Thompson's point about the insurance withdrawal being the real closure is the sharpest observation in here — the Strait was functionally compromised before Iran did anything formal. That reframes the whole timeline.
I'd push the structural permanence argument one step further though. The IRGC's pay-to-pass corridor isn't just military enforcement — it's a functioning toll operation generating hard currency, with preferential access for Chinese and Indian carriers. That changes the institutional incentive structure completely. It pays for itself, it creates beneficiaries who want it to continue, and it punishes those excluded. Every day it runs, the cost of dismantling it goes up.
The 2015 JCPOA comparison is useful here. In that deal, the IRGC was asked to accept constraints on a programme that cost money. Now they're being asked to surrender one that makes money. That's a fundamentally different negotiating problem, and it's the reason I think the "temporary disruption" framing is so wide of the mark — the corridor has its own economic gravity now, independent of whatever happens diplomatically.
Thompson's point about the insurance withdrawal being the real closure is the sharpest observation in here — the Strait was functionally compromised before Iran did anything formal. That reframes the whole timeline.
I'd push the structural permanence argument one step further though. The IRGC's pay-to-pass corridor isn't just military enforcement — it's a functioning toll operation generating hard currency, with preferential access for Chinese and Indian carriers. That changes the institutional incentive structure completely. It pays for itself, it creates beneficiaries who want it to continue, and it punishes those excluded. Every day it runs, the cost of dismantling it goes up.
The 2015 JCPOA comparison is useful here. In that deal, the IRGC was asked to accept constraints on a programme that cost money. Now they're being asked to surrender one that makes money. That's a fundamentally different negotiating problem, and it's the reason I think the "temporary disruption" framing is so wide of the mark — the corridor has its own economic gravity now, independent of whatever happens diplomatically.