
* Checkpoints across highways and intersections with IRGC, Zainebiyoun, Fatemiyoun, and Hashd al-Shaabi flags, creating traffic paralysis and harassing civilians
* Parks, schools, and mosques occupied by security forces, with suppression units deployed across major junctions
* Government offices barely functioning, staff absent, services abandoned mid-day, and phone response near zero
* Public transport reduced drastically, with buses repurposed for Basij and special units
* Banking system failing, ATMs empty, cash nearly impossible to access
* Schools effectively shut down, universities pushed online without internet or infrastructure
* Civil government sidelined, real control concentrated in IRGC and security institutions
* Propaganda shows “normal life,” but reality is militarization, surveillance, and constant pressure on civilians
* Public sentiment reflects fear of war, but even greater fear of the regime regaining full control

This is not a functioning capital. It is a city under internal occupation

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JUST IN: Oil tanker bound for China reportedly forced to turn around due to the U.S. naval blockade, per ship tracking data.

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Hearing word that the Notice to Mariners issued by CENTCOM will enforced outside the Strait of Hormuz.

All ships in Iranian ports will be subjected to the blockade.

Neutral vessels (non-Iranian ships) will have until 1400 UTC on 13 April to vacate Iranian ports.

After that ships are subject in interception, diversion or capture.

Ships sailing to other nations in the Gulf will be permitted, along with humanitarian shipments, but subject to inspection.

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So how can the United States enforce a maritime blockade of Iran?

- The US will issue a Notice to Mariners announcing the blockade of all Iranian ports along the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman
- The US will identify all ships currently in ports and monitor those heading to Iranian ports.
- They will warn off ships heading to Iranian ports.
- Ships that leave Iranian ports will be identified by the US and monitored.
- Expect the Navy and Marines off the Tripoli ARG to perform vessel seizures in the Gulf of Oman, in a manner similar to the ops against Venezuelan tankers. The seized ships will probably be sailed to Diego Garcia.

NOTE: This is my opinion, based on recent operations, and I have no firm evidence what will happen.

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Yesterday, President Trump announced that peace talks with Iran have broken down, and that effective immediately, the U.S. Navy will blockade the Strait of Hormuz: no one in, no one out. He described the policy as “all or nothing.”
Three weeks ago, I argued that the pundit class was asking the wrong question. It kept demanding to know when the United States would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, as though America’s only job were to restore the old arrangement as quickly as possible and ask no larger questions.
That was the wrong question then, and I said so. It’s painfully obvious now, to Iran if not to the TDS-afflicted Enemedia. Donald Trump is not trying to restore the status quo. He is replacing it, and in the process, reshaping the global order.
The old arrangement was comfortable for everyone except the country paying for it. America provided the Navy. London priced the risk. Europe consumed the oil while pretending Persian Gulf security (or European security, for that matter) was somehow not its problem. China feasted on steeply discounted sanctioned crude from Iran, Russia, and Venezuela. And whenever the system wobbled, Washington was expected to clean up the mess, calm the markets, get the tankers full of foreign oil moving, and then submit to lectures from allies and adversaries alike.
Trump doesn’t think that way. Trump sees what the pundits do not: every day the Strait remains closed, America sells more oil and gas. That’s cash, jobs, and investment in America. It’s also secure oil supply that doesn’t subsidize America’s enemies.
See Also: What if Trump Is In No Hurry to Reopen the Strait of Hormuz?
I told you he was in no hurry to open the Strait. And here we are.
Iran’s Hormuz Gambit Is Backfiring

