Hormuz Is the War’s Invoice—and Washington Can’t Pay It

 What Washington Missed? Closing the Strait of Hormuz is not a side detail. It is the main pressure point. Every day the strait stays shut adds a new layer of cost to the global economy; and the shock travels back to the United States fast. This is not only about the price of oil. It is about a supply-chain squeeze: shipping insurance, freight costs, industrial inputs, petrochemicals, raw materials. Then inflation that lands on American consumers like a delayed war tax. Washington’s mistake was deeper than one bad assumption. It believed military force alone can break political will, that markets will “adjust” on their own, and that a crisis can be managed through statements and threats the way you manage […]