Iran’s Oil Blockade Is Working
- US oil blockade chokes Iran's economy, despite media downplaying its success
- Complaints about USS Lincoln conditions overblown, reflecting common soldier gripes, not a crisis
- Critics of Trump's Iran strategy are misguided - Iran was never part of the international community
Iran’s Oil Blockade Is Working — And The USS Lincoln ‘Crisis’ Was Manufactured Outrage
The siege is working, and Tony Katz isn’t interested in pretending otherwise. “There is no doubt that this strategy appears to be working — the Iranians are getting weaker every day,” Katz said, framing the U.S. economic blockade of Iran as a quiet success story the mainstream press would rather ignore than credit to the Trump administration.
The numbers back him up. Retired Army Major Mike Lyons, a military analyst who joined Katz on “Tony Katz Today,” pointed to reporting from Axios and National Review showing the U.S. is running what amounts to a stealth oil operation through the Strait of Hormuz — tankers turning off their trackers, hugging the Omani coastline far from Iranian coastal batteries, and moving close to 80% of pre-war volumes. Translation: the blockade is choking Tehran’s economy while Washington quietly protects the flow of everyone else’s oil.
Lyons didn’t mince words about Iran’s military options. The regime, he said, has “no more cards to play” — no smart missiles, no functioning radar, no rockets with the range or precision to touch the tankers hugging Oman’s deeper waters. Even new Iranian threats to strike targets in Europe read, in Katz’s words, like “a desperation move” — a regime lashing out because intimidating its neighbors no longer works.
Katz didn’t let the moment pass without a jab at critics who claim President Trump’s Iran strategy came too late or showed weakness. Lyons was more direct still: “This is a regime that was bent on destroying Israel… it’s never been a part of the international community, and we’re pretending that it was.”
Then came the pivot to a story Katz argued got wildly overblown: reports of “deplorable conditions” aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, deployed more than 270 days in the Iran fight. Complaints about repetitive meals and spotty cell service exploded into a media narrative about troops in crisis. Lyons, who commanded troops himself, wasn’t buying it — calling it his “five percent rule,” where a small fraction of any unit will always complain, and social media now hands that complaining a megaphone straight to newsrooms looking for a story.
On food: sailors aren’t eating combat MREs, Lyons said, they’re getting resupplied “B rations” — hardly the crisis implied. On water: “Our sailors denied fresh water? Absolutely not,” he said, pointing to onboard desalinization and routine resupply. As for missing port calls — expected in an active combat zone, not a scandal.
Katz’s verdict: politicians and media outlets looking to score points off sailors’ hardship should look instead at what Russian conscripts face in Ukraine before manufacturing a crisis out of hot dogs and a bad phone signal.
Hear Tony Katz break it down live weekdays on Tony Katz Today on WIBC 93.1 FM, or catch the full segment on-demand.
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