Weekday morning and evening editions. Saturdays once. Sundays once. All sources labeled. Translator notes on every story.
WAR DAY 18 | NUMBERS AT CLOSE OF DAY 17
🇮🇷 Iran: 1,444+ killed / 18,551+ injured
🇱🇧 Lebanon: 886+ killed / 111 children / 1,049,328 displaced — crossed 1 million today
🇮🇱 Israel: 15 civilians / 2 IDF / 3,369 hospitalized
🇺🇸 US: 13 KIA / ~200 wounded (updated, CENTCOM)
🛢️ Gulf oil exports: down 60% week ending March 15 vs. February
💰 Brent crude: $105.66 | US gas: ~$3.70/gallon
1. THE STRAIT NOBODY’S GUARDING
The Trump administration has been telling the world for two weeks that the U.S. Navy will escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz — and that when it does, the energy crisis ends.
On Tuesday, March 10, the U.S. Secretary of Energy posted proof that it had already happened.
At 1:02 p.m. Eastern, Energy Secretary Chris Wright posted to his official government X account: “President Trump is maintaining stability of global energy during the military operations against Iran. The U.S. Navy successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz to ensure oil remains flowing to global markets.”
Oil prices collapsed. Brent crude dropped more than 17% in minutes. Traders who had been pricing in a sealed strait suddenly priced in an open one.
The post was deleted within thirty minutes.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt then stood before reporters and confirmed what the markets had already begun to suspect. “I can confirm that the U.S. Navy has not escorted a tanker or a vessel at this time,” she said. When asked whether there would be consequences for Wright, Leavitt replied: “I would defer you to the Department of Energy.”
The Department of Energy’s explanation: “a video clip was deleted from Secretary Wright’s official X account after it was determined to be incorrectly captioned by Department of Energy staff.”
A caption error. That moved global oil markets by 17%.
Wright later told Fox News he took “full ownership” of the mistake, calling it “a miscommunication in our department,” and promised to personally review his department’s social posts going forward.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted his own response the same day: “U.S. officials are posting fake news to manipulate markets. It won’t protect them from the inflationary tsunami they’ve imposed on Americans.”
So where is the Navy?
The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group — twelve ships including eight destroyers — is operating in the Arabian Sea. Outside the strait. It has not entered the Persian Gulf. It has not approached the Strait of Hormuz.
That positioning is not an accident. It is a decision.
Navy officials told the Wall Street Journal this week that U.S. warships face what they described in plain terms as an “Iranian kill box” in the strait. Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Caine acknowledged the threat publicly: “It’s a tactically complex environment. Before we want to take anything through there at scale, we want to make sure we do the work.”
The work, according to defense officials, has not been done.
There is a reason. The Strait of Hormuz is 21 miles wide at its narrowest point — but that number is misleading. Ships don’t spread across all 21 miles. International maritime law funnels all traffic into designated shipping lanes: two miles wide inbound, two miles wide outbound, separated by a two-mile buffer zone. That’s it. A corridor six miles across, total, for the flow of 20% of the world’s oil. Oil supertankers — some longer than three football fields — fill most of that lane. That leaves almost no room for an escort destroyer to maneuver around a tanker to get a clean fire solution on incoming drones or missiles. Iranian weapons batteries sit on the shoreline directly to the north. Reaction time, once a threat is detected, is measured in seconds.
Naval analysts call this “death valley.”
There’s also the math problem. According to Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a single escort transit requires between 8 and 10 destroyers to protect a convoy of just 5 to 10 commercial vessels. The entire U.S. Navy has 73 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers on active duty — but only about 68% are combat-ready at any given time. That’s roughly 50 available. Some are in the Caribbean. Some are in the Mediterranean. Some are in the Pacific.
Even if every condition were met and escorts began today, Lloyd’s List estimates the operation could restore approximately 10% of pre-war traffic through the strait.
Ten percent.
And this: more than 300 ships are currently stranded inside the Gulf, trapped by Iran’s de facto blockade. At convoy pace, analysts say clearing that backlog could take months — or years.
The gap
President Trump has threatened Iran with strikes “20 times harder” if the strait isn’t opened. He has called Iran a “paper tiger.” His Energy Secretary announced the Navy had successfully escorted a tanker through the strait — then deleted the post within the hour.
His Joint Chiefs Chairman says the strait is too dangerous to enter at scale.
His own Navy officials are calling it a kill box.
Those are not the same message.
🌍 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: The deleted post story ran in Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, Reuters, CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, and Notus. The oil market reaction — a 17% single-day move on a false government statement — was covered extensively in the international financial press. In U.S. political coverage, it was treated largely as a gaffe. In international energy and security coverage, it was treated as a credibility event: a Cabinet secretary moved the world’s most strategically sensitive commodity market with misinformation, blamed a staffer, and faced no consequences.
