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That's not what is happening. China is still getting about 50% of what they were getting, directly from Iran. Western aligned countries are not getting oil through the straits.
It's a more or less selective blockade. Just like the Houthis in the Red Sea, which again the US really struggled to partially reopen...
Assassination has never worked, not once in the entire history of warfare. Nobody fought a war and it was decided by an assassination. That's why we have large militaries instead of ninjas and spies and missiles that would be much cheaper. The Israelis don't seem to appreciate this, they tried assassinations against Hamas for a few years... doesn't work. Hamas is still there, just as before despite considerable effort to destroy them. For some reason they keep trying it and people keep thinking it will work, despite literally no empirical evidence whatsoever and great evidence to the contrary. If assassinations work, then you're really dealing with some kind of gang or a very low-tier organization, not a real country. To destroy Hamas the Israelis needed to invade and conquer Gaza, kill Hamas from the bottom up, not just rain down bombs here and there.
If Iran blew up Trump and Jared and Vance and Hegseth and another 20 four star generals, that wouldn't impair the US a jot. They have plenty more generals, plenty more politicians. It'd be quite embarrassing but the entire army, navy and air force is still there, the nuclear forces remain, the wealth creating industries are there, the energy is there, the population is there, the food is there. The US would not have a civil war because some officials got blown up. Americans would instead double down and lash out aggressively.
To really break America, you'd need to crush the entire US military including the nuclear forces, you have to massacre millions and millions of Americans, bomb out cities, induce famine, starve off energy... And all that can only really be done by a huge nuclear attack or a ground invasion. Same with Iran, albeit scaled down.
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