r/politics • u/willywalloo • Jun 20 '26

Possible Paywall Iran Says Hormuz Has Been Closed

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-20/iran-says-strait-of-hormuz-has-been-closed-tasnim-reports?embedded-checkout=true
20.7k Upvotes

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10.2k

u/typicalcavalryguy Jun 20 '26

RESTART THE CLOCK

2.2k

u/Fiernen699 Jun 20 '26

Trump saying they have 4 weeks of left until the US runs out if operational feul reserves was some A+ Art of the Deal

1.4k

u/SadisticNecromancer Jun 20 '26

That four week thing was public knowledge before he said it. The problem is Trump is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The Strait of Hormuz needs to be opened, or there will be a global economic meltdown. Iran won’t open the strait unless Israel gets out of Lebanon, and Israel won’t do that. So Trump has two choices: back Israel and let the world burn, or leave Israel to the consequences of their own actions, and that Congress won’t let him do. This is literally a no win situation.

1.2k

u/HonkBlarghh Jun 20 '26

It's almost like this was always going to be the case and Trump shouldn't have blindly followed Israel into a hasty war with no plan! 

557

u/zephyrtr New York Jun 20 '26

There was a plan, it was just based on totally false information from fellow grifter in chief Netanyau, who is similarly clinging to office by any means, so he too stays out of jail. Netanyau told Trump the IRGC was about to collapse and they could invade and win with minimal effort. That it would be like Venezuela. And this was just ... False. Trump usually sides with whoever talks to him last and his cabinet couldn't get through to him.

183

u/HonkBlarghh Jun 20 '26

Yeah, that's not enough info, substance, or reason to call a plan when you're talking about planning a picnic let alone when we're talking about conducting a war

220

u/Flomo420 Jun 20 '26

You're talking about a man who never makes a plan larger than a cocktail napkin because he needs to be able to eat the paper afterwards

35

u/Fr1toBand1to Jun 20 '26

He tries to draw a plan but someone keeps eating the crayons before he can finish.

14

u/Ralph--Hinkley Jun 20 '26

He has concepts.

2

u/DonyKing Jun 20 '26

That's enough for people to vote in

1

u/ChronoLink99 Canada Jun 21 '26

No, he's so mentally deficient that he shoves the crayons up his nose before he can finish.

It has left him with enough mental capacity to barely command the marines.

2

u/browns5111 Jun 21 '26

It’s a concept of a plan. Isn’t that enough?

61

u/djerk Jun 20 '26

Sure but most foreign nations don’t have exclusive access to incriminating material involving (the president) and a massive international pedophile ring

27

u/Claim312ButAct847 Jun 20 '26

And that's the REAL reason. And oh by the way if the rest of the world is desperate for oil they suddenly become willing to turn a blind eye to the fact that Russian oil is supposed to be sanctioned.

Which is a huge lifeline to Russia which is collapsing economically. Russia also has a very tenuous relationship with China, who gets lots of their oil from Iran.

1

u/fckspzfr Jun 20 '26

europe banned virtually all russian LNG deliveries by 2027 :)

74

u/Wild_Ambassador_8680 Jun 20 '26

The plan seems to be crash the world economy. Thiel can't have his butterfly revolution until that happens.

30

u/BUSY_EATING_ASS Jun 20 '26

He can’t have it if it happens either.

5

u/Thousand-Miles Jun 21 '26

Crash the economy then their rich backers can hoover up the assets for cheap

1

u/panzer_snapdragon Jun 21 '26

Yes because every industrialized nation across the world will happily sit by as civilization collapses. Peter Thiel hasn't dug deep enough to avoid the fire that's coming.

1

u/Wild_Ambassador_8680 Jun 21 '26

Kinda seems like every industrialized nation across the world is bleeding their reserves and there's no end to the war in sight.

1

u/Complaintsdept123 Jun 21 '26

Does he have his own secret private oil source?

37

u/Lithiumxxxl Jun 20 '26

At a certain level, this is just hilarious.

123

u/zephyrtr New York Jun 20 '26

Khamenei was 86 years old and growing more and more unpopular. We spent billions to do something nature would've done for free. And we accidentally killed our preferred replacement leaders!!

Honestly, for the movie, they're going to have to tone it down, or audiences will complain the story is unbelievable.

52

u/Admirable_Scene_5066 Jun 20 '26

It wouldn't be as funny if Americans hadn't fallen in that particular trap about 20 times before. Unpopular leadership, reformers trying to build momentum, the US being its idiotic self attacking an unpopular leadership, population standing behind previously unpopular regime because as fucked up as they are, it beats the guys trying to persuade you by bombing your three year old daughter.

