Blockade in Force at the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s Straight Flush

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by MARK POWELL

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Coming up with an answer to the question “what’s going on in Iran?” has become something of a moving target lately.

To use modern relationship lingo, “it’s complicated.” It’s also perplexing, mystifying, and difficult to predict. Let’s start with what we know for sure.

As you read these words, the U.S. Navy is blockading both Iranian ports and parts of the Strait of Hormuz, the vital and extremely narrow (24 miles wide at its slimmest point) waterway through which up to 20% of the world’s petroleum supply passes.

Food, agricultural fertilizers, and other critically important products are also transported via the Strait.

The warship-enforced closure came after settlement talks among the U.S., Iran, and Pakistan broke down on Sunday. The sticking point was America’s demand that Iran freeze uranium enrichment for 20 years. The team from Tehran balked at that, countering with a term “in the low single digits,” according to one source. And that, as the old saying goes, was all she wrote. Vice president JD Vance – the leader of the American delegation – hopped on a plane and jetted back to Washington, D.C.

Actually, the entire delegation left Islamabad. At which point President Donald Trump effectively placed a “closed to through traffic” sign on the strategic Strait. Just before noon today (April 13, 2026), two supertankers were spotted making U-turns and heading away from the blockade zone.

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For its part, Iran believes it’s holding a straight flush with the Strait of Hormuz. Oil exports are the butter on the Islamic Republic’s bread – and its leader obviously believe economic pressures resulting from the blockade will eventually force foreign powers to come to its aid.

Make no mistake: the stakes couldn’t get much higher for the global economy. The oil chief for the United Arab Emirates calls stopping traffic on the Strait “a direct threat to the energy, food, and health security of every nation.”

Think affordability in general and gasoline prices in particular are bad now? If the crisis cuts the world’s petroleum supply to a trickle, as the showbiz world says, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

Incidentally, West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark for U.S. oil, was back above $100 a barrel again on Monday, bouncing between $103 to $104 (meaning don’t look for a break at the pump any time soon).

For his part, Trump insists a deal remains possible.

“They’d like to make a deal,” he said on Monday, adding, ‘very badly, very badly.”

He also said the lines of communication between the two sides remained open. Indeed, negotiators from Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey are said to be frantically working behind the scenes, trying to find something salvageable. 

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Tehran is still talking tough, though, an act the theocratic regime has honed into an art form over the past half-century. It warned today it would retaliate for any blockade, calling it illegal and branding it a form of piracy. In fact, Iran vowed no port in the entire Gulf region would be safe from attacks if water traffic is impeded. Which, according to observers, it has been.

Meanwhile, as all this is unfolding, the two-week cease-fire that Trump initiated exactly one week ago – and that Iran swiftly agreed to – is now at the halfway point. The U.S. still maintains a massive arsenal of firepower, backed up by a large contingent of troops, in the area in a buildup that’s costing Uncle Sam millions of dollars every day to sustain.

And so, a tense standoff continues. Although the possibility of nuclear annihilation is missing this time, the situation is still eerily summary to October 1962, when the U.S. imposed a naval quarantine of Cuba to prevent the shipment of additional Soviet missiles to the communist island. The U.S. and U.S.S.R. stood, in Cold War terminology, “eyeball to eyeball” with each side waiting for the other to blink first.

Something akin to that appears to be going on right now in the contested waters of that narrow passageway that feeds the world’s incessant thirst for gas, diesel, and oil. And for this moment, at least, neither seems the least bit interested in closing its eyelids first. 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…

J. Mark Powell is an award-winning former TV journalist, government communications veteran, and a political consultant. He is also an author and an avid Civil War enthusiast. Got a tip or a story idea for Mark? Email him at mark@fitsnews.com.

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