When the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran four weeks ago, the goals were to topple the Iranian government, destroy the country’s military, security, and nuclear capabilities, and diminish its influence in the region by cutting off its support for proxy forces. On March 9th, President Trump said that the war would be over “pretty quickly.” But the Trump Administration underestimated Iran’s ability and determination to fight back, wreak chaos outside its borders, and unleash economic pain worldwide.
Now the war has turned into a race to stabilize the rapidly deteriorating global economic order, central to which is reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has effectively shut down the narrow body of water through which a fifth of the world’s supply of oil and natural gas flows. It wasn’t a surprise: U.S. military planners have, for decades, mapped this out as a likely scenario in the event of war with Iran. “The longer the strait remains blocked, the greater the chance of lasting harm to the global economy, and the greater the risks for Trump politically,” Sudarsan Raghavan writes. Read the full story: t.co/aVL8Bzr8y9