Iran is taking a page out of the corporate playbook: if you control the chokepoint, you charge a fee. The Parliament in Tehran just approved a plan to collect tolls from every vessel passing through the Strait of Hormuz. US and Israeli ships are banned entirely, but the rest of the world’s cargo—twenty percent of the planet’s oil—must now pay a tithe to the Mullahs. It is the ultimate extraction. While the Mullahs fill their coffers, Washington has executed a maneuver we call 'Imperial Triage.'

The Pentagon is stripping Patriot missile batteries from the front lines in Ukraine and shipping them to the Persian Gulf. They aren't there to protect people. They are there to protect the tankers. The message to the world is clear: sovereignty is a luxury, but the global energy supply is a necessity. The US Treasury even issued a 30-day waiver for Iranian crude, crashing the price to $89 to stop a domestic political meltdown at the gas pump. We are literally funding the proxies that burn our embassies just to keep our SUVs running. Whether the new leader Mojtaba Khamenei is a man or an AI deepfake, the money flowing into the Strait is very real.