🇺🇸 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW: Every American who has filled a gas tank in the past two weeks has paid a price directly connected to the Strait of Hormuz. The administration’s public message is that the Navy is handling it. The administration’s private message to the Wall Street Journal is that the strait is a kill box. Those two things cannot both be true. The rest of the world’s press has been reporting the gap. This is what it looks like up close.
Sources: Al Jazeera (Qatar, state-funded/editorially independent); Bloomberg (US, independent); CNBC (US, independent); Wall Street Journal (US, independent) via Fortune; CNN (US, independent); Lloyd’s List Intelligence (UK, independent maritime analysis); OPB/AP (US, independent); NOTUS (US, independent); Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine press briefings; White House press briefing, Karoline Leavitt; Department of Energy spokesperson statement
2. THE EAST ROOM
This afternoon, with 13 U.S. service members dead, Lebanon crossing one million displaced, and the Strait of Hormuz still closed, the President of the United States held a press event at the White House.
He spent most of it talking about curtains.
The event was formally billed as a lunch for the board of the Kennedy Center — the Washington arts venue Trump has renamed after himself. Reporters gathered expecting an update on the war. What they got, for the better part of an hour, was a tour of the East Room’s renovation plans.
“You see the nice gold curtains?” Trump said, gesturing behind him after brief opening remarks on the war.
The curtains overlook the construction site of a $400 million ballroom being built to replace the demolished White House East Wing. Trump described the floor as a future “cocktail room for the ballroom before dinners.” He called it “the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world.”
AFP’s wire headline — the one running in newsrooms from Paris to Tokyo to Buenos Aires — read: “As Iran war rages, Trump talks gold leaf and cocktail rooms.”
There was substantive news buried in the hour. Trump said it was unclear whether Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei was “dead or not” — a remarkable statement about the leader of a country the U.S. is actively bombing — and said it made it difficult to know who Washington could negotiate with. He acknowledged some countries were “not enthusiastic” about joining a naval coalition at Hormuz, while claiming others were “on the way” without naming them.
On the war itself, he called Iran a “paper tiger.” On the closed strait, he said: “We have been dealing with it and don’t need to worry about it.”
On the ballroom: “It’ll be spectacular.”
🌍 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: The AFP wire is one of the three major global news agencies — alongside AP and Reuters — whose feeds run in virtually every international newsroom on earth. When AFP chooses a headline, that is the headline the world reads. Tonight the headline the world read about the American president and his war was about gold curtains. That is not a framing choice. That is what happened.
🇺🇸 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW: The international press covered both things: the war news, and the curtains. American cable news covered the war news. The image the world formed of American leadership tonight — the image circulating right now in every capital from London to Beijing to Tehran — is Trump pointing at gold drapes while 13 families are in mourning. That image does not stay in the East Room.
Sources: AFP wire (France, public wire service); Euronews (Europe, multilingual independent); Inquisitr/Times Leader (US, independent); Democracy Now! (US, independent); White House livestream (primary source)
3. THE PROTESTS THEY’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO HOLD
Inside Israel, a small and growing movement is trying to hold anti-war protests. The government is trying to stop them.
The mechanism is a Home Front Command order restricting public gatherings — originally issued on missile threat grounds. In practice, it has become a tool for dispersing demonstrations before they can take hold.
On March 8, a Tel Aviv protest was broken up approximately 20 minutes after it began. Police cited “concern for public safety.” One protester was arrested.
A 19-year-old activist named Itamar Greenberg described what happened to him after a separate arrest: “We held a protest on Tuesday, where the police were already waiting. They beat and arrested us. I was illegally strip-searched.”
Member of Knesset Ofer Cassif, of the Hadash party, described the broader atmosphere: “The atmosphere is very violent. When I leave the house, I’m more worried by the danger posed by a physical attack by fascists than I am by any missile.” Of one demonstration, Cassif said: “Five minutes — that’s all it took for the minister’s militia to unlawfully disperse our anti-war demonstration.”
The crowds are small. The political cost of attending is high. Far-right counter-protesters have shown up at multiple demonstrations. And yet the protests keep happening.
🌍 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: Al Jazeera has covered the Israeli protest crackdowns consistently throughout the war. Haaretz — Israel’s leading independent newspaper, which has reported critically on its own government for decades — has covered individual arrests with specificity: dates, names, legal mechanisms. These are not outside accusations. They are Israeli journalists covering Israeli events.
