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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.
No one ever said this before when anyone did this against ships flagged by or en route to neutral countries.
People are making up a bunch of new rules just to help Iran out.
If you declare 'might makes right' to be your governing principle, it becomes much harder to appeal to other principles (like international law).
The point is that "might makes right" apparently is defacto governing principle. Iran does not give a shit about international law by shooting at commercial ships and going against UN Security Council and other international bodies. The sad thing is that nobody is able to persuade them otherwise.
If there is one social law that actually objectively "exists", that it is adhered to by all organisms, then it is the law of the jungle, the vae victis, eat or be eaten. It is not exactly might makes "right", because law of the jungle does not care about righteousness. Might just uses force to impose your will or your programing onto reality, it is used by wolves when killing baby deers and it is utilized by chimpanzees or humans in wars. This is the default, everything else is only a structure on top of this underlying fact. It is important to remember that always.
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