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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   26698 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

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Of all the stupid things Iran has done, this is perhaps the stupidest.

I've heard of no end of third worldists talking out of their asses, gloating about a petroyuan and the imminent fall of American hegemony. To those people, I say: how the hell can a sea mine collect a toll? At least drones and ballistic missiles can be aimed. How does this help the Iranians, who themselves use the strait to commerce their own oil? Any hope of Chinese or European arbitration in the dispute is gone now.

European arbitration

The federal government of Germany is currently offering exactly that to Iran.

It's Iran that declines.

https://www.seatrade-maritime.com/security/iran-says-thai-ship-allowed-to-pass-the-strait-of-hormuz

The Iranians have established a safe passage between the islands of Qeshm and Larak in the straits. Friendly tankers can go through the approved sealane, perhaps after paying a 2 million dollar fee. Unfriendly tankers can be sunk.

I'm begging people to read more deeply about what's going on!

Was there ever a hope of arbitration? I figured China was laughing all the way to the bank.

I’ve heard no third-worldists gloating, for what it’s worth. Maybe that makes me lucky or oblivious. Most of the critics I’ve seen are in the doomsaying mode.

Stupid with respect to what? Of all the criticisms against American hegemony I've seen (and I'm not a big fan of it either), I've 'never' heard the statement you just made from "people talking out of their asses." At any rate, it wasn't Iran that was calling for a ceasefire most recently, it was the US. The media blackout in both countries is in effect and all sides are claiming everything is going well. But from the glimpses of Ritter, Mearsheminer, Wilkerson, Baud, Marandi, MacGregor, Diesen, etc. (people with fairly close connections to things on the ground) it's Israel who's the one really getting it's ass kicked and the US making itself out to be more the fool.

Nothing will create a global multilateral coalition faster than Iran indiscriminately making the strait of Hormuz impassible. You might as well declare war on the entirety of the modern economy. No, the world won't go along with a global depression just to spite the Americans and Israelis. Not even China. Not even Russia. Iran is diplomatically isolated in formal and informal terms and no one is joining them in their last, suicidal gambit. And if all of those intellectuals you've linked don't recognize the fact they're stupid - and wrong.

Iran has effectively already declared war on the entire world. It got most the way there back with the Houthis even.

I struggle to comprehend why the world hasn't already come down on them like a sack of bricks. But at least in Europe it seems our leaders are more interested in milking this for domestic TDS points than considering retaliation as an option. Even in the case of the UK which has been directly attacked by Iran for no identifiable reason. Our state media promotes the idea that Iran has no agency and Iranian attacks on everyone are actually Trump's fault, so maybe this is what Iran is gambling on.

Given a multinational coalition doesn't appear to be forming, Trump asked them and they all said no, and given that the squeeze in Hormuz got Trump to ask for a ceasefire, is it really so stupid? The Iranians calling the shots have a lot more at stake than the US and Israel. If they play this wrong their dead and as of now their government is in an existential state of total war it's the best chance they have. If they make peace without showing they can hurt the US they are dead men walking so why not do the gambit. It's their best shot at not dying from an Israeli airstrike.

The Russian government benefits from high oil prices and has already committed itself for several years now to withstanding economic difficulties in service of a geopolitical objective. I think they're fine with the Strait of Hormuz being completely closed. I suppose the Chinese government might pull some strings with the Russian one to get them to change their minds, but I wouldn't count on it. The Chinese must be getting a lot of schadenfreude from watching their geopolitical opponents seethe over the Strait, especially given that those opponents would rush to try to cut China off from its naval access to overseas oil if a conflict broke out.

The only problem with this logic is that Iran didn’t close the Strait arbitrarily on a whim. There are two primary culprits driving this policy. And ironically, China and Russia can’t afford to let Iran fall because of their own entangled geostrategic interests, in particular with China. International conditions that have shaped up thus far don’t seem to me at all to support the direction your comment makes. People seem to be eyeing other actors as the ones responsible.

I know that the UN is something of a meme in terms of policy, but as signaling in international relations you can't get much higher then that. Take a look for yourself.

https://press.un.org/en/2026/sc16315.doc.htm

I'm not convinced that China or Russia are invested in Iran at all, if they won't even veto on a meaningless condemnation from the GCC toward Iran. Outside of the usual poke-in-the-eye espionage games against America, have Russia or China committed to any military or civilian aid to the Islamic Republic? What are these 'international conditions' you're vaguely posting about?

