ANALYSIS: Tehran's defiance in the face of Washington's anger

Introduction: a regime that refuses to bend under the bombs

A week of strikes that produced no capitulation

After a week of repeated American strikes and targeted financial sanctions, the Iranian regime continues to publicly display a posture of defiance that remains almost intact. According to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Iran continued rebuilding sensitive nuclear sites, notably at Pickaxe Mountain and Parchin, in direct violation of the memorandum reached in Islamabad on June 17, 2026. This continuity in reconstruction, documented through satellite imagery, is the most tangible signal that Tehran has not abandoned its nuclear ambitions despite the scale of the military damage sustained.

This defiance is not limited to the nuclear file alone. It also expresses itself through the proclaimed closure of the Strait of Hormuz on July 12, 2026, missile strikes against several regional bases allied with the United States, and near-total official silence in the face of financial sanctions targeting the entourage of the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. This accumulation of simultaneous, coordinated acts of resistance paints the portrait of a regime that has chosen confrontation over negotiation, at least in its public messaging.

The paradox of a weakened regime that refuses to show it

This refusal to publicly bend is all the more surprising given that the Iranian regime has just lost its historic supreme leader, assassinated during the most intense phase of the conflict, and that its armed forces have suffered considerable losses on several simultaneous fronts. According to several Western media outlets, more than 300 targets have been struck by American forces since July 6, 2026, a figure that testifies to the scale of the military campaign waged against Iranian capabilities.

This paradox between the regime's objective military weakening and its intact rhetoric of defiance is the heart of this analysis: how does a power struck this hard still manage to project an image of resistance, and above all, does that image correspond to genuine strategic reality or only to a posture of internal political survival?

This defiance displayed by Tehran should fool no one: it is not proof of real strength, it is the classic reflex of an authoritarian regime that knows showing the slightest public weakness would amount to signing its own political death sentence in front of its own population.

Nuclear reconstruction despite the Islamabad memorandum

Satellite images that contradict commitments made

According to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, recent satellite images show continued reconstruction activity at the Pickaxe Mountain site, an underground facility linked to Iran's nuclear program, as well as at Parchin, a complex historically associated with Tehran's weapons testing. This reconstruction comes as Iran had committed, under the memorandum signed in Islamabad on June 17, 2026, to suspend all activity at these sites in exchange for a partial ceasefire with the United States and Israel.

This documented violation is one of the most solid factual elements for assessing the real sincerity of the diplomatic commitments made by the Iranian regime during the sixty-day truce cited by several Western sources. It confirms a pattern already observed repeatedly since 1979: Iran uses negotiation phases to preserve, as much as possible, its most sensitive strategic capabilities, rather than to sincerely dismantle them.

Access denied to international inspectors

This behavior comes alongside growing restrictions on access for International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors. According to Eastern Herald, the speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, explicitly limited IAEA access to the bombed nuclear sites of Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, citing security reasons that, according to several Western analysts, mask a desire to conceal the real scale of the damage and any ongoing reconstruction.

This systematic obstruction of international transparency is, in itself, a form of defiance as significant as the regime's most provocative public statements. It deprives the international community of the independent verification tools needed to objectively assess the real state of the Iranian nuclear program after the June and July 2026 strikes.

Refusing IAEA inspectors access while quietly rebuilding bombed nuclear sites is not security caution, it is a silent confession. A regime sincerely committed to disarmament has no reason to flee the transparency it agreed to in writing.

The ceasefire Trump declared over

An unambiguous presidential threat

Faced with this documented defiance, American President Donald Trump chose rhetorical firmness. According to Reuters, he stated on July 6, 2026, that there would be "either a deal with Iran, or the United States will finish the job," a formulation that leaves little room for diplomatic ambiguity and confirms the end, at least rhetorically, of the fragile truce negotiated a month earlier.

This statement comes as Tehran continues projecting an image of defiance following the state funeral of the former supreme leader, held in Mashhad, an event that mobilized domestic Iranian attention while also serving, according to several observers, to consolidate the legitimacy of the succession to Mojtaba Khamenei at the very moment the country faces one of the gravest security crises in its recent history.

