Kit Knightly – Off-Guardian March 18, 2026
Since the US/Israel began their war – sorry, their “targeted, limited, combat operation” – hard facts have been hard to come by.
In a more than usually cloudy combat narrative, we’ve been told that Iran is winning AND losing, depending who you ask. It’s a regime change war, but also it isn’t. Various Iranian officials have been killed, and some came back. Netanyahu was briefly dead, too. There was talk of a tactical nuke.
Nowhere is this fog of war thicker than in the Strait of Hormuz, about which it is seemingly impossible to get a *ahem* strait answer.
The coverage is so fast-paced and contradictory it conjures up images of an elaborate game of “yes, and…” being played by members of an improv group who have totally different goals for the story, and secretly hate each other.
Within hours of the initial bombing raids of “Epic Fury”, Western news sources were reporting that Iran had closed the strait of Hormuz.
Then Iran said they hadn’t, but they were threatening to.
Then Western insurers stepped in, forcing a closure in effect by refusing to cover ships passing through the strait.
Then Donald Trump said the US military would insure the ships, and offered them military escorts as well.
Then we were told that Iran couldn’t close the Strait, even if they wanted to, because their navy had been totally destroyed.
Then the press reported that Iran had mined the Strait with “about a dozen mines”, despite Iranian officials denying this entirely.
More strangely, even US Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, refuted the presence of mines, telling a Press Briefing, “We have no evidence of that.”
Which raises an interesting question: If both the governments involved in this war say there aren’t any mines, who is saying there ARE mines? And why?
Who is overruling both the Pentagon and the Iranian Foreign Ministry? And why are the vast majority of the press accepting their word?
Unfortunately, if there ARE mines, the US Navy is in no position to do anything about them, since they decommissioned their four minesweeper ships in September, and then sailed them out of the area in January.
Given that Iran mining the Strait is a very obvious potential outcome of any conflict, one the US has likely wargamed dozens of times in the last fifty years, this is “incompetence” so incredible it’s virtually self-sabotage.
Some politicians recently suggested they could use mine-sweeping drones to keep the trade line open, but the press shut that down immediately, reporting that “Mine-Sweeping Drones Don’t Eliminate The Risks For Clearing Hormuz”
So the press and politicians are engaged in a debate about the best way to remove mines that are not confirmed to be there, and that both sides officially state do not exist.
Meanwhile, Iran is offering safe passage through the Strait to ships from China, or ships trading in Yuan, or just anyone who asks nicely. Which seems to suggest they are telling the truth about the absence of mines.
Which again raises the question of why the press seem so keen for those mines to be there.
All of these contradictions generate a list of pressing questions:
- Is the Strait of Hormuz open or closed?
- If closed, who closed it and how?
- Why can’t the US Navy keep the Strait open?
- Does Iran have any Naval ships left? Or have they been sunk?
- Are there mines deployed? How many?
- If there are mines deployed, could Iran offer safe passage as it is allegedly doing?
…all of which have either no answers at all, or multiple contradictory answers.
It seems clear that large sections of the establishment want the Strait of Hormuz closed, or at least to make everyone believe it’s closed. The broader strokes of “why” are obvious: Drive up prices, cultivate shortages and panics. Chaos. Even better, expensive chaos. The best kind.
But it also seems like Donald Trump and those close to him don’t want the Strait closed and are trying to insist it is open and can be kept open.
Hence, we can only suppose, the back-and-forth claims –
“it’s closed!”
“No, it’s open”
“Definitely closed actually – and mined!”
“Nope, open, open, open, open”
“Closed, closed, closed closed – mines everywhere…”
Two drivers fighting over a steering wheel, while the car manically veers and swerves back and forth.
This struggle over the direction of the story appears to be ongoing; just yesterday, Trump was pleading with NATO allies to help keep the Strait open. It doesn’t look like they’re going to help.
The press is even planning ahead by positioning for the economic impact of the Hormuz closure to persist past the end of the war.
