By Hedelberto López Blanch on April 21, 2026 from Havana
image: Adán Iglesias Toledo
Although the hegemonic media controlled by the United States, Israel, and the West have tried to conceal the military and political defeat suffered by Washington and Tel Aviv following their devastating attacks launched against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the facts have come to light after 40 days of fighting.
The fury of the egocentric President Donald Trump has been unleashed because he was unable to overthrow the Iranian government or seize its oil as he always does, and he has reacted aggressively following the failed negotiations held in Islamabad.
Starting on April 13, Trump ordered the U.S. Navy to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for the trade of oil, gas, and fertilizers, among other commodities.
The Cost of War
For Iran, the cost of war is incalculable, as the violent and indiscriminate bombings by the United States and Israel against its territory have caused billions of dollars in losses, destroyed numerous infrastructure projects, educational and health centers, and oil facilities, and resulted in more than 2,000 deaths, including hundreds of children.
The cost to the United States is estimated at $280 billion, to which must be added tens of billions in ammunition, damage to military bases in the region, aircraft losses, and the devastating impact on key energy infrastructure in the Gulf.
Losses in aircraft alone total more than $2.4 billion: one F-35 Lightning II worth $110 million; four F-15E Strike Eagles worth $90 million each; one A-10 Thunderbolt II worth $18.8 million; one E-3 Sentry AWACS worth $700 million; five KC-135 Tankers at $40 million each (two destroyed and five damaged); three HH-60M helicopters at $20 million; 24 MQ-9 Reaper drones at $30 million each; and one MQ-4C Triton drone at $238 million.
As for Israel, which for the first time has witnessed massive bombings against its cities, the cost of the war stands at over $17 billion and a rise in the fiscal deficit to over 6% of GDP.
The military toll on the United States and Israel has been very heavy, which led Trump—under pressure from the failures resulting from his inability to destroy the Iranian government and “change its political system”— to seek a ceasefire that would allow him to calm the sentiments of the many people and nations opposed to the aggression against Iran, which has endangered international stability and raised again the threat of a possible nuclear war that could wipe out all of humanity.
The Strait of Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz is a sea lane of vital strategic and geopolitical importance that constitutes one of the engines of the global energy economy.
The narrowest point of the strait, at the end of the Persian Gulf, is 21 nautical miles (39 kilometers) wide. This narrowness places all key maritime routes—including two two-mile-wide navigable channels and a two-mile buffer zone—within the exclusive economic zones of Iran and Oman.
It is one of the world’s major commercial and geostrategic “bottlenecks,” giving it great value on both regional and global scales.
About 20% of the barrels of oil transported by sea pass through the Strait of Hormuz every day. In other words, 14.6 million barrels of crude oil, 1.4 million barrels of refined oil, and nearly 60 million tons of liquefied natural gas (one-fifth of global trade) move through this chokepoint daily.
When traffic through this route stops or is disrupted, industrial and electrical tensions also escalate, leading to inflation in products, supplies, and services globally.
Faced with Iran’s resistance to the U.S.-Israeli attacks, Trump found himself trapped in a position where he had no choice but to escalate further to resolve the conflict and sought a 15-day ceasefire. But he took advantage of the lull in the war to impose an illegal naval blockade against the Strait and Iranian ports and dispatched a powerful naval fleet.
As a warning, Tehran declared that the security of the ports in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman is for everyone or for no one, and made clear that the Arab nations in the region would be affected.
While the United States continues to enforce its policy of force in the Strait of Hormuz, the Yemeni Ansarullah movement, known as the Houthis, has declared that if Washington’s aggression continues, they would close the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb, which would be a tremendous blow to global trade. This is the shortest route between Asia and Europe, allowing access to the Red Sea from the Indian Ocean to traverse the Suez Canal toward the Mediterranean.
Such is the tense situation in the Middle East, caused by the unjustified aggression of the United States and Israel against Iran since February 28, which threatens to drag on with disastrous consequences not only for that region but also for the entire world.
Hedelberto López Blanch Is a Cuban journalist who writes for the daily newspaper Juventud Rebelde and the weekly Opciones. He is the author of “Cuban Emigration to the United States,” “Secret Stories of Cuban Doctors in Africa,” and “Miami, Dirty Money,” among others.
Source: Cuba en Resumen