American Dime, Persian Mosaic—And A Fleet Of Mosquitoes In The Hormuz Blues |
There are wars that fit neatly into textbooks.
Then there is this one.
A conflict where aircraft carriers escort oil tankers while economists track insurance premiums like battlefield indicators. Where ceasefires collapse over weekends and diplomacy resumes by Monday afternoon. Where the world’s most advanced military alliance chases speedboats through Hormuz while television scholars continue calling it “strategic signalling.”
At times, this conflict resembles a game of chicken. Then hide and seek. Then cat and mouse. Then all three together, drifting between oil terminals, Telegram channels and satellite imagery.
For years, Iran experts like Vali Nasr have reminded us that the Islamic Republic is fundamentally a rational actor pursuing a coherent grand strategy. Yet this same state enriches uranium beyond agreed limits while insisting Khamenei’s fatwa prohibits nuclear weapons. It attacks Gulf infrastructure while denying involvement. Apparently, this too is part of the grand strategy.
The reality is simpler. The Iranian system shows extraordinary resilience. It survives sanctions, assassinations, protests, economic collapse and isolation. But surviving another day is not always the same thing as possessing a rational long-term strategy. Especially if your strategy involves threatening the same Gulf geography through which your own economy breathes.
As the old Urdu line goes:
Sanam hum to doobey hain, tumhein bhi le doobain ge.
(Beloved, I may drown — but I will drag you down with me.)
That, in many ways, becomes the unofficial Hormuz doctrine of the IRGC. If America or Israel attacks Iran, Tehran’s answer is to threaten neighbouring Gulf states and hold global trade hostage through Hormuz.
The irony is that the principal sufferers are not even the Americans. It is the Gulf producers. It is Europe. It is China, Japan and South Korea. Trump, meanwhile, keeps telling his MAGA base that ships continue docking safely at American ports while everybody else panics over tanker insurance premiums.
Modern nuclear diplomacy increasingly resembles customer service routed through Islamabad
Modern nuclear diplomacy increasingly resembles customer service routed through Islamabad
Then comes the diplomacy. Or rather, the endless diplomacy.
First 15 American points. Then 10 Iranian points. Then 14 American points again. Reviews. Clarifications. Updated drafts. One-page memorandum. And now this latest Iranian response effectively collapses every expectation that a deal is finally taking shape.
Over a month ago, when things finally narrowed after the ceasefire, the famous........