Who is Iran's great power backer?

Russia had supposedly been shipping (Iranian-design) drones to Iran, at least before Israel sank their (Iran's) Caspian Sea fleet.

You’re definitely right that I don’t take the UN seriously as a policy conductor, so I’m not going to put much weight behind that. They’re about as credible as the ICC’s arrest warrants.

I don’t think that Russia will sacrifice their aims in Ukraine to help Iran, nor do I think China will sacrifice its designs on Taiwan for Iran, but the commitments are real and they are there. Especially when you consider the energy relationship between Iran and China. Maybe Russia can supply some of that gap, but nobody really knows.

What makes you think Iran needs some major power backer at present? They’re doing quite well in this conflict on their own as I already pointed out. The real question is what cards does the US have to play that’ll turn the tide in their favor? It’s not like they abide by the UN charter at all. When you’re the world’s only superpower, you don’t have to because hypocrisy runs the show.

Nothing will create a global multilateral coalition faster than Iran indiscriminately making the strait of Hormuz impassible.

You would think. But they did, and the global response was "fuck you, US, for doing this". Then Europe backed off a little and sent a strongly worded statement asking the strait to be reopened and nothing more.

I doubt anyone seriously expected the Europeans to do anything. But indifference from the international community to the Iranian war is good enough. If China and Russian can't even be bothered to veto the Security Council resolution against them, the Europeans tut-tut, and the GCC is on side - it's just letting the Israelis and Americans do the dirty work.

Russian

This war is massive win for them

Is it? I know oil prices help, but weren't they reliant on Iran for drone parts?

Oil up is a gigantic win for them. Also any amount of sanctions relief is a huge win too.

I do not think they are reliant for drone parts any longer. In 2023? Most certainly. The tech/know how transfer was the real value unlock though. I'm pretty sure the Russians were recently shipping the Iranian drones via the Caspian Sea until Israel blew up the boat(s).

The other big win, and this is a huge win for China too, is interceptors. Every patriot missile that blows up in the Gulf or over Tel-Aviv is one less Patriot missile that can defend Taiwan or Kiyv. Interceptor production rates are so, so low. And the impending western shortage of them means that Ukraine won't be getting any freebies for a while.

I think there are arguments on both sides for this being a win for Russia and China vs. loss, but we aren't going to know until well after the fact.

If Iran collapses that's a loss for instance. Sources in the military are saying that part of our posture is to show off assets to Russia and China, if China does not invade Taiwan because of this misadventure we may not find out about it until decades later.

On the other hand if they go now it becomes a bit more obvious it was an own goal.

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If the GCC acted at all like the Europeans, the Iranian strategy of "if we're attacked, we'll shoot at anyone we can reach" probably would have worked a lot better. The Gulf states would be expelling us, embargoing oil, cozying up to Iran, etc.

Russia of course is happy because less oil through the strait = more oil sales for them.

You would think. But they did, and the global response was "fuck you, US, for doing this"

Why would you think that, and why should the global response be anything else? I get the "American hyper-agency syndrome" argument when it comes to the war in Ukraine, but it wears a little thin when we're talking about easily predictable retaliation in a war you started.

I shoot at you. In retaliation, you throw a grenade into a crowd. I knew you had the grenade... who is responsible for the grenade damage?

In other words, yes, this is still American hyper-agency syndrome.

If I have to shoot through a crowd of people to defend myself…

Iran did not actually have to shoot through a crowd. It's not as if missiles damage everything they fly over. So this analogy is way too favourable to the actual actions.

Aside from being a bad example in a horrific and now-overturned Supreme Court decision, the reason yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is bad is that the people who hear the cry do not have the time for deliberation of their next action. The cry convinces them that there is an emergency and they must act to leave immediately.

No such situation existed in Iran. The bombing of their facilities by the US did not cause an emergency for which the reflexive action was to send missiles and drones at uninvolved countries.

You are. You provoked a psycho (threatened his life, really) who in turn became hyper aggressive. The psycho is also responsible, but you absolutely carry part of the blame. This was a predictable result of your actions, and you did nothing to mitigate the harm you knew (or should have known) would occur.

Your position denies agency to the "psycho", and in doing so makes hostage-taking a perfectly reasonable strategy.

If you hadn't stopped reading after the first sentence, you'd find that he did no such thing.

