Secretary Hegseth on the Strait of Hormuz: DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT
March 13th, 2026There’s a disconnect between what U.S. leadership is saying and what’s happening on the ground, or, more accurately, on the water around Iran.
U.S. military strategists still aren’t fully comprehending the paradigm changing impact of unmanned systems. They, mistakenly, thought that destroying Iran’s traditional naval capacity would be enough to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.
Hegseth keeps repeating statistics about the destruction of Iran’s conventional military forces, but it’s Iran’s asymmetric capabilities that are the problem.
Try attacking a puff of smoke with a katana and see how that goes. If you’re Hegseth, you would boast about how sharp your sword is.
Iran can use small, cheap unmanned weapons, which they might have stockpiled by the thousands, to attack commercial vessels from dug in positions along hundreds of miles of coastline in the Persian Gulf.
Deployment of U.S. Marine amphibious units indicates that an Oh Shit scenario has materialized.
For the people who planned this thing, this is the realization that they rolled the dice and lost on any easy End Game. They were hoping that there would be some sort of popular uprising in Iran and ________ (fill in the blank with whatever fantasy world outcome you want because it doesn’t matter now). They were so confident, in fact, that they didn’t deploy the amphibious ready groups to the region as a contingency.
And now, as Sal Mercogliano states below:
“If you can’t risk a Navy destroyer into the Strait of Hormuz, why would you go on a LNG carrier, basically a floating bomb, into this region and think that you’re good to go?”
After oil markets closed for the weekend, The United States destroyed military targets on Iran’s main oil hub of Kharg Island:
The United States on Friday destroyed military targets on Iran’s main oil hub of Kharg Island, President Donald Trump said, threatening to strike its oil infrastructure if Iran continues attacks that have halted most ship traffic in the Strait of ?Hormuz.
The island serves as the export terminal for 90% of Iran’s oil shipments. In a social media post, Trump wrote the U.S. military “totally obliterated every MILITARY target” on Kharg while leaving oil infrastructure intact.
“However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision,” Trump wrote, a warning that could further roil markets already dealing with what the International Energy Agency has called the biggest oil supply disruption in history.
Iran had no ability to defend against U.S. attacks, the president added. “Iran’s Military, and all others involved with this Terrorist Regime, would be wise to lay down their arms, and save what’s left of their country, which isn’t much!” he said.
We have Trump, held in a joint lock by Israel over his activities with Jeffrey Epstein and who knows what else, engaged in a game of chicken with what amounts to a maniac death cult known as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
If neither side flinches…
There are already massively inflated fuel and fertilizer prices. Thousands of flights have been cancelled. Higher food prices are already on the way, regardless of what happens.
Petrochemical exports from Iran, Iraq, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman are mostly or totally disrupted. Saudi Arabia is still able to export some oil through the Red Sea via their East West pipeline.
By my simple arithmetic, the emergency IEA release will postpone a deeper decent into chaos by about 19 days. Grok guesses 20 days. Perplexity guesses 24 days.
I don’t see how this gets turned around in that short of a period of time.
If the Iranians are determined to keep attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz and the throughout the Person Gulf, as they already have, it’s hard to see how that could be stopped.
Keeping in mind the hundreds of miles of Iranian coastline, let’s focus on two statistics from the Wikipedia page for Iran’s Shahed attack drone:
Number built: Unknown
Operational range: 2,500 km
In other words, Iran likely has the capability to disrupt shipping in the Persian Gulf for an extended period of time.
If the war continues, my guess is that governments around the world will begin ramping up emergency measures within 20 to 30 days.
Via: What’s Going on With Shipping?:
We’re being primed for food shortages, fuel rationing (still winter here, I drove through a blizzard last night here in N Ireland), medical supplies shortages, and of course, conscription for a bigger war that follows later.
I would happily relocate to remote mountains and bunker down for the next 5 years until this blows over.