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How Trump’s ‘anaconda’ tactics put the squeeze on Iran and China

President Donald Trump has been compared to many historical figures, by opponents (who claim he’s another Adolf Hitler) and by boosters (who cite Andrew Jackson or Teddy Roosevelt). 

With his blockade of Iran, though, maybe we should start comparing him to Gen. Winfield Scott. 

In the mid-19th century, Scott was America’s preeminent military mind, the architect of victory in the Mexican War and the “Grand Old Man of the Army.” 

As the Civil War loomed, he developed a plan to defeat the Confederacy with the smallest number of casualties possible. 

He called it the Anaconda Plan — and like its namesake it was about applying a squeeze, and squeezing hard, until its object was squeezed to death.

Rather than winning a single decisive battle or a series of major confrontations, Scott wanted to cut the Confederacy in two by seizing control of the Mississippi River, while choking off the South’s foreign trade — upon which it was enormously dependent for both money and materiel — with a naval blockade of its Atlantic and Gulf ports. 

Reopen the Strait and quit playing along with Iran’s talk-talk stall

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California gas prices could spike as imported oil supply dries up, industry warns

Scott’s plan had few takers at the........

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