June 3, 2026

The naval blockade is but one of many layers in play.  Blockades are like sieges of the castles and forts of old – they deny the opponent the resources it requires to sustain its resistance.  Pundits who opine for their own aggrandizement do so at the expense of their nation’s efforts and the lives of their nation’s troops.  Loose lips sink ships and get troops killed.  Pundits make America appear weaker and divided to our opponent, boosting their will, increasing their belief that if they can strike out at our troops it will erode internal support on our side and help them. Yet all these unhelpful commentators, who want to advance their personal careers by appearing so in-the-know with special-sources-who-cannot-be-named, actually know nothing of the actual operations underway degrading our enemy in the several layers of activity underlying the surface-level activity of the steel wall blockade.   Rarely if ever is there one moving part in a conflict.

We Americans for some time lived in an age of make-believe and unrealistic expectations.   Having broken free of that, one cannot realistically expect everything to instantly snap back into perfect order without any effort.  When you dig yourself in a hole it takes time and effort to dig your way back out.  Anything else is just more make-believe.  America is presently blessed to have very smart and wise people in charge of the effort to deal with the religious fanatics ruling Iran, who have been allowed to cause mayhem and murder for half a century, and who left unchecked mean to cause many millions of deaths and mass destruction.  They were after all even placing long range drone capabilities in Latin America.

The strong and wise know it takes time to clean up a mess, and that when you have good competent people doing it you don’t pester them with ignorant comments and interference.  Put another way, when you ignorantly let your neighborhood catch fire, and the firemen with the know-how show up with their trucks to deal with it, you don't go out in the street and start bickering with them about where they chose to park their truck, run their firehoses, or which fire to attack in what order. You get out of the way and let them do their job.  Distracting them to attend your silliness distracts them from their fellows and get a number of them killed or lose the whole operation.   You just get out of the way and let them do a job for which you have never trained, and which you have never done.

A prayer for our troops in battle: Lord stretch forth your almighty arm to strengthen and protect our troops.   Support them in these their days of battle.  Fill them with courage and loyalty. Preserve them from the violence of the enemy so they may prevail as the safeguard to the people of the United States of America. Grant that they serve without reproach, vanquish evil, and establish your peace and your justice.

~~ The SOT Team