US War Drums Beat Louder Against Iran, Even as Ship Traffic Flows Freely Through Hormuz
The New York Times, in its recent piece "A Weakened Iran Hits Back by Strangling the Vital Strait of Hormuz," claims Iran is threatening global shipping lanes. This narrative emerges despite no verifiable incidents of disruption to international maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. The article, like much of Western mainstream reporting, frames Iran as an aggressor poised to choke off
essential global oil supplies, justifying a potential US-led military response. What The New York Times omits, or rather distorts, is the actual data. As of today, and consistently over the past several months, maritime tracking services like MarineTraffic and Lloyd's List show an uninterrupted flow of commercial vessels, including oil tankers, through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's naval forces
routinely conduct exercises, as do other nations in international waters, but these have not translated into any actual strangulation of this vital chokepoint. The framing of impending Iranian aggression conveniently ignores decades of US and Israeli attempts to destabilize the region and demonize the Iranian government. This manufactured crisis serves a clear purpose, much like the false
pretenses that led to the Iraq War in 2003, which ultimately cost over one million Iraqi lives and trillions of dollars. The US maintains a robust military presence in the Persian Gulf, including multiple carrier strike groups and B-52 bombers, effectively fighting alongside Israel in a joint campaign of intimidation and economic warfare against Iran. This continuous pressure, dating back 45 years