The heat is still on Iran. We've been busily documenting Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's relentless turning of the economic screws against Iran, and all that is working; Iran's currency has collapsed, and the government is broke. Oh, the mullahs and what remains of their minions no doubt have their golden parachutes squirreled away, but that won't help the rank and file any.
Even as that is going on, though, the military blockade is still in place as well. In a statement, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesman and U.S. Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins informed Fox News Digital that Iran is still making attempts on vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz - but they're failing, and badly.
Hawkins spoke after CENTCOM said the GFS Pride, a Singapore-flagged, Cyprus-owned container ship was hit by an Iranian projectile in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday and sunk while being towed ashore due to a fire on board the ship.
"The vast majority of Iran's attempted attacks on innocent civilian mariners transiting an international waterway, being the Strait of Hormuz, they are unsuccessful. As a matter of fact, the U.S. military has assisted in providing coordinated protection for thousands of ships that have safely transited," Hawkins said. "That translates to about 97% of the ships that have sought to transit the Strait of Hormuz have done so successfully without being hit by an Iranian projectile.
"But let's be clear here, what the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran is doing is unjustified and it's also unsuccessful because they are not achieving their objective of closing the Strait of Hormuz," he added. "It is open, it is available for transit, and we've seen that transit continue this very day."
We might note that "vast majority" doesn't mean "none." If they shoot enough bullets, they're bound to hit something once in a while, and Iran's attempts against shipping in the Strait of Hormuz are starting to look a lot like an exercise in "spray and pray." But they don't have that much spray left.
Here's the thing: Iran hasn't been squeezed this hard since 1979; not by a long shot. They are holding out longer than most people thought they would, but they can't hold out forever. For one thing, as my colleague Bob Hoge noted on Friday night, the regime is finding they can't pay their armed forces anymore, and unpaid and unhappy troops are never a good thing for a brutal, oppressive regime. And, as RedState's own Nick Arama also recently informed us, Iran has resorted to trying to be sneaky in the Strait — but that's not working, either.
What all this adds up to is simply this: The Islamic Republic of Iran is running out of gas, both literally and figuratively. The world's primary state sponsor of Islamic terror should have been taken out long ago (1981 would have been good), but now there's finally a serious effort to unwind this regime that is directly responsible for the deaths of (at least) tens of thousands.
In the meantime, the Strait of Hormuz has to stay open. It's not quite business as usual in the Strait; at least, not yet. But it's getting closer. And if we can take them out, the Middle East will be a much different place.