Don't Fold on Hormuz Because of One Bad Tuesday

Iran is moving its missile factories underground, lifting its own range limits and demanding seven concessions before it reopens the world's most important oil lane. A midterm loss is no reason for America to blink.

By Clara Hughes

Republicans took a beating on Tuesday, and some in Washington have already drawn the wrong lesson from it. "The reason we lost is the war," Vice President JD Vance wrote on X on Wednesday, The National reported. Voters were angry about prices, and the Iran war drove prices. That much is fair. The wrong lesson is that America should now trade the Strait of Hormuz for some quiet. Look at what Tehran did in the same week Washington was counting ballots. On Saturday, the Revolutionary Guards boasted that they had moved missile and drone production underground and lifted Iran's self-imposed 2,000-kilometer missile-range limit, Al Jazeera and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. This week, after Iran put a new air-defense system on Qeshm Island at the mouth of the strait, U.S. forces took it out — strikes President Trump called "minor." That is not a regime looking for an off-ramp. That is a regime testing whether