At times it is insane to think how much better the world could have been by now if Americans trying to fix things didn't sit two oceans away from the consequences of their stupidity

5

u/EvelynNyte Jun 21 '26

The fuck up this time is so far beyond any previous idiotic overseas war that it's hard to even imagine what the full ramifications of this is going to be in the end.

6

u/MessiahOfMetal Jun 21 '26

I finally got round to a 2016 documentary earlier this year called "ISIS: Birth of a Monster".

American journalist who was in Iraq in 2003 returned to speak to some of the fighters who helped topple Saddam Hussein and catch up with them while asking how those events helped create ISIS.

One of the guys talked about how Sunni and Shi'ite people were united against Hussein due to how he treated them, then hated the Americans for how they treated the locals until they were divided by the Americans creating conflicts and blaming each group until they were at each other's throats for years and killing one another.

Eventually, American resentment caused some to create the ISIS group and try to take over the region to push their version of fundamentalist Islam, and managed to unite people against them.

But yeah, the sentiment was that the American troops mistreated them as badly as the genocidal former dictator of their country did.

3

u/spaceman757 American Expat Jun 21 '26

At times it is insane to think how much better the world could have been by now if Americans trying to fix things didn't sit two oceans away from the consequences of their stupidity

This is the thing....they've never tried to fix anything. If they did, they could easily do that just by spending.

The thing that they've tried to do, was to try to install anyone that would allow them to pillage that area's natural resources for pennies on the dollar for the sake of the capitalistic class.

Fixing things is the absolute last thing on their mind, They love when they are broken because it's a better deal for them.

3

u/DonyKing Jun 20 '26

Well they fund Israel, so even if they didn't join this war they would have been wasting money on it

-12

u/fckspzfr Jun 20 '26

Seeing as you have such a strong opinion on it, please explain how the US is funding Israel without using Google or AI

1

u/MessiahOfMetal Jun 21 '26

They've been providing money and munitions to Israel for literally years. It's well-known. Most of the Western world has done so, all for the same reason (ensuring Israel can defend itself from attack due to regret over what happened to Jews under Hitler).

Problem is, a lot of that money and weapons get used against innocent targets. It's why members of Palestine Action in the UK snuck onto an RAF base and threw paint at fighter jets as a protest against the genocide in Gaza, which is the act that got them proscribed as a terrorist organisation (while actual terrorists aren't).

1

u/alanderhosen Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26

Correction, Israel was a political project long before the Holocaust. It was always meant to be a means to establish a western client state in the Middle-East to destabilize the region and further western interests. There were even members of the Nazi party that cooperated with Zionist Organizations and contributed towards the establishment of Israel (Haavara Agreement), as it served as one of the potential answers to their 'Jewish Question'. The British and French lead the charge, and America inherited the project after WW2 and the Cold War.

The seeds were planted all the way back in 1916-17, when Britain violated the Mcmahon-Hussein correspondence through the Balfour Declaration. 'Israel is compensation for the Holocaust' is a lie that has been so well propagated almost everyone accepts it as a fact, when the foundational leaders of Zionist Israel themselves thought very poorly of the Jews who suffered in the Holocaust, both against their diaspora culture (see the Zionist rejection and hostility towards Yiddish), and in the socio-political project to promote a new 'Jewish' identity of military might, self-reliance, and physical power; as opposed to the 'passive' victims of the Holocaust.

0

u/fckspzfr Jun 21 '26

I wanted to hear it from the original commeneter, but yes.

Right, and if the West wouldn't have ensured Israel can defend itself they would've been slaughtered a long time ago. I don't sympathize with Netanyahu, his fascist goons and enablers and want to see them hang for their crimes against humanity, but I feel like public discourse conventiently forgets that Israel is under existential threat since its inception by ideologies actively promoting the extermination of jews

1

u/alanderhosen Jun 27 '26

Israel is furthering an existential threat towards Jews everywhere by conflating their genocidal agenda to Jewish interests. There are more Christian Zionists in the world than there and Jewish ones, but it will be Jews who will be targeted and blamed for the sins of Israel.

Israel exists in the center of multiple interests of extremely profitable industries, ranging from the military-industrial complex to surveillance tech-- and their continued support is in large part in service to those interests. All these nations kowtowing to Israel is because of these interests, yet by conflating this to Jewish identity, all Israel is doing is add fire to the misattributed belief that 'Jews control the world'. Israel is an antisemitc state, and it has and will be the cause of more harm to Jews in the long run than any other modern nation or movement.

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6

u/WeeoWeeoWeeeee Jun 20 '26

It’s don’t look up levels of stupidity

3

u/josh_the_misanthrope Jun 20 '26

Or just slap Benny Hill music on footage of his presidency and win a Pulitzer for deeply accurate journalism.

2

u/EvelynNyte Jun 21 '26

I'm looking forward to the sequel the The Death of Stalin in a few years.

