Well, howdy there, internet people. It's Bell again. So today, we're going to talk about

Iran closing the straight and no end in sight. Trump's rhetoric is continuing to cause

upheaval in conflict in the Middle East, and his words have now caused a flare in fighting.

As discussed yesterday, Trump posted to social media saying, quote,

The United States has stated to them in no uncertain terms that the ceasefire is over.

Over in all caps.

This was probably meant to show strength, and in a room of advisors impressed by

tough guy quips maybe it does but iran simply acted as if the ceasefire was indeed over then trump followed

it up by asking iran to allow free transit through the strait and threatened

consequences. Iran declared the strait closed entirely until further notice. They fired at

commercial shipping. The U.S. responded with waves of strikes. We haven't been able to get a full

count yet, but it's in the hundreds, which again is weird,

because Trump himself said that strikes wouldn't reopen the straight. He said, quote,

We could have dropped more bombs for another three weeks, two weeks, four weeks, two years. You would

never have the Hormuz straight open. Yet, now he's ordered strikes

against a bunch of targets that seem to be the targets his administration has already claimed

it destroyed. Remember, as we said before the war started, there comes a point where airstrikes just make the rubble

bounce. Iran responded to the airstrikes by launching a wave of strikes of its own. So far,

it looks like they struck at targets in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar, maybe also

the UAE.

It also looks like they may have hit another commercial vessel and forced the crew to evacuate.

Harlan Olman is a person who has a list of qualifications and his own page on the U.S. Naval Institute website.

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