On: US expected to start naval blockade of Iranian ports after deadline passes

5th May, 2026

The Americans propose to blockade Iranian ports - ostensibly to enforce some diplomatic ultimatum - and Tehran’s riposte is to remind them of the price at the pump. How perfectly modern: war conducted not through grand strategy but through the petty arithmetic of household budgets.

The blockade’s advocates will speak of necessity, of course - as if the decision were handed down by economic law rather than by men in rooms who have weighed the costs and decided, quite consciously, that higher oil prices are an acceptable trade for whatever political objective they imagine this will achieve. The constraint is always framed as external, never as the product of choice.

And yet, the Iranian response reveals the deeper truth: the market is not some neutral arbiter but a theater of expectations. The moment Tehran speaks, futures contracts twitch. The blockade has not yet begun, but the price rises already - because economics is, at its heart, a game of confidence. The Americans may believe they are imposing costs on Iran, but Iran understands that costs are reciprocal.

The tragedy is that the ordinary motorist - who has no say in these decisions - will bear them. The theorists of blockade will speak of long-term gains. But in the long run, we are all dead - and in the short run, the working man fills his tank with less and less.