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Notes -
Iran declares Strait of Hormuz completely open to commercial ships during Israel- Lebanon ceasefire, but US naval blockade stays in place
Still no significant movement on the maritime trackers. Ships are still grouped at the anchorages on both sides of the Strait. But Trump says Iran is working with the US to remove them. If Trump offers sanctions reliefs and ends the US blockade (which I doubt) in exchange for giving up their nuclear program and ceasing support for proxies against Israel, maybe this war could end quickly and we can return to pre-war status quo by the end of the year.
This is as close to a win-win situation as we can get. For Israel, there's a weaker defeated Iran in the region without means to develop nuclear weapons quickly, and for Iran, they get to survive and have access to sustenance funds. Trump can also claim some victory points for his base.
All of this is of course assuming Trump is being truthful and wants to end the war that he started. There's so much we don't understand or know behind the scenes.
Seems that Iran has closed the strait again, because the US blocked their ships.
To be honest, seems fair. A blockade is an act of war. A ceasefire where one side blocks economic activity while the other does not seems unbalanced. If Trump or Iran had merely blocked weapon systems from passing through the strait, that would be different.
'Again' implies that they had stopped closing the strait to regional traffic.
Aside from some high-visibility propoganda passages, the open commercial data of, say, Iraqi trade does not show any such unblocking.
Why NaN, I wasn't expecting a defense of the Trump's blockade from you of all people. Normally I'd have expected a pithy 'but Trump said the strait was open!' to deny the Iranian role in blocking the economic activity they weren't letting pass.
The strait wasn't closed until Iran had multiple leaders assassinated. Now we could say that the original blockade by the US is fine, but maintaining the blockade during a ceasefire while Iran says they'll lift their closure puts the onus on the US again.
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