Most readers hear “Strait of Hormuz” and think in military pictures: mines, missiles, drones, speedboats, destroyers. Those things matter. But they are not the key.
The key is confidence. The key is insurance. The key is whether shipowners, charterers, ports, bankers, and underwriters believe a voyage is commercially viable — insurable. A tanker does not sail because it floats. It sails because somebody will insure it, finance it, charter it, and receive it. Without that, it is not a voyage. It is dead weight.
The Strait did not have to be physically sealed, and indeed, the Iranians were not capable of physically sealing it. Once war-risk coverage is canceled in some zones, narrowed in others, and repriced at panic levels across the rest, the whole chain starts to lock. Banks get cautious. Charterers hesitate. Ports get nervous. Traders rethink routes. Counterparties demand more margin. Voyages that are physically possible become commercially irrational.
That is why so much of the “Iranian toll booth” story was nonsense from the beginning: it simply wasn’t happening. Tehran certainly wanted the world to believe that the regime had succeeded in turning maritime terrorism — piracy — into toll collection. In Pakistan it certainly wanted J.D. Vance to ratify its new claim to be Hormuz’s sovereign regulator.
But in making that attempt it overplayed its hand. Iran has profited mightily for the last half century from its apparent willingness and ability to menace the Strait, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil flows. But making good on the threat showed its limits.
The regime believed Hormuz was a card to be played. In reality, it was a wasting asset. A chokepoint has value only so long as markets organize themselves around it. The moment the chokepoint holder demonstrates that it really is willing to weaponize that position, everyone with money, engineering talent, and strategic sense begins building around it: new routes, new supply chains, new export terminals, new pipeline capacity, new sources of crude.
For decades, the threat gave Iran leverage. The reality destroys it. By trying to prove its power, Iran began liquidating it. And it’s even worse than that. Iran can’t actually close the Strait unless the U.S. Navy stands down. Under Obama and Biden, that would be the most likely outcome. With Trump, that will never, ever happen.
So of course, Trump has called the bluff. Iran imagined it could close Hormuz to all traffic but its own. Trump has now closed it to all traffic whatsoever. And in due time, it will be he, not Tehran, dictating who does and does not pass.
That cuts Iran’s financial jugular. It has no backup plan.
Every Day Hormuz Stays Closed, the U.S. Sells More Oil

This is the part the Enemedia still doesn’t understand, and it’s the heart of Trump’s trap.
Since Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Europe has sent twice as much money to Moscow for energy as to Kiev in aid. Thanks to Trump’s trade deals last year, they’re now buying more from the United States. But they’re still buying from Russia, and they’re making up the difference from the Persian Gulf.
This is no small part of Trump’s annoyance at their unwillingness to support the U.S., not even with combat forces but with minesweepers, escorts for tankers carrying their oil, access to bases America paid for, even simple overflight rights for U.S. planes. Why are we paying to defend Europe’s oil, oil it could have bought from us, if Europe actively obstructs while lecturing and contributing nothing?
Trump is bringing the ongoing redefinition of that relationship to a head in Hormuz.
And Asia is far more dependent on the Gulf than Europe. The more unstable Persian Gulf supply is, the more valuable secure American supply becomes. That means more demand for U.S. crude, more demand for U.S. LNG, more demand for the infrastructure that moves it, insures it, finances it, and exports it. It means cash, jobs, and investment in America. It means more business for American producers, American ports, American pipelines, American refiners, American shipping interests, and American workers.
Trump made that point explicit when he posted on Saturday that “massive numbers of completely empty oil tankers” were heading to the United States to load up with the best and “sweetest” oil and gas in the world.

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“That new operation is really meant to send a global message that America is the one who guarantees freedom of navigation, NOT Iran, NOT militias or anyone else.”

Former Army Special Ops intel analyst Brett Velicovich says this isn’t an old-school blockade — it’s a full modern reset of maritime control.

VELICOVICH: “It isn’t a blockade in the old school sense with battleships lined up.”

“It’s a modern, layered maritime control operation led by the U.S. Navy under U.S. Central Command.”

“You’re talking destroyers, cruisers, carrier strike groups, submarines, surveillance aircraft, drones, all working together to dominate that waterway.”

“When you add in mine sweepers clearing Iranian mines, you’ve got TOTAL control of the environment, surface, sub-surface and air.”

“Execution-wise the mission is simple but powerful.”

“Control the moves, how they move and whether they move at all.”

“The Navy’s going to identify and track, and if necessary interdict vessels attempting to pay Iran or violate sanctions.”

“That doesn’t mean firing first, it means overwhelming presence backed by the ability to act instantly.”

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