The Financial Times headlines…
Why Hormuz will haunt us long after this war ends
And goes on to say…
It is not in Trump’s power to reopen this vital sea passage by declaring victory and walking away. Instead his war with Iran — and the particular issue of the Strait of Hormuz — will define the rest of his presidency and may haunt his successors.
That is because the strait’s closure creates both an immediate crisis and a long-term strategic quandary. The current problem is that the longer it is closed, the greater the threat of a global recession. The future dilemma is that Iran now knows that control of the Strait of Hormuz gives it a stranglehold over the world economy. Even if it relaxes its grip in the short term, it can tighten it again in future.
Do you see?
In a move straight out of Wag the Dog, they have insured the narrative against anyone, be it Pezeshkian/Trump/Hegseth/Netanyahu/ or anyone suddenly claiming the war is over and ruining the plan.
They’re telling us even if that happens, even if the sides were to come to terms and end hostilities, we’ll still be “haunted” by Hormuz and “feel the effects of the closure” long after any fighting is finished.
That makes it very clear, doesn’t it?
It is vitally important to the greater narrative that the Strait of Hormuz is closed.
Possibly indefinitely
The question is what comes next.
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Every time I see a map of these straights, a photo of diverticulitis pops into my noggin. Don’t know why!
I wonder why Trump has asked his 2,500 marines to sail to the Guld of Oman instead of flying them to the region on several transporters over several days? They would arrive there much sooner and they can’t just sail into the Persian Gulf because the Iranians have limited passage through the Strait of Hormuz, the very reason they’re being deployed to the region in the first place.
I can’t decide if he’s so clueless about what he’s unleashed that he doesn’t know which pieces to move where to on the board, or maybe he thinks the slow approach of US marines will intimidate Iran. If he continues all he’ll do is end up with a lot of dead Iranians but a lot of dead and captured marines. For a man who utilised bone spurs to dodge his own possible death he needs to consider not simply wasting all those lives. The US may lose badly enough without throwing lives away.
“Epic Fury” has all the wannabe ‘majesty’ of a two-bit Hollywood film title. It sounds, ironically, (or should that be “Iran-ically”?) what Motley Crue (again, the irony) would name their Greatest Hits LP.
It’s NOT an “apocalypse”, or a prelude to an “avatar”…it simply IS, and life will carry on. That a major “restructuring” is underway is somewhat of a given.
19 March https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHd06Q-a-Sw Pay Iran Pass Hormuz / New Post War Reality ? / by Mahmood OD/ 0.24: ” Iran might actually start charging fees for everything that passes thru the Hormuz Strait….
0.49: “…in normal times about 2 billion dollars worth of goods pass thru every day….so if you have a 10% toll that would be 200 million dollars…that would bring 73 billion dollars a year/ that would be enough to off set the illegal sanctions for the extensive damages these years.. not the first year but eventually/ so Iran is not going back to the old days of just suffering under sanctions…while others benefit from the oil wealth in this part of the world…”
18 March https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/18/onboard-fire-uss-gerald-ford-aircraft-carrier 6.11: …you know it’s happening/ you can see that your political leadership / your president is unconstitutional not going to the Congress/ is operating against international law/ is being blackmailed acc. to the Epst. files he raped little girls ( + little boys/ those files are by all means covered up by orange small-dick/tator drumpf / check Sacha Barros Riley/gj) / participated in this Epst. ring with all of the childtrafficking & evil satanic rituals & canabalism & maiming/ that’s their president…”
comment/ “This makes sense. We pay tolls on bridges & roads for revenue. Iran needs to rebuild after the war. They won’t need to let the war capitalists come to finance rebuilding what they contributed in destroying.”/ “Netanyahu (an echo from the grave): We will fight Iran to our last American soldier.”
