It's Tuesday, April 14, 2006.

I'm Albert Mowler, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

Understandably, there's so many things taking place in the world these days.

A lot demands our attention.

The most important issue today has to do

the fact that President Trump has called for a naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. And the most

important thing for us to realize, building upon what we talked about yesterday on the briefing,

is that freedom of navigation is the fundamental issue. When you enforce something like a naval blockade,

it is by any estimation an act of war. And so just defined in terms of the law of warfare,

a naval blockade is a hostile action. Now, we shouldn't be all that surprised because we are

engaged in hostilities against Iran. And so it does fit the larger pattern.

I just want to point out that when you undertake a naval blockade,

the most famous in terms of American history would be the blockade

in terms of the United States naval forces undertaken in order to isolate Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis, a naval blockade then.

Technically, it was an act of war. When you look at this, you recognize that we are once again

facing the fact that we have two implacable foes, the United States and Israel on the one hand,

and then Iran on the other. We are in a situation of extreme unpredictability

with the continued hostilities. It's going to be a very interesting picture to watch. And as we

discussed, it's connected to so many other issues in the world. We're going to have to watch it

closely. But the bottom line is that if you declare a naval blockade, meaning that you're going to put an effective

naval stop to all traffic in the area, you have to follow that up with an actual naval blockade.

That's just the obvious reality. But then again, speaking of things that are obvious,

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