The Blockade of Iran Begins || Apr. 15, 2026

Reminds me of the scene from the dark knight where the two boats are next to each other with bombs on board.

I would really like to see what happens if a Chinese flagged ship tries to run the blockade and is subsequently boarded and taken over by US military personnel. Would be interesting to see china's reaction. Maybe cease all exports of rare earth minerals to US? Is that on a BINGO card anywhere?

Irrespective of what the blockade achieves or not, even if Iran should yield and allow traffic to flow unimpeded, 47 and his admin will lash out elsewhere. Hurt others and the American people. Even if it’s “only MAGA wallets” and they approve of the policy. The American people overwhelmingly do not appreciate higher prices or spending a billion dollars a day. The people have allowed themselves to lose control of their government. The uncomfortable consequences of that with a dangerously declined liar as executive in the country with reserve currency status and the largest military in the world as well as the largest prison system, is self evidently bad. The clean up of this choice to loose the executive will be painful and take decades.

Won’t this make global energy prices even worse?

Aren’t Iran’s eastern neighbours in the middle of their own little war?

An important question re: any sea blockade of Iran: How self-sufficient is Iran in terms of food? Usually in any discussion of world trade or local trade Peter addresses food sufficiency. That point is missing in his recent discussions.

There are indeed road routes into Iran from Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, albeit they're not great. Just over the Pakistani border, China has a port at Gwadar. There is also shipment across the Caspian Sea from Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, or Russia. And, of course, for high-value cargo, China could fly supplies in. The US could in theory monitor for such shipments using satellite coverage and turn back or destroy the conveyances at the border of Iran, if willing to tangle with the countries behind those shipments.

Dropping some leading Wall Street Research here as a working theory on the end-game. It comes from a place that if there is a plan this may be it... So trying to not spin any brainpower on intraday semantics of SoH ship passage / Iran Cease-fire extension / Lebanon cease-firm too (?) -tweets, and simply focusing on the “Long-Game” of the Trump Admin’s strategic intent / coersion by blunt force for R.O.W. to “Decouple” from China… Even outside of ongoing forays with Canada, Cuba, Greenland yada yada yada, the “actuals / tangibles” of the “China Long-Game Decoupling” are rather obvious…and maaaaaybe--just maybe--that’s perversely helping move us to a “better place” than the chronic “Worst-Case Scenario” dooming that had been priced-into prior expectations?!: · 1) Venny regime swap / China Energy disruption; · 2) Iran / SoH then sequenced thereafter as further pressure point escalation, which NYT then reported led to the Chinese pressure on Iran to get to the table on the ceasefire talks in the first place over a week ago, as the Energy / Petrochem cutoff pain was increasing; · 3) this week’s new U.S. Defense / Security arrangement with Indonesia and the implicit impact on the Strait of Malacca (which actually sees signficantly more $notional trade AND Oil pass through it than SoH) as “THE” primary artery for global commerce which is yet another shot across the bow explicit signal to turn the screws on China; · 4) Bessent’s comments yday that the World “Cannot take” China with $1 Trillion Surpluses; · 5) Trump now this morning making it even more obvious by framing his Truth Social post regarding SoH around China and his upcoming Xi meeting (“China is very happy that I am permanently opening the Strait of Hormuz. I am doing it for them… President Xi will give me a big, fat, hug when I get there in a few weeks. We are working together smartly, and very well! Doesn’t that beat fighting??? BUT REMEMBER, we are very good at fighting, if we have to - far better than anyone else!!!”

Interestingly, the first ships stopped (2 tankers) were exiting the port of Chabahar, not the Persian Gulf. So the U.S. Navy is in fact blockading the entire Iranian coast (though not entering the Gulf to do it).

If Iran copies Ukrainian sea drone technology/designs then as blockade ships need to be close to the coast we could see the sinking of US destroyers for the first time since WWII. Orange Man would not be in a good position then.

Which (how many) militant groups in the USA are being supported by Iran?

There goes the cease fire. I expect one of the blockade ships being hit.

Not so fast, Mr. Ziehan: "Donald Trump has declared the Strait of Hormuz 'permanently open' after secret talks with Xi Jinping, claiming the Chinese leader had agreed to stop arming Iran. The President made the announcement Wednesday on Truth Social, adding that Xi would give him 'a big, fat, hug' at an upcoming meeting." https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15735567/Trump-declares-Strait-Hormuz-permanently-open-just-hours-imposing-Iran-blockade-China-intervenes-want-it.html Huh? It sort of sounds like Trump has thrown away all of his aces to appease Xi for a promise not to send weapons to Iran, which China said they wouldn't do, but certainly would, and certainly will still do when the heat goes down. Where the Iranians come in is entirely unknown, such as will THEY open the strait, too? (I doubt it. ) Basically, this sounds like one of the lamest, stupidest, most incompetent decisions even made in foreign diplomacy. But maybe I just don't know how 4D* chess is played. (*The fourth dimension being the Twilight Zone, of course.)

