I have finally improved the oldest racket in Washington: I made the ocean itself print receipts. Five Iranian oil tankers were destroyed by American forces on Tuesday after U.S. Central Command said Iran tried to hit a Navy warship with ballistic missiles over the previous two days. The American ship evaded the attacks. No American personnel were harmed. This is what I call a perfect transaction. The missiles miss, the retaliation lands, and I invoice the public for both the danger and the answer.
Do not trouble me with the childish belief that a response must lead somewhere. Leading somewhere creates expectations. I prefer motion without arrival. Iran fires. America strikes. Iran hits American targets in Jordan. The Pentagon moves more steel through the region. Oil climbs. Insurance tightens. Shipping trembles. Every institution involved can point to the previous blow as proof that the next blow was forced upon it. Responsibility becomes a relay baton nobody is holding when the photographer arrives.
I admire the efficiency. On Saturday, American forces said they had struck three Iranian tankers after ballistic missiles targeted an aircraft carrier and a destroyer. By Tuesday, the number was five more tankers. A policy that once required a briefing, an argument, and perhaps even a measurable objective now operates like a loyalty card. Collect enough attempted attacks and the next maritime destruction is free.
The public is told this is retaliation, a word with excellent upholstery. Retaliation sounds finite. It suggests a slap returned, an account squared, a door closed. But I have hollowed the word out and installed an escalator inside it. Each retaliatory act produces the conditions for another retaliation. The label remains the same while the machinery climbs. If anyone asks which floor we are going to, I accuse him of failing to support the troops.
I especially enjoy converting commercial infrastructure into military grammar. A tanker is no longer merely a ship carrying the material that powers factories, trucks, hospitals, farms, and homes. Once I call it part of an enemy oil fleet, it becomes a floating ledger entry waiting to be erased. The fuel market notices. Shipping companies notice. Families eventually notice at the pump and the grocery aisle. I notice only when there is a contract to award.
That is the masterwork: the battlefield is abroad, but the collection department is domestic. American sailors face the missiles. American taxpayers finance the response. American workers absorb the fuel costs. American families pay the freight surcharge hidden inside everything from lettuce to roofing shingles. I spread the sacrifice so widely that nobody can identify the cashier. Then I appear on television beside a flag and call the bill resolve.
There is no need to choose between war fever and market discipline when I can sell both. The same people who lecture a household about living within its means will approve another open-ended military expense before the coffee cools. The same officials who swear that energy prices are controlled by mysterious global forces will cheer the destruction of oil infrastructure in the world’s most sensitive shipping corridor. Mystery is simply policy wearing sunglasses.
I do not require victory. Victory is a terrible business model because it ends procurement. I require an exposed enemy, a threatened sea lane, and an American public trained to interpret duration as seriousness. Six months of war becomes evidence that the seventh month must be funded. Every failed effort to finish the conflict proves that quitting would waste the previous failures. I turn sunk cost into national character and cash the difference.
The sailors deserve better than this rotten arithmetic, which is precisely why I wrap myself around them. Their discipline becomes my exemption from scrutiny. Their danger becomes my permission slip. If a citizen asks whether destroying tankers reduces the threat to U.S. forces or expands the target list, I place the sailor between us like a human shield. I have never met a uniform I could not use as insulation for an incoherent strategy.
And Iran plays its assigned role with equal appetite. Attempted missile attacks on American ships make restraint politically poisonous in Washington. Strikes on American targets in Jordan widen the map. Threats to oil traffic make every trader a nervous spectator. Each side feeds the other’s hardest men and calls the meal defensive. I could not design a better partnership if I seated both governments at the same banquet and let the contractors write the menu.
So watch the sea. Not because five destroyed tankers settle anything, but because they reveal the operating principle. I have turned escalation into a subscription service. The first month is fear. The second is retaliation. The third is higher fuel. After that, renewal is automatic, cancellation is treason, and the customer is every American who thought an ocean was distance enough to keep the cashier away.