So Trump is now going to ‘blockade a blockade’? Seriously? Does anyone think that is going to work? I don’t think so is what I wrote at 1945 this week. Please go there for my full argument.

I am not sure Trump even knows how this blockade will work. I guess this idea is that what little traffic does come through the Strait of Hormuz will now be blocked into the Gulf of Oman by the US Navy waiting in front of the India Ocean. Won’t this just lead to exploding gas prices, again? Shortages of helium and fertilizer, again? The stock market crashing, again?

I guess Trump could cut deals with individual countries or even individual ships to let them through our blockade line. That’s the kind of grift Trump excels at. But that is exactly what the Iranians are doing – imposing tolls. We are decrying that as a violation of free navigation. So we can’t do that without looking absurd and hypocritical.

And the questions keep coming: What happens if a country tries to run the blockade? Do we shoot at it? What if it is a big country like China or India? Are we going to imprison their crews? What if it is friendly country? How long would the US Navy have to stay on station to enforce this blockade? Stuff like embargoes and sanctions take a long time to generate big effects, so I could see us staying there for months. Do we have the infrastructure regionally to sustain all that? Isn’t the US Navy already overstretched?

I see this as Trump trying to find some off-ramp which lets him declare victory without invading Iran. The idea is that the US blockade will cause huge global pain which the world will blame on Iran, and that will force Tehran to the table.

I doubt this will work. Iran cares about ideology a lot, and facing down the Great Satan, as they have over the last 6 weeks, is worth the pain. Besides, the whole world already blames Trump for this conflict as an unncessary war of choice. They are more likely to blame this newest American belligerence on Trump yet again.

In the end, Trump can’t win – re-open the strait, definitively denuclearize Iran, and change the regime – without invading on the ground to definitively defeat Iran. I have been arguing that since this war started (here, here, here), and I still think that claim is correct. Airpower, and now seapower, are not enough. So this blockade is yet another desperation manuever to avoid an invasion but not embarassingly TACO.