Shelby Holliday

And then you also have guided missile destroyers.

Those can also support boarding operations.

They have a small flight deck.

But they can also be used to influence the movement of commercial ships and marshal them into certain areas.

So the idea would be to create like a quarantine box and then escort those commercial ships that are violating the blockade into a specific region.

The U.S.

is using this as leverage after talks fell apart in Pakistan.

And the hope is that this creates economic pressure and we could potentially see another round of talks in the next few days if this brings Iran to the negotiating table.

The U.S.

would love for non-Iranian oil to move through the strait.

Right now, that's very difficult because Iran has said that it mined the strait.

And so a lot of the experts and former Navy officials I've been talking to say this blockade does two things.

It causes economic pain for Iran, but it also gives the U.S.

some space to try to clear the mines that Iran has supposedly laid.

There's always a risk that Iran could try to fire drones or missiles at U.S.

ships or even at oil tankers.

And any Iranian threat freezes traffic.

So the U.S.

wants ships to start moving through the Strait of Hormuz again and to get all that oil out of the Gulf.

So any sort of Iranian retaliation further paralyzes that traffic.