🇺🇸 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW: There are Israelis who oppose this war and are taking personal risk to say so publicly. They are being strip-searched, beaten, and dispersed by police. The legal tool being used against them — a missile-threat public gathering ban — was designed to protect civilians, not silence dissent. That distinction matters.
Sources: Al Jazeera (Qatar, state-funded/editorially independent); Haaretz (Israel, independent)
4. ONE MILLION
Lebanon’s displaced population crossed one million people today.
The UN Refugee Agency confirmed the figure: 1,049,328 registered displaced as of March 17. One hundred and eleven of the 886 confirmed dead are children.
Israel’s ground operation in southern Lebanon — the 91st “Galilee” Division advancing toward Khiam — continues. Hezbollah has responded with barrages of 200 or more missiles. The Lebanese government, which has been trying to prevent a full Israeli ground occupation, has received no response to a French-brokered ceasefire offer.
The leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement today calling on Israel to avert a “large-scale ground offensive,” warning it “would have devastating humanitarian consequences and could lead to a protracted conflict.” Israel has not responded.
🌍 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: One million displaced in a country of approximately six million people is one in six Lebanese residents. The G5 statement — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, UK — is notable for what it doesn’t include: the United States. Washington has not joined the call to restrain Israeli ground operations in Lebanon.
🇺🇸 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW: Lebanon is not Iran. Lebanon has a functioning government that is actively trying to keep its country out of this war. That government is watching its population flee while its appeals go unanswered. The four-country statement from US allies asking Israel to stop — without US co-signature — is a signal of where Washington stands relative to its own partners on this question.
Sources: UNHCR (UN, primary source); Euronews (Europe, multilingual independent); Reuters/AP (international wire, independent)
5. SHAH
Overnight, a drone struck the Shah oil field in Abu Dhabi — 143 miles south of the city, operated by Abu Dhabi National Energy Company. The field has a production capacity of 70,000 barrels per day. Abu Dhabi authorities confirmed a fire; no injuries were reported.
This is the second confirmed strike on UAE energy infrastructure in two days, following Saturday’s drone hit on a fuel tank near Dubai International Airport. Iran is expanding its target set — moving from US military assets and Israeli territory toward the oil infrastructure of Gulf states that have, until now, stayed out of the direct line of fire.
The UAE has not publicly attributed the Shah field strike to Iran.
🌍 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: The UAE has maintained careful diplomatic ambiguity throughout this conflict — hosting foreign dignitaries, keeping its ports open, avoiding direct confrontation with Tehran while remaining closely tied to Washington. Strikes on its energy infrastructure test that ambiguity in ways that diplomatic statements cannot resolve.
🇺🇸 WHAT AMERICAN READERS NEED TO KNOW: The Gulf states are not passive scenery in this war. They are targets. The UAE alone handles a significant portion of global container shipping through Jebel Ali. When drones start hitting Gulf oil fields, the economic consequences extend far beyond the barrel count.
Sources: Abu Dhabi Media Office (UAE government, primary source); Euronews (Europe, independent); Reuters (international wire, independent)
WATCH LIST
🔴 Kharg Island — Seizure scenario still on table (Axios). Runway destroyed, 7,000 workers trapped, mainland fire range 15 miles. No decision announced. ⚑ MORNING RESEARCH FLAG: If the Navy won’t enter Hormuz to escort tankers, how does an amphibious assault on an island 15 miles from the Iranian mainland work? Same threat environment, no runway for air support, Marines exposed on landing craft. Graham’s “control Kharg, control the war” logic vs. operational reality. Source against the kill box framing already established in tonight’s edition.
🔴 Lebanon ground operation — 91st Division advancing. Macron Paris ceasefire offer unanswered. G5 warning issued, no US signature.
🔴 Hormuz escort timeline — Navy says “not ready.” White House says “option being considered.” Market says it doesn’t believe either.
🔴 Witkoff-Araghchi backchannel — Reactivated per Axios. Araghchi publicly: “We never asked for a ceasefire.” Watch for divergence.
🔴 UAE diplomatic response — Two strikes in two days. How Abu Dhabi responds — or doesn’t — shapes the Gulf’s next chapter.
🟡 War powers resolution — Jeffries bringing it back. Several Democrats who voted against now signaling support.
🟡 Trump-Xi summit — Scheduled March 31. China’s role in Iran oil purchases and diplomatic cover remains the largest unresolved variable.
🟡 West Bank settlers — Le Monde reporting escalating attacks under cover of Iran war. HOLD — awaiting second source.
🟡 Japan PM / Allied coalition — Thursday meeting. Japan, Australia, South Korea all declined Hormuz deployment. Watch for any shift.