Resumed strikes as confirmation of the break

This presidential rhetoric translated concretely into the resumption of American strikes on the night of July 11 to 12, 2026, targeting roughly 140 sites linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including missile installations, naval assets, and munitions depots. This sequence confirms that Trump's threat was not mere verbal posturing but came paired with immediate military execution capability.

On the American domestic political front, however, it should be noted that certain presidential statements surrounding this escalation drew criticism, including from some Republican allies, over the lack of prior consultation with Congress on the scale of American military engagement. This factual criticism, documented by several American media outlets, must be reported with the same rigor as the overall geopolitical assessment of presidential firmness toward Iran.

One thing must be granted to Trump: his threat was not hot air, the strikes followed within hours of his remarks. But acknowledging the tactical effectiveness of a decision should never prevent serious examination of legitimate questions about its constitutional framework.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, ultimate symbol of defiance

A fifth of the world's oil held hostage

The most spectacular gesture of this Iranian defiance remains, without doubt, the proclaimed closure of the Strait of Hormuz on July 12, 2026, decreed by the IRGC after an attack on the container ship M/V GFS Galaxy. This strategic strait, through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil passes according to several energy analyses cited by Foley & Lardner, is one of the most sensitive maritime chokepoints on the planet for international energy supply.

This closure, even if partial or temporary, illustrates the Iranian regime's determination to demonstrate its capacity for global economic disruption, despite its documented military weakening. It is a classic asymmetric deterrence strategy: compensating for direct military inferiority with a threat against a point of global economic vulnerability that neither the United States nor its allies can ignore.

A regional escalation that goes beyond the Iranian theater alone

This closure came alongside Iranian missile strikes against several regional bases allied with the United States, notably the Al-Azraq base in Jordan, as well as targets in Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain between July 9 and 10, 2026. This geographic spread of Iranian retaliation confirms that Tehran chose a strategy of broadened regional response rather than a confrontation limited solely to American or Israeli territory directly involved.

This regional extension of the conflict, by striking countries that were not directly party to the initial strikes, constitutes a dangerous escalation that risks further fragmenting the regional coalition against Iran, while simultaneously demonstrating that the Iranian regime retains a functional ballistic strike capability despite the damage sustained on its own territory.

Closing the Strait of Hormuz is not a gesture of strength, it is a gesture of calculated desperation: Tehran knows it can no longer win militarily on its own soil, so it seeks to make the entire world dependent on that oil corridor pay the economic price of its defeat.

The financial silence over sanctions on Mojtaba Khamenei

An absence of reaction that contrasts with the regime's habits

Another signal of Tehran's complex defiance can be read in its relative silence over the financial sanctions imposed on July 10, 2026, by the U.S. Treasury against the network linked to Mojtaba Khamenei and his alleged financier, Ali Ansari. Unlike its usually swift reactions to classic oil or banking sanctions, the regime has produced, to date, no substantial official denunciation of these designations directly touching the new supreme leader's entourage.

This particular silence, documented by the absence of an official statement in the days following the U.S. Treasury's announcement, could reflect genuine discomfort within the regime about publicly commenting on accusations touching the personal enrichment of its highest religious authority, in a context where the legitimacy of the succession to Mojtaba Khamenei remains under construction since the Mashhad funeral.

A defiance that chooses its battlegrounds

This selectivity in the battlegrounds chosen by Tehran, loud defiance on nuclear and maritime issues, cautious silence on personal finances, reveals a calculated communications strategy rather than a uniform posture of resistance. The regime appears willing to publicly own confrontations that reinforce its image of nationalist resistance against the West, while carefully avoiding subjects that would expose the corruption of its own elites.

This strategic distinction confirms that Iranian defiance is not monolithic, but carefully calibrated to maximize domestic support while minimizing exposure of the regime's most embarrassing vulnerabilities to its own population, which is already bearing the cumulative economic consequences of repeated international sanctions spanning decades.

This selective silence speaks volumes: Tehran can shout about missiles and oil because that feeds its narrative of heroic resistance, but it goes quiet about Mojtaba Khamenei's money because that would expose the corruption eating away at the very top of its religious authority.