No. Both have agency. And the bystanders are correct to blame both the instigator and the culprit.

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I shoot at you. In retaliation, you throw a grenade into a crowd. I knew you had the grenade... who is responsible for the grenade damage?

If you shoot at me from far outside my reach, and the only people I can reach to hit back are some of your friends who happen to be very economically important to you, then yeah, you're the one responsible for your friends getting hit. Your crying about them being attacked is roughly equivalent to hypothetical Iranian crying that you parked your forces out of range, or are using stealth tech.

Indeed. If you’re someone who’s upholding aggressive and hostile behavior of a party you’re on good terms with, then I believe we call that one “aiding and abetting.” You’re a legitimate target. It’s like a manipulative mother holding her baby in her arms at the same time she’s physically abusing her husband and egging him on to fight back. And then when he tries to defend himself, guess who’s the abuser trying to play the victim?

Iran did not accidentally hit bystanders. In this analogy what Iran did was ignore the mother then deliberately take the baby out the crib to dropkick it.

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If you shoot at me from far outside my reach, and the only people I can reach to hit back are some of your friends who happen to be very economically important to you,

It is worth pointing out that in case the "friends" are also holding the gun, helping you reload the gun and hosting a bunch of your employees who help aim and fire the gun.

No, they were not. That's kinda the point; Iran fired at those who were and those who were not.

I've heard of no end of third worldists talking out of their asses, gloating about a petroyuan and the imminent fall of American hegemony

I've noticed that this is a pretty common sentiment among the college students near me. I don't get it. Do they genuinely think that a world where normalizing blockades of international shipping is one that they would actually want to live in? I like being able to afford food, and generally dislike freezing to death in the winter. What's driving the disconnect between them and me? It honestly feels like pure nihilism.

They don't care about blockades of international shipping. The petrodollar has been has been a boogieman of the far left for decades they are just happy to see one of their demons slain or wishcast it bein slain. The same way goldbug libertarians don't care what would happen to the economy if we switched to the gold standard.

Regardless I don't think this is normalizing anything. This blockage only happened because the US started a war and assassinated most of the Iranian leadership. It's not just a blockade for kicks. If the US did the same to Egypt or Singapore I'd imagine they'd react similarly and close their straits but as long as we don't do that I don't see any reason to worry. If anything the US blockade of Cuba sets a much worse precedent for what you fear. Iran did what they said they'd do if they were attacked, close the straights, it would have been the easiest thing in the world to avoid by simply not attacking them.

I don't get it. Do they genuinely think that a world where normalizing blockades of international shipping is one that they would actually want to live in?

If it (1) allows them to feel morally superior; and (2) harms their outgroup, then I would guess "yes," in the sense that they might choose such a world. They might regret such a choice later, though.

I've seen it first hand and I don't think it's Nihilism so much as a particular interpretation of Rawlsian Ethics that is almost a reductio ad absurdum.

My impression of is that they have this idea "Equality" that functionally boils down to "equal outcomes" which sounds nice in theory but it leads them to this weird theory of "Justice" where in the morality (or "Justness") of any act or actor is largely if not entirely determined by power differential. This idea of "Punching up" which is is a fundamentally noble act versus "Punching down" which is a fundamentally ignoble act.

Because the goal is equality, they feel they must simultaneously moderate "the strong" while elevating "the weak". Which again sounds nice in theory, and might even appear somewhat workable in a staid collegiate setting but it leads to deeply perverse positions when applied outside the classroom. Positions like;

  • Because society is immensely strong compared to any individual drug addict. Any action taken by society (ie Law Enforcement) against that addict must be presumed unjust.

and

  • Because Israel is immensely strong compared to HAMAS, and the US is immensely strong compared to Iran. Any action taken by the US or Israel against their respective opponent must be presumed unjust, while any action taken against the US or Israel must be presumed just and noble.

This can be demonstrated untrue by asking those you think hold to this belief system their opinion on Nazi Germany in 1945. Unsurprisingly, no, they do not flip to liking the Nazis once the Nazis are being unambiguously punched down upon. They just like Hamas and like Iran.

See my reply to @MayorofOysterville. Also, Rawls' Theory of Justice wasn't published until 1971, 26 years after Nazi Germany surrendered.

Does Rawls propose a statute of limitations on morality?

I am also talking about those affluent liberals. They do not believe what you claim they do, because they don't support the Nazi underdogs you imply they would.

