The Ghost of Saigon in the Strait of Hormuz

Written by Luca Salvemini
No. 173 - August 2, 2026

There is a precise moment at which a superpower stops fighting the enemy and begins fighting itself.

For America, in Iran, that moment has arrived. And the reason is not the one the White House is telling.

In this analysis I reconstruct why the war against Tehran has become unsustainable on two fronts that hold together as one.

On the military front: the arsenal is stretched to its limit—more than half the Patriot missiles already spent, stockpiles not to be replenished before 2029—and the chain of command is poisoned by a “culture of silence” born of the purges at the top.

On the political front: approval is in free fall a year out from the midterms of November 3, 2026, and every escalation—as I show with the numbers—is at once futile and counterproductive.

Then there is the rest, which you will find below: why the negotiation is already a dead letter while Tehran plays the only weapon that truly counts, time; how Trump has fallen into the same “forever-war trap” that swallowed Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan; and why—despite everything—this time is unlike all the others.

The difference has a geographic name: the Strait of Hormuz.

A war that cannot be won, cannot be ended, and cannot be sustained.