Indirect negotiations that are going nowhere

Resumed talks with no announced breakthrough

According to Reuters, indirect negotiations between Washington and Tehran continued throughout July 2026 without a significant public breakthrough, despite the sixty-day truce meant to create diplomatic space after the initial American and Israeli strikes. These talks, resumed according to Al Arabiya around July 11, 2026, after a pause tied to the former supreme leader's funeral, notably cover sanctions, frozen Iranian funds abroad, and the nuclear file.

This absence of visible progress, despite several rounds of technical talks cited by diplomatic sources, confirms that neither military pressure nor cumulative financial pressure has, at this stage, produced any perceptible shift in Iran's official position on the most fundamental points of the dispute, notably the permitted level of uranium enrichment.

A trust gap that is hard to bridge

This persistent deadlock illustrates a deep trust gap between the two sides, fueled by decades of broken promises on both ends. American officials, according to several Western analyses, remain skeptical of the sincerity of any Iranian commitment following the documented violation of the Islamabad memorandum regarding Pickaxe Mountain and Parchin, while Tehran continues to perceive American demands as a disguised ultimatum aimed at regime change rather than a sincere disarmament agreement.

This mutual trust gap largely explains why the indirect negotiations, despite their technical continuation, have produced no tangible result for several weeks, with each side interpreting the other's gestures as confirmation of its initial mistrust rather than as an opportunity for compromise.

I do not believe these indirect negotiations will succeed as long as Tehran keeps secretly violating its nuclear commitments. You cannot negotiate in good faith with a partner that rebuilds, at night, what it promised to dismantle by day.

Mojtaba Khamenei's succession as a factor of rigidity

A still-fragile legitimacy that demands firmness

The defiance displayed by Tehran must also be understood in light of the ongoing power transition. According to Wikipedia and several Western media outlets, Mojtaba Khamenei was elected the third supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran unanimously by the Assembly of Experts, following his father's assassination during the most intense phase of the 2026 conflict. This succession, though formally unanimous, unfolds in a wartime context that considerably limits the new leader's diplomatic room to maneuver.

A new supreme leader, whose religious and political legitimacy still needs to be consolidated with the population and the regime's various factions, cannot objectively afford to appear weak or conciliatory in the face of foreign aggression, on pain of immediately weakening his nascent authority within the Iranian security and religious apparatus itself.

A Basij past that shapes his posture

According to a leak documented by Iran International in 2023, Mojtaba Khamenei allegedly controlled, before rising to the title of supreme leader, the Basij paramilitary force, one of the most radical components of the regime's repressive apparatus. This past, if confirmed, sheds light on a posture of firmness that stems not only from the tactical necessity of the moment, but from a long-term ideological orientation shaped by years of direct involvement in the harshest structures of Iranian domestic repression.

This continuity between Mojtaba Khamenei's security past and the current line of defiance adopted by Tehran suggests that the regime's posture of resistance is not purely circumstantial, but also reflects the deep personal convictions of the new supreme leader, who spent his career within the regime's most uncompromising institutions.

A supreme leader forged within the Basij likely has neither the desire nor the intellectual formation to favor diplomatic conciliation. His current defiance may not be a temporary tactical calculation, but the authentic expression of who he has always been.

The real limits of Iranian military capability

An air inferiority that structures the entire retaliation strategy

Despite this rhetoric of defiance, we must honestly document the real military limits constraining the Iranian regime's strategic choices. The scale of reported American strikes, more than 300 targets struck since July 6 according to several Western sources, illustrates a structural air and naval inferiority that prevents Tehran from responding symmetrically to American and Israeli firepower.

This inferiority explains why the regime chose an asymmetric retaliation strategy, relying on ballistic missiles, regional proxies, and the economic threat of the Strait of Hormuz rather than a direct air-naval confrontation it could not sustain over time against the Western technological superiority documented since the start of the conflict.

A strike capability that nonetheless remains real

This structural inferiority should not, however, be confused with total incapacity to inflict harm. The missile strikes that hit the Al-Azraq base in Jordan and other regional targets demonstrate that the regime retains a functional ballistic capability despite the damage sustained, capable of inflicting significant damage on facilities allied with the United States in the region.

This residual capability, documented by several successful strikes despite regional air defense systems, explains why Washington and its allies continue to take the Iranian threat very seriously, despite the regime's overall documented weakening since the start of the June and July 2026 military escalation.