No. Rawls does not propose a statute of limitations on morality, but it is kind of silly of you to expect people to be familiar with his work more than two decades before it was published.

I am asking what they would think of the Nazis in 1945 in retrospect, because most of them do have retrospective opinions on the Nazis still.

I really don't think you are modeling this correctly. The far left was still pro-Palestine when the Arabs were stronger than Israel. As a result of Soviet propaganda, and principles of national liberation. The original PLO and Palestinian cause was much more secular, much more leftist and inline with many other "national liberation" groups that the far left liked. The far left in general doesn't like Hamas and in in group discussions frequently blames Israel for creating Hamas and "tainting" the Palestinian cause.

Israel is also just in the far lefts outgroup in fact it's one of the most hated outgroups they have. Just like in the original I can tolerate anything but the outgroup they can tolerate Hamas even if they don't love them but have a burning hatred of Israel. It's not a function of power dynamics if the Palestinians somehow came out on top and actually did drive the Jews into the sea they wouldn't flip sides because Israel is inherently evil and tainted for them.

I'm talking specifically about the sort of affluent liberal who attends a George Floyd or Free Palestine rally, and the posters here who are acting like the current conflict with Iran hasn't been decades in the making. People like Alex.

Not historical Soviets nor Soviet sympathizers.

Affluent liberals who attend such things want all sorts of people punished many of them weaker. And while they aren't Soviet sympathizers the chain of transmission of their support for Palestine comes from a 70s milieu who were Soviet sympathizers. Also affluent liberals are pretty divided about Israel-Palestine. It's their children who are hardcore anti-Israel.

I really doubt that they think so, but I suppose I haven’t seen the sentiment firsthand.

I would posit that you could get the average college student to cheer for mass killings if President Trump spoke out against them. Countersignaling is cheap.

The sentiment is that the future is going to be, at best, pointless and at worst, bad anyway. So anything that causes an upheaval and bloodies the nose of the groups they dislike is good.

"If it bleeds it leads." William Randolph Hearst understood this.

They have the same attitude as Iran -- that America is the Great Satan and the source of all evil, and so anything that weakens it is good.

Everyone was cheering when Israel infiltrated a consumer electronics supply chain to plant hidden explosives inside batteries. That is actually pushing the boundaries of normalized warfare. Blockades when you are at war has long been normalized. The US has been blockading Venezuela and Cuba international shipping without any sort of war.

I like being able to afford food, and generally dislike freezing to death in the winter.

Me too, but rather than bemoan the predictable consequences of an aggressive war it's more productive to contend with the apparatus that brought the world to this state.

Everyone was cheering when Israel infiltrated a consumer electronics supply chain to plant hidden explosives inside batteries. That is actually pushing the boundaries of normalized warfare.

Did anyone not in Hezbollah get a pager with explosives in it?

If you define Hezbollah as, “the entire Shia population of Lebanon,” then probably not. If you define Hezbollah as, “people engaging in or directly supporting militant operations,” then yes, a whole lot of innocent people got exploding pagers.

I have no idea how this didn’t kill the export market for Israeli electronics. For all we know, Mossad has the capability to kill anyone anywhere in the world with an Israeli-made chip in their car at any time.

Mossad has deviously sabotaged Intel's 10nm and 7nm processes, forcing Windows laptop manufacturers to rely on Israeli-made chips - when overloaded with excess wattage - to reach temperatures high enough to detonate the lithium ion batteries within. That's why real warriors of the Ummah use AMD and ARM.

There were reports of collateral victims, yes but that hardly matters. Planting hidden explosives in the consumer supply chain is normalized terrorism, so I don't really want to see people act shocked that Iran is projecting power over its Strait, literally the most normal and predictable wartime maneuverer ever.

I don’t love the term “terrorism” here since the electronics were clearly aimed at military targets and not civilians. No one calls it terrorism when you bomb an army base but some collateral damage kills civilians too. Terrorism I think by definition is causing civilian harm to change politics.

I don’t love the term “terrorism” here since the electronics were clearly aimed at military targets and not civilians. No one calls it terrorism when you bomb an army base but some collateral damage kills civilians too. Terrorism I think by definition is causing civilian harm to change politics.

I agree, but the basic playbook is (1) identify conduct which is perceived as being reprehensible; (2) falsely accuse Israel of doing it. Thus, the false accusations of "genocide," "apartheid," "terrorism," etc.

