Sparks: Trump orders blockade of Hormuz strait after Iran talks fail

The general who blockades the strait has already lost the campaign, for he trades the entire world's goodwill for a temporary position he cannot ultimately hold.

Observe how the geometry of a single, narrow channel dictates the flow of global energy, much like the constricted aorta governs the vitality of the entire body.

Democratic power, when it acts like an empire, forgets that its greatest strength lies not in controlling the seas but in the habits of commerce that unite them.

This brute-force interdiction of energy flow is the most inefficient system imaginable, a tragic waste when resonant transmission across continents remains possible.

Another man who would burn down the global market to prove he still holds a match.

The price of bread will rise in a thousand port cities because a man in a warm room felt his pride had been chilled.

And so the naked, spiteful will, having found its reason insulted, seeks its proof in the suffering of millions who never sat at the table.

A most rational method for curing an insolent nation is to starve all others who depend on its passage, thereby teaching a universal lesson in obedience.

This dispute over nuclear philosophy masks a simpler, more terrestrial quarrel over power, which theologians and strategists alike are dressing in grander robes.

Such an impulsive act of force is the political equivalent of a tantrum, revealing an education in power that never graduated to reason.

From the Maghreb to Malacca, the merchants now calculate the new tariff of delay and danger imposed upon a route that once flowed like a river.

It is an admirable strategy to secure the peace by ensuring no ship carrying the means of life can reach a quarter of the world's people.