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So you want to leave it to the US to piss off the Chinese and hurt the Japs, Koreans and the Indians and raise the price of oil on the world stage again to hurt the Iranians while they control the straits but selectively so and retaining the ability to shut off all shipping through the straits to anyone? Sounds like they retain greater leverage in that deal.

Controlling Kharg controls the flow of Iranian oil but does not necessarily control them or the straits. Cutting off oil to their customers may bother the Iranians but it causes their customers to put pressure and rightful blame on us. Maybe that does not matter to some but I think it should.

Truth is, the straits should have been an international free trade zone controlled by a consortium of interested countries decades ago. Instead the most affected nations kicked the can down the road and we, the US, have consistently stepped in to take care of them like the magnanimous Daddy Warbucks chumps we are. Now, for the first time in decades we would not have gas lines if we did nothing but the price of fuel would go up. Too bad we are a nation spoiled to believe that the Real cost of fuel should be going down against inflation instead of flat or slightly increasing.

Since we have kicked the hornet’s nest over and protected the world from Iranian nuclear ambitions for a bit, and I think justifiably so, why don’t we just leave and let the interested parties work things out? Let the people who need to sell and buy Persian Gulf products work things out with Hormuz and create that international trade zone by making or enforcing an agreement? At this point defeating Iran to control that area can’t be too hard for them.

I’m no strategist like you so this surely is a bad set of thoughts. It is a shame we can’t all be brilliant and approach your excellence. We should probably just go ahead and take Kharg Island and commit ourselves to a long term operation of protecting it and adjudicating the dispersal of iranian oil to the buyers while they continue to control the Straights of Hormuz. As you say, that solution is a no brainer.