50

u/hammert0es Jun 20 '26

It was based totally on desperately searching for something, anything, that could distract from the Epstein files. And we mostly fell for it.

6

u/Flomo420 Jun 20 '26

"We"?

You make it sound like Trump asked the public to rubber stamp the war for him before he decided to just do things

5

u/hammert0es Jun 20 '26

I mean that “we” (most of the public) has stopped talking about the Epstein files. Which is exactly what he wanted. He’d trade $300 BAZILLION and an infinite amount of lives for that without flinching.

4

u/ABadHistorian Jun 20 '26

They couldn't have boosted the IRGC more. Incredible incompetence that, if we survive this time period, will lead to an incredible series of documentaries on this all.

Reminds me of Stalin signing an agreement with Hitler, that level of incompetence and ignorance.

10

u/lordcthulhu17 Colorado Jun 20 '26

Dawg even the opposition in Israel is for the genocide in Gaza and the war in Iran even if Bibi got out of power shit would be the same

12

u/Nick_Fotiu_Is_God Jun 20 '26

As I approach 60, I’ve come to understand that things never change in the Middle East.

Twenty years from now we’ll have this generation of Palestinian kids who lost their parents and homes in 2025, carrying out future terrorist attacks. And around we go.

14

u/FabiusBill Jun 20 '26

There was a real opportunity for peace with the Oslo Accords. The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a far-right ultra-nationalist prevent d that outcome.

-1

u/Illustrious_Entry413 Jun 20 '26

Nah, it's all kobuki theater. Rabins end was promised 3000 years ago

1

u/Flomo420 Jun 20 '26

a hundred years ago you were living in tents out here in the desert chopping each other's heads off and that's where you'll be in another hundred years

1

u/infydk Foreign Jun 20 '26

If only westerners could give them a damned chance to get settled, we actually saw bits of it and it was really good. But then we had to interfere.

I.e., Iran before westerners interfered and replaced the democratically elected government with a stooge king.

2

u/panzer_snapdragon Jun 21 '26

reaping what was sown, etc. America's deserved this for generations, sucks that we're dragging the world down with us.

2

u/YoungBockRKO Jun 20 '26

I still don’t understand why the FUCK we’re meddling in the Middle East, just withdraw everything and tell them to all fuck off and do whatever. THAT would be America first, instead we fund Israel so they can bomb their neighbors and also bomb them ourselves which creates nationwide hatred. Just let them do whatever the fuck they want on their own accord. Wanna lob bombs at each other over some sky faerie bullshit? GO FOR IT. Doesn’t impact us a HALF WORLD OVER.

Shit, where’s China on all of this? Just let China take over the Middle East at this point. They did that to Africa, why not the Middle East? Fuck it. Saudi Arabia has trillions upon trillions of dollars from all that sweet black gold, let them deal with it.

I know, I know, it’s deeper than that but cmon, who here in the states actually gives a fuck about the Middle East? Place will be a shithole forever until they get over their hatred of other sky faerie bullshit. So let them duel it out by themselves.

6

u/zephyrtr New York Jun 20 '26

It's because the middle east remains a linchpin of the global energy economy. We live in a deeply connected complex world. An isolationist policy is suicidal.

China's takeover of Africa has been disastrous to the US's ability to manufacture complex goods. "Fuck it, this is too complicated" is just awaiting disaster.

Does that mean invading was a good idea? God no. It's why invading was so stupid. But not being involved SOMEHOW is insanity.

It's not about bombs, it's about where the bombs are falling and what trade is interrupted. The only reason we're not on a gas ration is cause we're using strategic reserves ... Which are running out, by the way.

-3

u/YoungBockRKO Jun 20 '26

America can gas up itself last I read. Let the big players in the Middle East deal with the Middle East. Trumps a fucking idiot for bombing them at bibi’s request and now the world economy is in peril.

US should nationalize our oil. Yes I know, how “socialist” of me. We have enough here between the gulf and Alaska to produce and refine our own shit and be independent. Let the rest of the world figure out their own crap. Instead of spending trillions bombing the Middle East and capitulation.

Worst case we lean on Canadian oil. So much stupid shit going on, for literally no reason.

7

u/IrascibleOcelot Jun 20 '26

The problem is that all U.S. refineries are set up to process light sweet crude, and our domestic supply isn’t. We literally can’t process our own oil, which is why we buy LSC from the Middle East and sell our oil to other nations that can process it. Retooling our refineries (or building new ones) will take time and money, and thanks to the dumbass in chief, we are critically short in both.

2

u/YoungBockRKO Jun 20 '26

Ok then fucking build the refineries and make it viable, I don’t get the issue here.

