In the ancient contest over who controls the arteries of global commerce, Washington and Tehran have entered a new and precarious chapter — one in which the threat of economic annihilation meets the threat of physical blockade at the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passage through which a quarter of the world's traded oil must pass. The Trump administration has promised measures of unprecedented severity against Iran, while Tehran's security leadership vows to neutralize that pressure and, if pushed further, to close the strait entirely. Between these declarations, oil tankers slip through the wa