The tenous Pakistan-brokered ceasefire between Iran and the United States was quickly followed by Iran’s unwillingness to bend in any negotiations with American envoys. President Donald Trump decided he had had enough of waiting for the Shia Islamic theocracy to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, as promised to the ayatollah, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or whoever is really running the Iranian dictatorship.

If Iran refused to lift its blockade of the waterway, through which one-fifth of global oil and gas exports traverse, then the U.S. would do it the regime’s way. Rather than try to relax Iran’s blockade and restore trade through the strait, Trump responded with a full naval blockade of his own, which began on the morning of April 13.