I still don’t understand why we attacked Iran in the first place. Where was the dirt threat?

Did trump just taco on the blockade? His tweet 1 hour ago says he is opening the strait?

Not sure it's going to hurt the guys in power. They've been running things for 40 years. Having a couple of bad months won't be much more than an annoyance. It takes years for economic pressure to work. If this causes civil unrest, and even better unrest among the lower, unpaid ranks of the IRGC, this might bring the regime back to the negotiating table.

"Even a broken clock is right twice a day." It's the other 22 hours we have to worry about.

Will the US be able to stop the Chinese sending arms to Iran by ship? That would lead to more conflict for the US than Trump is willing to engage in and widen the war even more. WWIII ?

Maybe to cause disruptions to Iranian land border supply chain, groups like Baloch separatists or Pakistani Taliban could be utilized. I remember one among these has already attached and looted Chinese cargo before. Especially useful for them if what is being shipped is drone parts instead of Bluetooth enabled vibrators 😃

I'm pretty confident that we're going to see boots on ground before too long, unfortunately. I hope I'm wrong, but lately everything I hope isn't going to happen tends to happen.

Well, not sure if that is true or not, but seems Chinese are passing through with no issues and controls.

Watching this administration come up with a concept of a plan in real time has got to be one of the most frustrating and expensive “learning moments” This feels a lot like the winter war where Finland performed much better than anyone could have possibly expected, but through sheer mass alone will likely still lose the conflict. But in the case of the United States, it’s not that the military has to learn something… It’s that the political leadership has to learn how to use the military.

Now that we seem to be no longer concerned with global oil prices, since we've decided to blockade Iran's oil, does anyone have any idea how long it takes to rebuild the docking structures of an oil transport terminal, not the tanks or the pumps, just the docking structures? No need to blockade Iran's oil if they can't get in on the tankers. Am I wrong?

If Peter Zeihan wants to continue branding himself as a top-tier geopolitical expert rather than just another macro-political YouTuber, he must provide a granular analysis of the following operational realities. A blockade is not merely a 'naval positioning' exercise; it is a complex hybrid operation. ​1. The Mechanics of the Shadow Fleet & Maritime Interdiction Zeihan needs to explain how the US Navy plans to counter the Iranian Shadow Fleet’s sophisticated evasion tactics. ​Tactics: How will the current US naval assets in the region address AIS spoofing, 'dark' sailings, and Ship-to-Ship (STS) transfers occurring in third-party waters (e.g., off the coast of Fujairah or Southeast Asian hubs)? ​Feasibility: Does the US currently have enough littoral assets and boarding teams to inspect thousands of suspected vessels without triggering a massive environmental disaster or an asymmetric escalation from the IRGC’s swarm boats and sea mines? ​2. The Financial 'Black Box' & Non-Physical Blockade A physical blockade is useless if the financial architecture remains intact. Zeihan must clarify: ​Shadow Banking: How can the US paralyze the IRGC’s reliance on the 'Sarrafi' (exchange house) system and front companies in jurisdictions like Hong Kong or the UAE that settle trades in non-dollar currencies? ​Digital & Global Cooperation: Beyond ships, what specific cyber-financial measures or secondary sanctions against maritime insurers and ship registries are required to truly 'zero out' the revenue? ​Without mapping out these financial nodes and the extra-territorial legal measures needed to paralyze them, this 'blockade' talk remains a 20th-century solution to a 21st-century hybrid problem. We need more than just maps; we need the math on how to dismantle the IRGC’s non-SWIFT ledger.

I feel the USA slipping into another quagmire. Also, I feel that the American people have no stomach for another forever war. Already, the USA is trying to politically triangulate military action rather than go all Attila the Hun to win. Somebody a lot smarter than me might know a way out of this with some sort of dignity. But I don't.

The obvious result is that Iran starts shooting at ships that pass without Iran permission, including U.S. military ships. The U.S. would be required to put a large number of military vessels in harms way to escort any appreciable number of ships. It’s seems the US strategy is to keep US ships out of the “kill box” of the Strait and blockade the entrance/exit. Thus this will end up as a total closure of the Strait. Who can last that out the longest? Iran or the angry world and US consumer in a busted up economy?

Have we tried Metamucil?

Houthis can attack shipping in the Red Sea, Iran can attack the east - west pipeline, Iran can attack any or all it's neighbour's oil fields, Iran can still attack any vessel not paying it's toll. That's without China or India or Pakistan deciding to escort it's ships out of the Strait