THE REST OF THE WORLD REPORT publishes weekday morning and evening editions, Saturdays once, Sundays once. All sources labeled by country and funding. Not left, not right — just the rest of the world.
ROTWR DAY 17 EVENING EDITION — SOURCE CHEATSHEET
Monday, March 16, 2026 | 6:12 PM ET
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STORY 1: THE STRAIT NOBODY’S GUARDING
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Wright deleted post — original reporting
Al Jazeera: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/10/energy-secretary-deletes-claim-us-military-escorted-tanker-through-hormuz
CNBC (Wright post text + DOE caption explanation): https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/10/iran-trump-oil-tanker-hormuz-wright-white-house.html
Bloomberg (Wright “full ownership” Fox News): https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-12/wright-says-he-takes-full-ownership-for-erroneous-tanker-post
NOTUS (Leavitt full quote + consequences question): https://www.notus.org/foreign-policy/white-house-karoline-leavitt-chris-wright-escort-oil-tanker-strait-of-hormuz
gCaptain (maritime detail + $20B reinsurance facility): https://gcaptain.com/energy-secretary-deletes-post-claiming-u-s-navy-escorted-oil-tanker-through-strait-of-hormuz
Attack of the Fanboy (Araghchi market manipulation quote): https://attackofthefanboy.com/politics/chris-wright-falsely-claimed-the-navy-escorted-a-tanker-through-hormuz-and-iran-used-the-deleted-post-to-accuse-the-u-s-of-market-manipulation/
CNBC (17% oil price drop): https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/10/crude-oil-prices-today-iran-war.html
Navy position / kill box
Fortune/WSJ (”kill box,” Caine quotes, Navy fleet size): https://fortune.com/2026/03/13/strait-of-hormuz-iranian-kill-box-us-navy-escorts-oil-tankers-persian-gulf/
OPB/AP (Abraham Lincoln + 8 destroyers in Arabian Sea): https://www.opb.org/article/2026/03/13/us-orders-2500-marines-and-an-amphibious-assault-ship-to-mideast-after-almost-2-weeks-of-war/
CNN (death valley, 2-mile lanes, 10% traffic restoration, destroyer math): https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/16/middleeast/hormuz-strait-us-navy-escorts-analysis-intl-hnk-ml
EIA (21-mile width, 2-mile lanes confirmed): https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=4430
Wikipedia / Hormuz crisis (300 ships stranded, traffic near zero): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Strait_of_Hormuz_crisis
USNI News (Operation Epic Escort, Caine full briefing): https://news.usni.org/2026/03/10/operation-epic-escort
Al Jazeera (US “not ready” to escort, Wright deleted post confirmed): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/12/us-military-not-ready-to-escort-oil-ships-through-hormuz-official-says
KEY QUOTES LOCKED:
- Wright post (verbatim): “President Trump is maintaining stability of global energy during the military operations against Iran. The U.S. Navy successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz to ensure oil remains flowing to global markets.”
- Leavitt: “I can confirm that the U.S. Navy has not escorted a tanker or a vessel at this time.”
- Leavitt on consequences: “I would defer you to the Department of Energy.”
- DOE: “a video clip was deleted from Secretary Wright’s official X account after it was determined to be incorrectly captioned by Department of Energy staff.”
- Wright (Fox News): “That is a miscommunication in our department — I take full ownership of that.”
- Araghchi: “U.S. officials are posting fake news to manipulate markets.”
- Caine: “It’s a tactically complex environment. Before we want to take anything through there at scale, we want to make sure we do the work.”
- Lloyd’s List: 8-10 destroyers per convoy of 5-10 ships = 10% traffic restoration max
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STORY 2: THE EAST ROOM
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AFP wire (gold leaf / cocktail rooms headline — running globally):
https://www.kten.com/news/as-iran-war-rages-trump-talks-gold-leaf-and-cocktail-rooms/article_e16796ff-e13c-52b0-b907-8e5cadf97eab.html
https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/national/as-iran-war-rages-trump-talks-gold-leaf-and-cocktail-rooms/article_4cfab6d3-e9a2-50cb-90a4-3878a7ede98a.html
Inquisitr (40 minutes on ballroom, Kennedy Center detail):
https://www.inquisitr.com/donald-trump-pauses-iran-war-press-briefing-to-talk-about-gold-curtains
Euronews live blog (Khamenei “dead or not,” coalition “not enthusiastic,” “don’t need to worry about it”):
https://www.euronews.com/2026/03/16/gulf-states-report-drone-attacks-early-on-monday-as-iran-war-enters-day-17
KEY QUOTES LOCKED:
- Trump: “You see the nice gold curtains?”
