Comment by mrandish

> Iran has too many targets and the only thing that can stop them is the equivalent to an Israeli Iron Dome across the entirety of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE, maybe more.

Another key issue is Iran's regional neighbors haven't invested significantly enough becoming credible military threats against Iran. Instead they tried to play an in-between game of being tacit frenemies because Iran and its proxies could be politically useful. But in the last 3 years, Iran lost most of its proxies through a series of catastrophic miscalculations, dramatically shifting regional dynamics. Iran now has less reason to cooperate regionally and its neighbors lack of credible offense is costing them dearly.

A contributing factor is that the direct customers for much of what passes through the strait are Western European countries who've failed to sustain any real naval power beyond ceremonial presence. In recent years, the U.S. Navy had to quietly ask the German navy to stay away from the Western Indian ocean due to the additional burden of guaranteeing the safety of the German "warships" if they were attacked by Somali pirates.