Israel obviously did genocide when the State was founded. And some elements of apartheid seem obviously true. Those it’s fine to say might makes right. I sort of believe segregation is good.

Israel obviously did genocide when the State was founded

It's not obvious to me. Would you mind defining "genocide" for purposes of this discussion?

And some elements of apartheid seem obviously true.

Similar question: What is "apartheid" and what are the elements?

I have found that in these types of discussions, Israel's critics tend to use a lot of loaded words and phrases such as "apartheid," "genocide," "Palestinian land," etc.

However I have found that these people are extremely reluctant to actually define these words and phrases. And the reason seems pretty obvious to me. There's no principled way to define these words and phrases such that (1) they yield the desired conclusion regarding Israel; while (2) they DON'T reach an undesired conclusion regarding large numbers of other countries/groups.

But perhaps this exchange will be different. So . . . .

  1. You claim that Israel "obviously did genocide when the State was founded" What do you mean by "genocide"?

  2. You claim that Israel has "some elements of apartheid" What do you mean by "apartheid" and what elements are you referring to?

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Genocide or ethnic cleansing?

No one calls it terrorism when you bomb an army base but some collateral damage kills civilians too.

American authorities have done this regularly since at least the 1983 Beirut bombing, through the attack on the Cole, and the Kabul bombing just a few years back. Maybe their definition is slightly more consistent if you expected uniforms while doing combat actions, but "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" isn't completely wrong either.

So if a mail bomb is sent to some IDF recruit by Hezbhollah to blow up inside his house then that's not terrorism because it's a military target?

It's not the target that is exceptional here, it's the clandestine appropriation of a consumer supply chain as a weapon. That is actually unprecedented, it's a method of warfare that fundamentally erodes global trust in economic trade and cooperation, it is far more unusual than a blockade of a Strait in the middle of an existential war. As to the semantics, feel free to not call it terrorism if it makes you feel better, even though you would call it that if/when bombs are set off inside the homes of Israeli or US troops.

Spitting in the food in the back kitchen isn't such an enormous taboo because of the direct consequences, but because none of us want to live in a world where that is remotely acceptable behavior, we want to trust our food has been handled properly and not question it when we sit down to eat. But people here defending the planting of hidden explosives in consumer goods can't seem to wrap their minds around those consequences. Why is Hezbollah such a dangerous enemy Israel has to normalize spitting in the food as a method of warfare?

So if a mail bomb is sent to some IDF recruit by Hezbhollah to blow up inside his house then that's not terrorism because it's a military target?

If Hezbollah were genuinely targeting a specific soldier, I wouldn't call that terrorism, especially if Hezbollah had the option of destroying the entire neighborhood the soldier lived in but instead decided to use a mail bomb. I would object for other reasons, but I wouldn't call it terrorism.

As far as blockades go, I agree that the rules of war do not have a general prohibition on naval blockades. However, I recall the following:

(1) A blockade must be directed at enemy territory, as distinguished from a blockade of the high seas or of an international waterway. Thus, if the Iranian Navy blockaded the Port of San Diego, this would arguably conform to the rules of war. But I doubt that blockading the Strait of Hormuz would conform.

(2) The blockading state must not play favorites, i.e. the blockade must be enforced against all states, friendly or not.

I'm not an expert, but it looks to me like this is an illegal blockade. Of course I am open to being corrected.

Sorry, I don't believe you. If you had hundreds of bombs going off inside houses, bedrooms, with kids around, in grocery stores, churches, everyone would call it terrorism if the tables were turned.

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Targeted killing of enemy combatants is not terrorism. Simple as.

The US has been blockading Venezuela and Cuba international shipping without any sort of war.

Are either of these strictly a "blockade"? The Cuba embargo is strictly rules on US businesses in (most, but not all) industries doing business with Cuba. Other countries' ships and planes can and do go in and out there. The closest to a blockade proper was the Cuban Missile Crisis, but that's quite a long time ago now.

There were some seized ships going to Venezuela recently, but those were nominally illegally-flagged vessels ("shadow fleet") in international waters. I don't think correctly-flagged vessels saw any disruption.

Blockades aren't unheard of in hot warfare, though.

Cuba is facing essentially a full-country blackout from three months of US oil blockades...

In early January, the US cut off Cuba’s main oil supplier, Venezuela, after capturing its president in a military raid and forcing its acting government to halt shipments.

