Ship traffic avoiding the Strait of Hormuz
Our forecasting bots almost certainly are too low on the Strait reopening before May 1, 2026.
Indeed, now most of the action against tankers may be due to low-level regional commanders of the IRGC acting on their own. We expect this due to a Feb. 28, 2026 strike killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and nearly all of Iran’s top military and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers. Consequently, we expect that within a few weeks. Iran will involuntarily be winding down its attacks.
That’s why we expect that most of the traffic through the Strait will resume within a couple of weeks. Indeed, already Indian flagged ships with transponders off are successfully transiting. Iran’s remaining leaders also may declare victory any day now and reopen the strait. In that case, Donald Trump also would declare victory and set his naval forces to clearing out any mines.
In addition, some reports say that their new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is still in a coma, and has lost a leg. Will he survive? There’s a good chance that somebody else will soon make a play for his title.
On the other hand, also today: “Iran’s Supreme Leader Says Other Fronts Will Be Opened If War Persists.”
Oh, really? “… no video messages, written statements or recent photographs of him [Mojtaba Khamenei] have been released. At his inauguration, a cardboard cutout with his image was presented instead.“
Those mullahs have inadvertently committed a Hollywood trope. We are sparing you the laugh lines.
Also, traitors likely remain among their diminished ruling cabal.
If the new Supreme Leader continues to be incapacitated, or worse, that could be good news for the Strait. There are several good candidates. Iran’s former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who apparently remains alive, would be acceptable to everyone in Iran, and pragmatic enough to work with the outside world. That would save everyone from the nightmare scenario of a complete internal breakdown within Iran, while allowing the US to de-escalate.
If not Ahmadinejad, nevertheless, many regime leaders do not believe in their own government. Western/Israeli intel have been recruiting among them for decades. All it would take is one in the right position to target a second leadership wipeout.
Regardless of how many among the ruling class are killed, it will be hard to roll up some of the IRGC true believers. We expect low-level instability for years. What if they double down with a more extreme religious leader, armed with nuclear weapons and fearless of martyrdom?
Uncertainty is the age-old risk of launching a war of choice, as Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu just did. See. See Athens starting the Peloponnesian War. Napoleon Bonaparte’s wars. Germany launching WW II.
Whither the United States and Israel? Indeed, the world?
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