The gathering storm over the Strait of Hormuz carries with it unmistakable historical resonance. When the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) begins to threaten tariffs, or more bluntly, coercive tolls, on oil tankers navigating one of the world’s most vital maritime arteries, it evokes troubling parallels with the 1956 Suez Crisis. Then, as now, a strategic chokepoint became the focal point of geopolitical brinkmanship, miscalculation, and the dangerous illusion of control. Yet history rarely repeats itself neatly. Today’s Iran is not Nasser’s Egypt. It is a regime battered from within and without, its leadership decapitated, its command structures degraded, and its ideological authority increasingly hollow. And still, like a wounded animal, it lashes out.

The IRGC’s threats over Hormuz are less a demonstration of strength than a signal of desperation. For decades, the regime has relied on asymmetric leverage, mines, fast attack craft and proxy militias to offset its conventional military weaknesses. Now, with much of its senior leadership reportedly eliminated and its domestic security wings, the Basij, in particular, under sustained pressure, Tehran is reverting to its most familiar playbook, disrupting global oil flows, raising the economic cost of confrontation, and hoping that international resolve fractures under the strain.

But this time, the context is radically different. The Islamic Republic is no longer facing a distant adversary reluctant to engage. It is confronting a convergence of forces encompassing external military pressure, internal dissent, and the growing organization of its most determined opposition. Reports that Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) Resistance Units are coalescing into what is being described as an “Army of Liberation” will send tremors through what........

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