Iran forgot the Strait of Hormuz has TWO ends.
Is the Strait open or closed? Depends on the day. Friday it was open. Saturday it was closed.
Here’s a reminder… the Strait of Hormuz is international water. No one owns it. It is about 20 miles wide at the narrowest point, bordered by Iran on one side and Oman and United Arab Emirates (UAE) on the other. Compare it to the Strait of Gibraltar which is only 8 miles wide. Nobody in Spain or Morocco is shooting at ships entering or leaving the Mediterranean.
Interestingly, that was not always the case. For a couple of centuries, the Barbary Pirates ruled the Strait of Gibraltar. But 225 years ago, President Thomas Jefferson sent the U.S. Navy and Marines to stop the illegal activity. You may know the Barbary Pirates were Muslims, ancestors of the current Iranian Muslim (radical Islamic) leaders.
In Iran, news reports say at least 40,000 innocent citizens and protesters have been killed, including an Olympic wrestler. And currently they are planning to hang a young woman. The violent executioners are the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) which has about 150,000 elite soldiers.
Now, if the radical Islamic political leaders somehow surrender completely, forcing the IRGC to give up their guns, what’s next? The 90 million freedom-loving citizens have been stomped on and persecuted for 47 years, and they watched in horror as 40,000 have been killed. They will rise up, form a democratically elected government, create a judicial system, and those executioners will be tracked down, tried, and executed.
The temporary leaders who, so far, have refused to give in to U.S. demands are looking out for their own hides. If they give in, the well-armed IRGC will kill them before Israel can do it. Do you think President Trump would allow these current leaders to come here under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program? No way! Especially since Congress voted to change the definition of “temporary.”
For most of us it still means a short period of time. But thanks to Congress, for 350,000 natives of Haiti who were welcomed here temporarily, temporary means permanent.
Back to the war in Iran. Despite threats to ships in the Strait, Iran has little defense left other than drones and small motorboats. Now that the war is 90% over, Europe has finally decided to help out.
This reminded me of the story of the Little Red Hen. You probably remember it. Here is the story, with a few modest updates.
The little red hen finds a bag of certified Hard Red Winter wheat seed and asks the other barnyard animals “Who will help me plant the wheat?” “Not I” said the cat, “Not I” said the dog, “Not I,” said the pig. So, the hen said “Then I will plant the seed myself.” After the wheat was growing in the Spring, she asks, “Who will help me apply nitrogen fertilizer?” “Not I,” said France. “Not I,” said England. “Not I,” said NATO.
At each later stage (harvest, threshing, milling, preparing, and baking the bread) the hen asks for help. “Not I,” was the response. When the little red hen removes the bread from the oven, she asks “Now, who will help me eat the bread?”
You know the end of the story. All were eager to eat fresh bread. “No, you did not help me plant, nor help me harvest, nor help me mill, nor help me bake the bread,” so the Little Red Hen ate the bread and gave it to her chicks. And Trump said to Europe, “No help needed now. Forget receiving oil from Iran. You can buy it from us. And Liquefied Natural Gas, too.”
Reid Wiseman and the other three astronauts on Artemis II left no doubt about their belief in God. After seeing Earth against the blackness of the universe, and the eclipse of the sun behind the moon, “Humanity has not evolved to comprehend what we saw.”
Historic quote by Will Rogers:
“That’s one good thing about European nations: They can’t hate you so much they wouldn’t use you.” Radio, March 31, 1935