Understanding things like the Strait of Hormuz and guiding policymakers on how to work with countries like Iran is what the Deep State was about.
The Strait of Hormuz is narrow and the Iranian side is mountainous, with cliffs at the shore.
Something like 25% of all oil, 20% of liquefied natural gas and 30% of urea and phosphate fertilizers passes through the Strait.
Iran could always have closed the Strait at any time. A single Iranian in a speedboat with a shoulder-launched missile can fired at a supertanker. Missiles could be fired from those cliffs or mountains. There is no level of naval escort or minesweeping or air power that ensure this cannot happen without invading. But invading and clearing the Iranian side would be a long, tough operation requiring a major invasion force.
But Iran has kept the Strait open, until now, because it needed the trade that went through and because closing it would trigger a massive military response. Trump took these reasons away and Iran responded by closing the Strait to any shipping from and to “the Enemy Bloc” – the United States & Israel and their allies, and others providing support for this war on Iran. And now the only way the Strait can be reopened is a major invasion — or by giving Iran what it wants. And Iran isn’t ready to even say what it wants.
The Deep State
The US government, its military and diplomatic corps had, over the decades, built up a “bureaucracy” of experts and diplomats and military strategists who studied and understood that and worked with that and helped policymakers plan around this understanding. Trump called these experts and institutions the “Deep State” and has worked to dismantle it all since retaking office.
Understanding things like the Strait of Hormuz and guiding policymakers on how to work with countries like Iran is what the Deep State was about. It is was government is. It is experts who know things and say, “If you to this, then here are the probable results.” They analyze problems and proposals and say, “History and data tell us the best approach to X is Y.”
The Deep State also existed to look at problems like healthcare, occupational safety, pollution, financial regulation, climate, seat belts, drugs, etc, and suggested the best approaches to developing policies, regulations and laws, diplomacy and all kinds of other things government does.
The Deep State advised that vaccines prevent serious epidemics. They advised that burning fossil fuels and releasing carbon into the air would eventually cause an extremely threatening climate crisis. The Deep State advised not to make war on Iran because they will close the Strait of Hormuz and throw the world into possible depression.
And that’s WHY they were eliminated from government. Because the experts said don’t let corporations pollute, don’t let the finance industry commit fraud and stop the oil companies from putting carbon into the air. Etc. So those industries and the billionaires who profit from them paid politicians to get rid of those experts.
Regulations Are Written In Blood
They say every regulation is written in blood because they come from the lessons learned when terrible mistakes are made, and try to prevent those terrible things from happening again. The Deep State’s understandings and protections and advice took decades to build. It only took a few months to destroy. It’s not coming back any time soon.
There will be blood.