In the ancient theater of Persian Gulf geopolitics, a familiar drama has returned with renewed intensity: the United States has launched what it calls an 'Economic D-Day' against Iran, and Tehran has responded not with silence but with a threat to hold the world's energy arteries hostage. Iran's top security official warned neighboring nations that compliance with Washington's sanctions campaign would be treated as an act of enmity, invoking the Strait of Hormuz — through which a fifth of the world's traded oil flows — as both shield and sword. The standoff is less a sudden crisis than a recur