It would be dangerous to underestimate a weakened regime that can still strike allied bases hundreds of kilometers away. Tehran's defiance is not just rhetoric: it still rests on a very real, if diminished, capacity for harm.

The domestic dimension of Iranian defiance

A resistance narrative that serves national cohesion

The posture of defiance displayed by Tehran also answers to an unavoidable domestic political logic. Faced with an Iranian population hard hit by decades of economic sanctions and by recent material destruction from the 2026 strikes, the regime needs a heroic resistance narrative to justify the sacrifices imposed and avoid social unrest that could compound the already considerable difficulties facing the leadership in power.

This mechanism of nationalist mobilization in the face of perceived foreign aggression is a classic crisis-management tool for authoritarian regimes simultaneously confronting external military pressure and latent domestic social discontent. The state funeral organized in Mashhad for the assassinated former supreme leader fits precisely into this logic of collective mobilization around a narrative of national martyrdom.

A population that may not follow indefinitely

This nationalist mobilization strategy, however, has its own limits. Iran's recent history has shown, repeatedly since 2019, that the Iranian population can shift from initial patriotic mobilization to open social unrest when economic hardship becomes unbearable, as seen during waves of protests over gasoline prices or the repression of women's rights movements.

Nothing guarantees, at this stage, that the defiance displayed at the top of the regime will continue to find sufficient resonance within the Iranian population if the economic consequences of the Strait of Hormuz closure and cumulative financial sanctions worsen in the coming months, potentially turning today's nationalist resistance into social anger directed at the regime itself.

This official defiance could turn against the regime itself if the Iranian population, already exhausted by decades of sanctions, ends up paying the full economic price of a war the theocracy largely provoked through its own nuclear stubbornness.

Comparison with other authoritarian regimes in crisis

A pattern of defiance already observed elsewhere

This posture of public defiance despite documented military weakening recalls patterns already observed among other authoritarian regimes under international pressure, notably Vladimir Putin's Russia facing Western sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine, or North Korea facing repeated United Nations Security Council resolutions over its ballistic and nuclear program.

In all three cases, the regimes involved chose to turn international pressure into an argument for domestic nationalist legitimacy, systematically refusing any appearance of public capitulation even as documented material and economic damage reached considerable levels, confirming a behavioral pattern common to the most diplomatically isolated authoritarian regimes.

A common threat that justifies a coordinated Western response

This behavioral convergence between Tehran, Moscow, and Pyongyang confirms, in the eyes of many Western analysts, the existence of an informal axis of authoritarian regimes sharing similar methods of resistance to international pressure, which justifies a coordinated approach among Western allies rather than fragmented responses treating each file in isolation.

This systemic dimension of the threat, linking Iran, Russia, North Korea, and, to a lesser extent, China in terms of diplomatic and economic support, goes far beyond the Iranian nuclear file alone to raise the broader question of the international system's resilience against regimes that systematically refuse to comply with shared rules.

Seeing the same calculated defiance in Tehran, Moscow, and Pyongyang confirms what many Western analysts have repeated for years: these regimes have learned from one another, and the West must also learn to respond in a coordinated way rather than in isolation.

What the timeline of this crisis reveals

Continuous acceleration since early July

The precise chronology of July 2026 events reveals continuous acceleration of the crisis, with no real de-escalation phase despite successive truce announcements. From Iranian strikes on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz to massive American strikes, through missile fire on Al-Azraq and the closure of the strait itself, every week of July has brought new escalation rather than a step toward the calm announced by negotiators.

This continuous acceleration directly contradicts the official narrative about the sixty-day truce supposedly creating constructive diplomatic space after the initial June strikes. In fact, documented by multiple converging Western sources, this truce never truly stabilized the situation, serving more as a window for mutual rearmament than a genuine pause in hostilities.

Persistent uncertainty over the coming weeks

Given this documented acceleration, it would be unwise to predict with certainty how the coming weeks will unfold. Historical precedents of similar crises involving Iran since 1979 show highly variable trajectories, ranging from sudden de-escalations negotiated at the last minute to prolonged escalations spanning several years, with no single pattern allowing a reliable prediction of the current crisis's outcome.

