Why is it so hard to open the Strait of Hormuz?

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Trump faces challenges on Strait of Hormuz

President Trump’s return to a U.S. military blockade on Iranian ports this week marked another dead end in his bid to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Experts say that fully reopening the waterway will take more than a few dozen warships and the current wave of strikes.

“This insinuation that we’re just a couple more days of strikes away from completely removing Iran’s capability to keep the strait closed is completely a fallacy,” according to Jason Campbell, a former Pentagon official now with the Middle East Institute.

“The reality is that if you wanted to militarily open the Strait of Hormuz such that … the shipping companies — and as important, the insurance companies that cover them … deem this safe for passage, it would take a major ground operation with tens of thousands of forces,” he told The Hill.

Bryan Clark, a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute think tank, told The Hill that in a simulated war game done by the Hudson Institute prior to the conflict, analysts found that the U.S. military would need to utilize combat air patrols over the area to shoot down........

© The Hill