- Trump: “We have a magnificent ballroom being built... This whole floor will end up being a cocktail room for the ballroom before dinners.”
- Trump on Khamenei: unclear if “dead or not” (Euronews)
- Trump on Hormuz: “We have been dealing with it and don’t need to worry about it.”
- AFP headline (verbatim): “As Iran war rages, Trump talks gold leaf and cocktail rooms.”
- Event context: Kennedy Center board lunch — Trump handpicked loyalists
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STORY 3: THE PROTESTS THEY’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO HOLD
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Al Jazeera (Greenberg quote, MK Cassif quotes, March 15 protest video):
[Research from prior session — Al Jazeera Iran war coverage, March 15-16]
Haaretz (March 8 Tel Aviv protest broken up 20 min, one arrested):
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2026-03-08/ty-article/.premium/tel-aviv-police-shut-anti-iran-war-protest-after-far-right-agitators-crash-rally/0000019c-ca40-db5a-a99f-db4517db0000
NOTE: Paywalled — confirm quotes via Al Jazeera secondary
KEY QUOTES LOCKED:
- Itamar Greenberg (19, activist): “We held a protest on Tuesday, where the police were already waiting. They beat and arrested us. I was illegally strip-searched.”
- MK Ofer Cassif (Hadash): “The atmosphere is very violent. When I leave the house, I’m more worried by the danger posed by a physical attack by fascists than I am by any missile.”
- MK Cassif: “Five minutes — that’s all it took for the minister’s militia to unlawfully disperse our anti-war demonstration.”
- Legal mechanism: Home Front Command public gathering ban (missile threat justification)
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STORY 4: ONE MILLION
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UNHCR / official figures:
- 1,049,328 registered displaced (confirmed March 17 Paris / March 16 EST)
- 886 killed / 111 children
Euronews live blog (G5 joint statement, no US signature):
https://www.euronews.com/2026/03/16/gulf-states-report-drone-attacks-early-on-monday-as-iran-war-enters-day-17
G5 statement signatories: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom
Key language: “large-scale Israeli ground offensive would have devastating humanitarian consequences and could lead to a protracted conflict”
US: did not sign
IDF 91st “Galilee” Division / Khiam confirmed: from Day 17 Morning research (Axios)
Macron Paris ceasefire offer unanswered: from Day 17 Morning research
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STORY 5: SHAH
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Abu Dhabi Media Office (official confirmation, no injuries):
https://twitter.com/ADMediaOffice (via Euronews liveblog)
Euronews live blog (Shah field strike, drone confirmed):
https://www.euronews.com/2026/03/16/gulf-states-report-drone-attacks-early-on-monday-as-iran-war-enters-day-17
Field specs: 70,000 bbl/day capacity, 143 miles south of Abu Dhabi
Previous UAE strike: Dubai International Airport fuel tank, Saturday March 14
Attribution: UAE has not publicly attributed to Iran
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NUMBERS AT PUBLICATION
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Iran: 1,444+ killed / 18,551+ injured (Sunday 06:00 GMT — likely higher)
Lebanon: 886+ killed / 111 children / 1,049,328 displaced
Israel: 15 civilians / 2 IDF / 3,369 hospitalized
US: 13 KIA / ~200 wounded (updated CENTCOM / France 24)
Gulf oil exports: down 60% week ending March 15 vs. February (Reuters/Times of Israel)
Brent crude: $105.66
US gas: ~$3.70/gallon
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MORNING RESEARCH FLAG — DAY 18
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KHARG AMPHIBIOUS ASSAULT VS. HORMUZ KILL BOX
If the Navy won’t enter Hormuz to escort tankers, how does
an amphibious assault on an island 15 miles from the Iranian
mainland work?
Key angles to research and source:
- USS Tripoli / 2,500 Marines: Pentagon language = “evacuations,
maritime security, limited operations” — NOT seizure/invasion
- Kharg runway destroyed = no close air support for landing force
- 15-mile mainland fire range = Iran can hit landing craft continuously
- 7,000 civilian workers = rules of engagement nightmare
- Graham “he who controls Kharg” quote vs. Caine “kill box” reality
- Same threat environment as Hormuz, worse geometry
- Build against kill box sourcing already established in tonight’s
Story 1 (Fortune/WSJ, CNN, USNI News)
Lead framing: “The White House is weighing seizing Kharg Island.
The same Navy that won’t enter the Strait of Hormuz would have
to take it.”
============================================================
END CHEATSHEET — ROTWR DAY 17 EVENING
Really appreciate this perspective- it helps cut through the incessant noise here! 🙂
Thank you for your continued clear and honest news. I look to you for your every update Namaste.