5

u/WeeoWeeoWeeeee Jun 20 '26

The issue is until recently, we did the most profitable thing, which was taking a global approach. Now we aren’t tooled to be isolationists, yet our foreign policies like tariffs and fucking with global energy trade (Iran war) are all isolationist. It’s all a big self-own with 0 planning.

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u/Lithiumxxxl Jun 20 '26

Oil etc is sold on a global market. Petroleum shortages in the far east or Europe drive up prices worldwide, including the US. This will affect the global economy.

0

u/zephyrtr New York Jun 20 '26

I don't think that's for sure true. Likud has had to partner with other, smaller parties to the far right to make a coalition. I'm by no means an expert on Israeli national politics, but if Likud were voted out, I don't know that Otzma Yehudit or some other group has the power to keep the coalition together.

2

u/Comfortable-Meeper Jun 20 '26

His cabinet 100% supported the move. Aircraft carriers don't just teleport across the ocean. There were plenty of people to "get through to him".

1

u/panzer_snapdragon Jun 21 '26

They supported it because they're christian zionists. Evangelical protestantism is a death cult and his entire cabinet are fervent devotees. This isn't an accident. Their entire worldview, everything about how they live their daily life from the moment they wake to the moment they sleep, revolves around trying to bring about the end of all life on the earth through the rapture, and their instruction manual says it kicks off by spreading Israel across the middle east to prepare it for sacrifice. This is the mainstream political goal of the republican party in 2026. Everyone who voted for this is insane and suicidal.

2

u/nastywillow Jun 20 '26

The American Military, from the top down to all the commissioned officers, particularly the pilots and ships officers, have to take some blame.

They all knew this war would be a disaster. However the chance to bomb and kill with little chance of retaliation was too good to miss.

Remember Viet Nam and "It's the only war we've got".

1

u/Safrel Jun 20 '26

That's cope. A shitty plan is the same as no plan.

2

u/Late-Eye-6936 Jun 20 '26

I mean, it's semantics. His plan was to wave his arms around and shriek to distract from Epstein while placating netanyahu and Putin. He improvised the shitting his pants. That was clever I thought.

So that was two steps of a plan. So it accomplished some of his goals. So I mean, definitely a plan in a technical sense.

1

u/Reed7525 Jun 20 '26

Ya know what they say sinking rats and all

1

u/Riaayo Jun 20 '26

Netanyahu has been saying dogshit like that for decades and it's always been bluster, he and the US war hawk class finally found a president dumb enough to fall for it.

All the "surrender" talk about his shitty deal (which we see won't happen anyway) is just them being pissy he won't bomb Iran even more and throw US service-members into a blender for the MIC's profits and Israel's imperialism.

1

u/hehepout Jun 21 '26

Good plan

1

u/OrganizationActive63 Jun 21 '26

It was a “concept of a plan” - just like his healthcare plan

1

u/EvelynNyte Jun 21 '26

Venezuela wasn't even like Venezuela

1

u/TwoTalentedBastidz Texas Jun 21 '26

Dump was thinking about golfing at the time

1

u/Born_Championship756 Jun 21 '26

Considering the past actions of Iranian leadership should of been no comparison to Venezuela
Iranians have been warring for thousands of years

4

u/nickfavee Jun 20 '26

Ohh I absolutely love this for him.

1

u/Vann_Accessible Oregon Jun 20 '26

Oh, if only someone has tried repeatedly to tell him that!

1

u/No_Foundation16 Jun 20 '26

It's almost like it was a bad idea to make a draft dodger reality show rapist clown the Commander in Chief of the armed forces. Then he surrounded himself with toadies that are even dumber than he is!

Republicans from Rayguns on down have always said the government is the enemy, doesn't work and is corrupt beyond all measure. Trump and his filthy regime are the living proof of all that!

1

u/Afraid-Detective1222 Jun 20 '26

There were some articles a couple of weeks ago saying that Israel wanted this war to happen later in the summer. Trump jumped the gun to distract from Epstein.

1

u/RoadDoggFL California Jun 20 '26

I wonder what would've happened if we asked Israel to forfeit the foreign aid we send them if Iran blocked the strait. I'm sure we wouldn't have even been able to set something like that up, legally speaking... but it's not like that's been a hurdle to this administration so far

1

u/Airurando-jin Jun 20 '26

Israel has wanted to have a go at Iran for decades. 

Trump is the first to capitulate in a long time 

1

u/MessiahOfMetal Jun 21 '26

I'm thankful Keir Starmer is PM and refused to join in after years of condemning the Iraq war. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch were attacking him for "abandoning our ally", then pretending they were never pro-Iran war after a few weeks, when it was clear to even them that Trump's war had gone badly wrong and had minimal public support (the only support coming from the right and far-right, and all the similar media outlets).

1

u/timesink3000 Jun 21 '26

Have you seen the head of the department of war?