“If it works, it’s not great for the US. And if it doesn’t work, it’s also not great for the US.”

That’s what Jeff Colgan, a political science professor and director of the Climate Solutions Lab at the Watson Institute for Public and International Affairs at Brown University, told me last week about the US naval blockade on Iranian ports.

The Trump administration’s stated intention was to stop Iran from profiting off the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. At the time, Iran’s government only allowed its own ships, and those of some of its allies, safe transit in the waterway. Iran was also reportedly charging tolls for at least some other ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway in the Persian Gulf through which approximately 20 percent of global crude oil and natural gas flowed........

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