The Daily Four Star

Tuesday. A ship passed the Strait of Hormuz today and a crew was killed, just before Trump declared the strait “open and operating” and declaring it to be US territory. The Army is trying to quickly get 133,000 more rockets to refill an emptied arsenal, and a senator is asking the Pentagon to promise it won’t point troops at American voters. Day 171 of the 4-week war. Here’s what you need to know.

A projectile tore into a cargo ship’s engine room as it exited the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, killing one crew member. It is at least the fifth such attack since Friday. Trump posted a red-white-and-blue “New U.S.” map of the strait and just after the attacks, declared the strait to be “open and operating… all water mines have been removed or detonated.” The waterway is not open: traffic is down to its lowest since May, roughly 10 crossings a day against a fifth of the world’s oil that used to move through it, and mariners are still dying. Our regular reminder the strait was open before Trump started the war.

And the “deal” everyone keeps promising? Trump declared Tuesday there are “no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled” with Iran, as the 60-day deadline from June’s memorandum expired with nothing to show. Instead of diplomacy, he’s turned to threats. Now he’s making them against Oman, the small U.S. ally that’s been mediating, warning he’ll bomb it if it “gets in the way” of a Hormuz arrangement he doesn’t like.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin — a former CIA officer who did three tours alongside our military in Iraq, and a VoteVets-endorsed candidate since her very first run for Congress — sent letters Tuesday to Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine asking them to confirm that the Pentagon “will not send Federal troops to the polls or to seize election materials of any kind” this November. It shouldn’t need saying, except that when Slotkin asked Hegseth in April whether he’d follow an order to seize ballots, he brushed it off as a “gotcha hypothetical.” Federal law already bars armed troops at polling places, and it never was much of a question that the military would stay out of elections. Now? Slotkin is demanding it in writing, and she’s quite correct in doing so.

The Army put out a call this week for industry to build Over 133,000 GMLRS (Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System) guided rockets by 2034. The math is brutal: they want more than 19,000 a year, but the first new rockets won’t even arrive until February 2030. Current maker Lockheed Martin would have to boost capacity by another 36% on top of its planned ramp-up, thus the call out to other contractors. Why are we so low? Some of our stockpile went to Ukraine, where it is showing great success, but the war in Iran has drained them down even more quickly. Add it to the list of why launching a war of choice against Iran was ill-advised.

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