It’s so wild how we keep seeing reports that Iran’s retaliation caught the US off guard. For all the years I’ve been paying attention to this issue I’ve been reading experts and analysts saying if the US attacks Iran, Iran can close the Strait of Hormuz and strike US bases and the energy infrastructure of…
Time recently published an article citing unnamed insiders who claim the Pentagon was completely surprised by Iran’s forceful counterattacks against the US-Israeli offensive launched last month. It included the following statement:
“Key Trump officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, were surprised by the barrage of retaliatory attacks Tehran launched against U.S. and Israeli targets across the region, including in countries long assumed to be off-limits: Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, a state that had both harbored Iran’s terrorist proxies and served as a conduit for backchannel diplomacy between the U.S. and Hamas. The response shattered the assumption that Tehran would confine itself to performative retaliation. In internal deliberations before the war’s launch, Hegseth had pointed to Iran’s muted reaction to Trump’s past attacks as evidence that calibrated force could impose costs on Tehran without triggering a broader war. Hegseth ‘was caught off guard. There’s no question,’ says a person familiar with his thinking.”
🇺🇸 Pentagon misjudged Iran response ahead of war, report says
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth expected limited retaliation from Iran before the war, but “was caught off guard. There’s no question,” a person familiar with his thinking told Time.
The report says Hegseth had… https://t.co/jXamN04aHc
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) April 2, 2026
It remains astonishing that news continues to surface claiming Iran’s backlash took the US by surprise. Throughout my engagement with this topic, analysts have consistently warned that if the US were to strike Iran, Tehran could respond by shutting the Strait of Hormuz and targeting American military installations as well as the vital energy facilities of US regional allies.
Here are several notable references:
The 2006 Oxford Research Group document titled “Iran: Consequences of a War” highlighted Iran’s broad retaliatory potentials, emphasizing the critical risk of disruptions to oil and liquefied natural gas transit through the Straits of Hormuz. It further noted that preventing such action would be nearly impossible, with the mere threat severely rattling oil markets.
A 2007 study by the Cato Institute named “The Iraq War and Iranian Power” warned that Iran controls the largest ballistic missile stockpile in the Persian Gulf capable of reaching Israel, Saudi Arabia, and US bases in Iraq. It also stressed Iran’s ability to wield the “oil weapon” by obstructing the 34km-wide Strait of Hormuz and mounting submarine and missile strikes on ports and oil installations in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members.
In 2012, NPR published “Can Iran Close The World’s Most Important Oil Route?” in which the then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff acknowledged Iran’s clear capability and investments aimed at blocking the Strait of Hormuz.
The Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy and the Center for a New American Security jointly released “IN DIRE STRAITS? IMPLICATIONS OF US-IRAN TENSIONS FOR THE GLOBAL OIL MARKET,” warning about scenarios involving damage to Persian Gulf oil facilities and a temporary Strait of Hormuz closure.
These warnings were not issued by peace activists clad in keffiyehs but by well-established establishment figures firmly aligned with US imperial interests. Their opposition to conflict with Iran stemmed not from moral grounds opposing mass violence, but from concerns over negative impacts on power dynamics within the empire.
For people who say it couldn’t be predicted that the Iran war would be this consequential for the global economy, watch this 2012 video of former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski 👇
He predicts what did in fact happen: “[Iran] can hurt us a lot… Can you imagine… pic.twitter.com/T3SgDtkKKl
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) April 1, 2026
John Bolton, former national security advisor to Trump, recently tweeted that other officials had cautioned President Trump against following Bolton’s calls for attacking Iran because of clearly foreseeable fallout. He stated, “In 2018–2019, I made the case for regime change in Iran as often as I could. Voices in Trump’s orbit often cited Iran’s capacity to close the Strait of Hormuz as a reason against regime change. Trump has been fully aware this is a possibility, and yet did not prepare.”
I possess no military background and rely solely on publicly available information, yet Iran’s actions have never been surprising to me. They are unfolding precisely as experts predicted. Any reasonably informed individual could have anticipated this; anyone claiming otherwise is either dishonest or profoundly uninformed.
Trump’s military leadership appears to be composed of either deceivers, incompetents, or a combination of both.
Original article: Caitlin Johnstone
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