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One month into his war on Iran, U.S. President Donald Trump is now scrambling to secure something that was not previously insecure—the Strait of Hormuz—turning it into the central thrust of the war’s uncertain endgame.

Iran, or more specifically its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has taken effective control of the world’s most important shipping lane and choke point, through which normally passes one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas as well as even more of its fertilizer and helium. 

One month into his war on Iran, U.S. President Donald Trump is now scrambling to secure something that was not previously insecure—the Strait of Hormuz—turning it into the central thrust of the war’s uncertain endgame.

Iran, or more specifically its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has taken effective control of the world’s most important shipping lane and choke point, through which normally passes one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas as well as even more of its fertilizer and helium. 

Iran has threatened for decades to close the strait, and U.S. war planners have spent decades preparing for just that—and yet it is effectively closed. Tanker transits during the entire month of March don’t add up to what used to pass through each day. Oil prices climbed again early on Thursday, reaching more than $107 a barrel as the accumulated impact of millions of barrels of lost crude shipments start to be felt by a global economy that burns more than 100 million barrels of the stuff every day.

What’s interesting about Iran’s chokehold on Hormuz is how different it is from the paralysis that the Iran-backed Houthis inflicted on shipping........

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