This fundamental uncertainty must be honestly acknowledged rather than masked by categorical predictions that the available facts do not support with the analytical rigor this file demands, given its complexity and multipolar dimension simultaneously involving the United States, Israel, Iran, and several regional states allied with Washington.

I refuse to predict an outcome to this crisis because the facts themselves permit no reasonable certainty. What I can say is that every week of July has brought more escalation than calm, and that trajectory deserves to be documented without complacency.

What this defiance really costs Iran

A cumulative economic and diplomatic price

Beyond official rhetoric, this persistent defiance imposes a real and cumulative cost on the Iranian regime. The financial sanctions targeting Mojtaba Khamenei's entourage, combined with documented material damage from military strikes and the growing diplomatic isolation resulting from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, are gradually eroding the regime's overall economic capacity to fund both its military reconstruction and the basic needs of its population.

This cumulative cost, documented by the convergence of multiple Western sources specializing in sanctions and energy analysis, suggests that today's displayed defiance could carry a far higher price in the coming months than the current resistance rhetoric put forward by Iranian authorities would suggest.

A risky bet on the exhaustion of Western patience

The implicit strategic calculation of Tehran appears to rest on the assumption that Western, particularly American, resolve will run out before the regime itself collapses under cumulative pressure. This bet, already attempted by other authoritarian regimes facing prolonged sanctions, has not always paid off, as shown by the experience of several decades of international sanctions against Iran itself since the 1979 revolution.

Nothing guarantees, however, that this bet will fail this time, given how historically resilient the Iranian regime's determination to preserve its nuclear program and regional influence has proven against already very significant Western pressure in the past, which calls for caution rather than easy optimism about the outcome of this confrontation.

Tehran is betting on the exhaustion of Western patience, a bet that has sometimes worked in the past. But I am not certain this bet holds this time, given how the cumulative scale of current military and financial pressure exceeds anything the regime has faced since 1979.

A necessary note of analytical humility

At this stage of the analysis, it should be recalled that the figures put forward on the cumulative economic cost of this defiance remain estimates based on specialized Western sources, not verified official data published by the Iranian regime itself, which communicates only very partially about the real state of its wartime economy.

This documentary limit must be clearly acknowledged rather than hidden behind figures presented as definitive, out of a concern for rigor that distinguishes serious analysis from propaganda, whether it comes from Tehran or from its most zealous Western adversaries.

I would rather admit the limits of my own figures than claim a precision the available sources do not allow. It is this methodological honesty that distinguishes serious journalism from propaganda, whichever side produces it.

The role of regional proxies in the defiance strategy

Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iraqi militias as relays

The defiance displayed by Tehran also relies on its historic network of regional proxies, notably Hezbollah in Lebanon, certain armed factions in Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen. This network, patiently built by the IRGC over decades, allows the Iranian regime to project a capacity for regional disruption even when its own direct military capabilities are seriously diminished by American and Israeli strikes.

This strategy of delegating risk to non-state actors is a characteristic signature of Iranian military doctrine since the 1979 revolution, allowing the regime to maintain constant regional pressure while preserving, as much as possible, its own conventional forces for the direct defense of national territory against a now clearly established American and Israeli air supremacy.

A reduced but not negligible effectiveness of these networks

The effectiveness of these regional proxies has nonetheless been reduced by the Israeli military campaigns waged against Hezbollah and Hamas in preceding years, limiting Tehran's real ability to open significant additional fronts through these historically valuable allies for its extended regional deterrence strategy.

This reduced capacity of traditional proxies partly explains why the Iranian regime has had to rely more heavily on its own direct ballistic capabilities, such as the strikes on Al-Azraq and other regional bases, rather than relying solely on its traditional regional allies to maintain pressure on American and Israeli interests in the region.

Seeing Tehran forced to strike directly, with its own missiles, rather than delegating the risk to its weakened proxies, confirms just how hard Iranian regional doctrine has been hit by years of Israeli campaigns against Hezbollah and Hamas.

