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Time Is No Longer on Iran's Side in the Battle of the Blockades
(Wall Street Journal) Yaroslav Trofimov - The U.S. naval blockade has prevented Iran from shipping any oil from the Persian Gulf since July. At the same time, despite Iranian drone and missile attacks, Washington has been able to assist Gulf Arab states in moving significant amounts of their crude through the waterway, keeping global oil prices from surging above critical levels. Now it is clear that Tehran's move to shut down the Strait of Hormuz didn't trigger a worldwide economic crisis or force President Trump to end the war on Iranian terms. A senior Gulf Arab official said the clock is ticking more for the Iranians because they are under enormous economic strain. The American clock is more about politics and public opinion than economic pain. Norman Roule, who served as the principal U.S. intelligence community official on Iran matters from 2008 to 2017, said, "Those who believe the regime is too strong, too deeply embedded in Iranian society, or too well protected by pervasive domestic security institutions to fail, should recall how similar judgments were once made about Mubarak, Ben Ali, Ceausescu, and even the Soviet Union."