19 March https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXSX4iO9_yw ‘What happens when a sitting U.S. President contradicts his own war narrative… live on camera’? ( drumpf during a kind of ‘victory dinner’ with Republicans/ gj) / Frontline Africa hosted by Ezekiel Enejeta ( most probably an Igbo (eebo) from Nigeria…:
7.21:”let me read it (drumpfs words) back to you slowly/ ‘you win a war / but they have no right to be doing what they are doing’ / what kind of victory requires you to go on tv & complain that the country you just defeated is still fighting you/ what kind of win have you calling for support in a certain area that has very much to do with the Strait of Hormuz…?”
“…if ‘drumpf’ won this war like he wants every one to believe/ 8.11 oil prices would not be above 100 dollars a barrel the US would not be pulling defense systems out of Asia & reploying them in the Gulf ”
Listen to the Military Presschief of Iran/ in English btw : 10.33 🎯” A message to the president of the United States/ the outcome of war cannot be determined by tweets/ the result of a war is determined in the field / the very place where you & your forces do not dare to approach/ you can only talk about it in your tweets/ ❗️it is better to name this war Epic Fear instead of epic fury”
20 March https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y4YqV7Pu18 Diablo Eppy Pedo Numero Uno crypto fake j. drumpf & kkk rigger of the 2024 election ( thus illegal WH resident/ selected by the Eyes Wide Shut satanic RotSchild family syndicat that fouded 1948 israhell after WW I +II *behind the curtain)
4.11: “Some of us weaponry is unthinkable / they don’t want to know about it/ we could end this in 2 seconds”/ the empty suit with no emperor in it does not think further than his nose jobbed (since 1989) smell organ/ forgets Russia & surtout China….with all the orange lipstick all over his pig-mentality porem (= face in yiddish)/ thinks he is the only nuke player on the field……pathetic satanic clown
Different counter options/ Iran launches a bunch of hypersonic missiles on his beloved israhells Dimona & who knows Russia & surtout China might have supplied nukes to Iran behind the scenes (+ not to forget North Korea) / they themselves will not just watch as couch potatos how eppy pedo drumpf drops his nuke shit on Iran….
*RotSchild supreme court https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-4zsWXcT3Q in israhell near the Knesset completed in 1992 https://freemasonrywatch.org/washington.html “on the back of the U.S. one dollar bill there is a pyramid with the All-Seeing-Eye of Lucifer/ with the message/ “New Order of The Ages” or “New World Order.”
Funny/ the de-dollarisation is in full swing / the Chinese Yuan takes over World Trade
14 March https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beqs6a6jPKI Petrodollar Collapse/Iran Turns Hormuz Yuan-Only/ drumpf’s War Kills Dollar System / by House of El
Anyway every body anywhere
h.a.n.d. have a nice day
CIA O
yankee boots on the ground in Iran means Nam https://www.alamyimages.fr/demonstration-au-vietnam-a-rotterdam-ici-au-consulat-americain-a-hoogstraat-22-decembre-1967-consulats-pays-bas-agence-de-presse-du-xxe-siecle-photo-nouvelles-a-retenir-documentaire-photographie-historique-1945-1990-histoires-visuelles-l-histoire-humaine-du-xxe-siecle-immortaliser-des-moments-dans-le-temps-image429398186.html no way Jose
No nukes either / so the only option left is diablo drumpf jerking off above his golden toilet bowl in the amputated WH before he returns to RotSchilds & schneersons hell from whence he came….
17 March 2026 https://www.facebook.com/reel/2061705774685790 “we should not even be there” / drumpf is struggling to keep his story ( haha) straight he accidentally admitted the truth/ Samuel back up
Eppy sado pedo drumpf meant to say/ ok ok ok I am in the ff in files / who on earth does not know that…..
19 March https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHeXG0DGOPo Drones Circle US Base Where Rubio & Hegseth Sleep / Trump Threatens To “Blow Up” South Pars | Vertex
Maybe drones will suddenly fly by the Casa Blanca when drumpf opens the WH window to throw out his diapers….
Anyway every body anywhere 😎
h.a.n.d. have a nice day
CIA O