U.S. Resumes Direct Strikes Inside Iran to Thwart IRGC Minelaying in Strait of Hormuz

Maritime chess over Hormuz echoes the 1987-88 “Tanker War,” when U.S. Operation Earnest Will re-flagged Kuwaiti tankers and struck Iranian assets after minelaying incidents—then too, civilian shipping became leverage in a larger geopolitical struggle. Today’s strikes fit a longer arc: since the 2003 Iraq invasion the U.S. has increasingly used stand-off air power and sanctions, cycling between economic siege and ‘limited’ kinetic jabs without a formal war vote, while Iran’s Revolutionary Guard employs asymmetric tools—drones, mines, proxy fires—to raise the cost of U.S. presence. Control of chokepoints has shaped global order since the British choke on the Suez in 1882; but energy diversification and alternative pipelines (e.g., UAE’s 2012 Habshan-Fujairah route) may, within decades, blunt Hormuz’s strategic value—as even Treasury Secretary Bessent predicted a “worthless piece of water” within two years. Whether that proves hyperbole or foresight, the 2026 flare-up signals how declining U.S. weapons stockpiles and domestic election cycles now interact with a century-old contest over sea lanes, reminding us that great-power influence often wanes gradually, through expensive policing of places the global economy may ultimately bypass.