Let’s be honest. Iran has US President Donald Trump in a headlock over the Strait of Hormuz. The White House is fighting to reopen a waterway that wasn’t closed before the conflict started. But Tehran risks overplaying its hand: If it continues to squeeze, it will lose strategic leverage — not immediately, but over the next five years or so as its neighbors build more bypass routes.
Don’t take my word for it. Listen to what Iranian officials say themselves. “The strait is valuable while the traffic through it increases day by day, not when it decreases,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Iranian parliament speaker and top negotiator, told state television earlier this month. “We must not turn the strait against itself.”
