Now we're thinking Iran will surrender because of this blockade? The mullahs couldn't give a rip about the lives of the Iranian people; they've proven that time and time again. All they care about is what any dictatorship cares about, which is staying in power. And they can bear far more pain than we will.

The mullahs aren't going anywhere. Sure, we may have eliminated much of their conventional capabilities, but all you need is one or two mines or drones to take down a tanker and no amount of our naval presence will restart the flow of oil.

Also, it occurred to me that one's position on this whole insanity would depend on whether you actually believe that Iran would launch a nuclear first strike. The mullahs aren't stupid; they haven't controlled a 90-million-person country for 47 years by being stupid. They know that a single nuclear detonation would result in the conversion of their entire country into radioactive dust particles.

All the "Death to America" nonsense is pablum designed to keep their population's anger focused externally. Now, of course, a nuclear Iran would be a fairly awful development, which is why I supported last year's strikes on their enrichment facilities. But our administration has dramatically misjudged how this war would play out, because we fired the intelligent, sane people in the room and brought in TV personalities to run Cabinet departments. (I'm not even talking about Trump).

But the current situation? Let's do a before and after comparison.
Before: Iran didn't control the Strait of Hormuz. Now: they effectively do.

Before: they had an 86 year old leader, with a very shaky regime, and the potential of more moderate successors waiting in the wings. Now: we have a much younger and probably crazier leader, and have refocused many Iranian's anger towards their government, onto us instead. (That happens when you kill enough kids, even though I believe it was an accident -- that's irrelevant).

Before: our Gulf allies had relative stability with very little actual threat from Islamic fundamentalists. Now: the image of peace and prosperity projected by the Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait etc has been shattered. The grand bargains those countries have made with their citizens, while they haven't unraveled yet, are absolutely in danger if this war isn't brought to a swift end.

Before: oil and LNG producing infrastructure in the Persian Gulf hadn't been destroyed since Gulf War 1. Now: not only are energy supplies considerably constrained, the production capabilities have been seriously affected (see; Qatar LNG).

For those who think this will be over quickly and the world will just go back to what it was six weeks ago ... I envy your optimism. I would also encourage you to do some reading on how energy markets actually work, and how and where various fuel types are actually manufactured.

Some of the assumptions I've read from people who think that since the US is allegedly energy independent (spoiler alert: we're not), we shouldn't be affected too much, or that a 20% cut in oil supply should equal only a 20% price increase... It's literally like if a passenger walked into your flight deck and asked if we could take off on one engine, because we would just takeoff half as fast, right? You'd do a facepalm, which is what I do when I read some of the energy-related diatribes on here...