Weeks later, Cuba lost oil supply from other providers, such as Mexico, after the US threatened them with additional tariffs, arguing that Havana posed an “extraordinary threat” by aligning itself with “hostile countries and malign actors, (and) hosting their military and intelligence capabilities,” a claim that Cuba rejected.

If by oil blockade you mean 'no longer receiving it for free from Venezuela', then I suppose there is a global oil blockade on everyone. Cuba is the world's worst sovereign in paying back its debts: even North Korea has to play nice with China and Russia on occasion. It's like a bankrupt whining about a 'loan blockade' after defaulting on credit cards several times.

Cuba could very easily buy oil from Venezuela or Mexico. They just choose not to, because their government wants to pocket the American dollars for themselves.

I'm sorry, can we just cut the bullshit? The US kidnaps the leader of Venezuela and then forbids them from shipping oil to Cuba. Then it strongarms Mexico into stopping oil shipments to Cuba. No matter how you try to rationalize this, it is certainly not more normal than Iran's restrictions on the Strait.

Iran is fighting an asymmetric war for its survival. The only two possibilities were ever immediate surrender or blockading the Strait. Most likely the Friday timing of the attack on Iran was intended to wrap up the war before the markets even opened by Monday in the best case scenario. But I find it hard to tolerate people complaining about Iran acting in a way that's unprecedented or unpredictable, when it's neither of those things. If Iran wants to survive, blockading the Strait and threatening regional infrastructure are things it must do. And no I do not like it, which is why I was strongly opposed to this war and want it to end.

All of this was extremely predictable. The question people should be asking is not why Iran is doing what it is doing, but why we were led here by our own leaders walking directly into extremely predictable consequences. There is no good answer for that.

It took me a moment to find the article, but the Americans have no formal oil embargo on Cuba from Venezuela.

It's not a rationalization: it's an objective fact, and you are the one who is full of shit. You're a third worldist who is upset that a communist nation is not getting free gibs. The fact the Cuban economy cannot afford oil imports at market rates is a result of their mismanagement, corruption, and incompetence. Mexico can quite easily sell to Venezuela at below-market rates. Why don't they?

Is because, I don't know, they want to make money, and not give away gibs?

@SecureSignals is many things, but "third worldist," probably not. To figure out why he cares about Cuba and what his position is, you need to ask how Jews are involved.

That said, namecalling and telling people they are full of shit is over the line.

The fact the Cuban economy cannot afford oil imports at market rates is a result of their mismanagement, corruption, and incompetence.

Cuban hyper-agency! Do you think that US sanctions played any role in this state of affairs?

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The fact the Cuban economy cannot afford oil imports at market rates

Well and the fact the world's hegemon makes "wouldn't it be a shame if someone kneecapped your economy with tariffs if you sold oil to Cuba" noises whenever someone (Mexico) considers selling oil to Cuba at market rates.

https://amp.dw.com/en/cuba-hit-by-island-wide-blackout-amid-trump-oil-blockade/a-76385816

There is no Venezuelan oil going to Cuba; Mexico is being threatened with tariffs for sending oil to Cuba; Cuba has not received any oil in three months. The article you’re posting is talking about a hypothetical deal to be reached in the future with Cuba. No such deal has been enacted.

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Iran doesn't have a formal oil embargo on the Strait either! You can cross, good luck getting insured, might want to reconsider it unless you pay IRGC $2 mil. But no formal oil embargo, for all that's worth.

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Do they genuinely think that a world where normalizing blockades of international shipping is one that they would actually want to live in?

The answer to your question is No, because the answer to the first 4 words of your question is also No.

What's driving the disconnect between them and me?

An inability to actually model the world. They are so sheltered that they cannot conceive of a lack of material abundance being available. It's too abstract for them. The world is too complex for them.

how the hell can a sea mine collect a toll?

You mine the area except for a narrow safe passage that you can control with your military -- currently that means passing between Qeshm and Larak Island and then hugging the Iranian coast near Bandar Abbas. Anyone who doesn't pay the toll either hits a mine or gets boarded and/or blown up by your military.

This doesn't work so well for Iran if they lose control of the coastline and islands, however, which I suspect is going to happen in the next few weeks.

Note that the few ships traveling through the strait are currently using a small area near the Iranian coastline.

I have strong suspicions that the non Iranian ships doing so have made "donations" to appropriate Iranian parties for safe passage.

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Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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