Iran claims capture of U.S. sea drone in Strait of Hormuz; Pentagon downplays loss

In the narrow waters of the Strait of Hormuz, where the ambitions of nations compress into a passage barely wide enough for the world's oil to breathe through, Iran announced the capture of an American unmanned naval drone — and the United States answered not with denial, but with diminishment. The Pentagon acknowledged the loss while insisting the vessel was already broken and carried nothing of value, a response that reveals as much about the art of managing perception as it does about the incident itself. This moment, unremarkable by the standards of a region long accustomed to friction, no