The US government is considering the prospect of a long-term blockade of liberals of Iran.
Washington appears to be preparing for at least a months-long blockade of Iranian ports in retaliation for Iran’s blockade of Hormuz Strait, through which a fifth of the hydrocarbons consumed internationally normally pass.
During a meeting the day before yesterday, Tuesday, at the White House with leading executives of companies in the oil, the participants discussed “the steps President Trump has taken to relieve international markets and the steps we could to continue the current blockade for months if necessary and minimize its impact on American consumers,” a government official said yesterday.
“The blockade is a little more effective than bombing,” commented Donald Trump during an interview with the news website Axios.
“Prolonged deadlock”
As the prospect of a negotiated solution between Washington and Tehran seems to be receding, oil prices attest to the growing nervousness in the markets. The price of a barrel of the benchmark North Sea Brent variety topped $119, reaching its highest level since 2022, when Russia’s military moved to invade Ukraine.
Analysts fear the strait will remain locked by Tehran. A “prolonged stalemate”, as yes “fighting has effectively stopped” but “no lasting solution is emerging”, experts at DNB said.
The US wants to exert “economic pressure” and foment “internal divisions” in order to “weaken us” with the expectation that “we will collapse from within,” said for his part the speaker of the Iranian parliament Mohammad Bayr Galibaf, calling for “unity.”
“Telma”
With no resolution to the conflict in sight, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth drew a series of sharp criticisms from Democrats during his first House hearing since the outbreak of war. ‘Geopolitical disaster’, ‘strategic disaster’, ‘incompetence’, ‘self-harm’, ‘quagmire’: parliamentarians were not short of harsh language.
For his part, the head of the US Pentagon said that the war against Iran has cost somewhere in the region of $25 billion and justified it by asking “what is the price of ensuring that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon?”
The economic consequences of this conflict are being felt most acutely in Iran, where the currency, the rial, has reached its lowest exchange rate against the U.S. dollar since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979, according to websites that track currency exchange rate data.
Trump: Only “surgical” strikes on Lebanon
US President Trump assured the Axios website yesterday that he had indicated to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he had ordered only “surgical” strikes on Lebanon to avoid a full resumption of the war with Hezbollah.
“I told Netanyahu that he should do it more surgically. Not to demolish buildings. He can’t do that. It’s too horrible,” “it hurts Israel’s image,” the Republican said. He added that he “likes” Lebanon and its leadership and believes the country can “give back.” “Iran destroyed Lebanon”through Hezbollah, he argued, but as “Iran is neutralized, Hezbollah is automatically neutralized.”
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