What Western allies are watching with concern

A regional coalition under strain

Iranian strikes against bases located in Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain have placed strain on the regional coalition Washington is trying to maintain against Tehran. These countries, while remaining officially allied with the United States, must now manage the direct consequences of an escalation they did not themselves trigger, which fuels internal tensions over the extent of their future engagement in the anti-Iran coalition.

This pressure on regional cohesion is likely one of Tehran's probable strategic objectives: to demonstrate to Washington's regional partners that their alliance with the United States carries a direct and immediate security cost, in hopes of eventually weakening the solidarity of the Western and regional coalition currently mobilized against the Iranian regime.

A Western solidarity that holds nonetheless

Despite these tensions, the Western and regional coalition has held firm so far, with no partner publicly questioning its strategic alignment with Washington despite the Iranian strikes suffered. This resilience of the coalition, documented by the absence of any major diplomatic rupture since the start of the July 2026 escalation, represents a relative failure of the regional fragmentation strategy Tehran appeared to be pursuing.

This Western and regional solidarity, if it holds in the coming weeks, could be one of the most decisive factors in the final outcome of this crisis, depriving the Iranian regime of the diplomatic room to maneuver it likely hoped to gain by striking regional targets meant to create divisions within the Western camp.

This Western and regional solidarity holding firm, despite Iranian strikes on several allied countries, deserves to be praised as one of the rare pieces of good news in this crisis. It proves that Tehran's fragmentation strategy has, for now, failed.

Conclusion: a defiance that masks an unstable equation

A regime playing a high-risk hand

At the end of this analysis, the defiance displayed by Tehran appears less as a demonstration of real strength than as the calculated management of a profoundly unstable strategic equation. The Iranian regime combines intact rhetorical resistance, documented clandestine nuclear reconstruction, and cautious silence on its most embarrassing files, while simultaneously suffering considerable military and financial damage that no official messaging can entirely conceal.

This combination of contradictory factors, public defiance and real vulnerability, sums up the deep nature of the current crisis: neither capitulation nor victory appears immediately within reach for either side, which suggests a likely prolongation of this confrontation in the weeks and months ahead, with human and economic consequences that will keep accumulating for the Iranian population far more than for its leaders.

An analytical vigilance that must endure

Documenting this defiance with rigor, without yielding either to fascination with the regime's resistance rhetoric or to hasty predictions of its imminent collapse, is the single most important methodological requirement for understanding the real trajectory of this crisis in the coming weeks. The facts available to date allow neither the claim that Tehran is negotiating sincerely, nor the conclusion that its regime will soon collapse under cumulative pressure.

It is this demanding but necessary analytical caution that must continue to guide observation of this file in the weeks ahead, as Iranian defiance continues to collide with a Western determination that, likewise, shows no sign of immediate relenting.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

What I know and what I don't

I know that Iran continued rebuilding nuclear sites at Pickaxe Mountain and Parchin in violation of the Islamabad memorandum, according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. I know that President Trump declared the ceasefire over on July 6, 2026, according to Reuters. I know that the Strait of Hormuz was proclaimed closed on July 12, 2026, by the IRGC.

I do not know with certainty how this crisis will evolve in the coming weeks, nor whether the defiance displayed by Tehran reflects genuine strategic confidence or a posture of internal political survival. I would rather document this uncertainty than mask it with unsupported categorical predictions.

Method

This analysis draws on reports from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, on coverage from Reuters, Eastern Herald, the New York Post, the Times of Israel, and Foley & Lardner, published in July 2026. No scene has been invented, and no firsthand account is claimed.

My editorial angle is stated plainly: I consider the Iranian regime's defiance a real threat to regional stability and to the international order, while acknowledging the uncertainties surrounding the outcome of this crisis and the limits of what current facts allow us to assert with certainty.

Sources

Primary sources

Iranian nuclear reconstruction in violation of the memorandum — Foundation for Defense of Democracies, July 8, 2026

Trump's statement on the end of the ceasefire — Reuters, July 6, 2026

Restriction of IAEA access to bombed sites — Eastern Herald, July 2, 2026

Secondary sources

Massive American strikes after the closure of Hormuz — New York Post, July 11, 2026

Live coverage of the Iran-Israel-U.S. crisis — The Times of Israel, July 10, 2026

Analysis of the Strait of Hormuz closure — Foley & Lardner, July 2026