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Investigative journalist Dimitri Lascaris on why Iran's move to threaten the Strait of Hormuz may have been a critical strategic error — one that has left Tehran without meaningful deterrence against the United States.
In this dialogue, Lascaris argues that Iran's most powerful card was its ability to close or disrupt the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway through which roughly a fifth of global oil supply flows. By playing that card too early — before the United States had absorbed any meaningful economic or political pain from the broader confrontation — Iran spent its leverage at the moment it was least effective.
The result, Lascaris says, is a deterrence gap: the US has not yet felt the cost of confronting Iran, and Iran has now demonstrated that its ultimate threat does not produce the consequences Washington needs to fear. Without that fear, deterrence collapses, and Iran becomes more vulnerable to escalation, not less.
This is a sober and contrarian analysis from a journalist broadly sympathetic to Iran's geopolitical position — and a warning that strategic timing matters as much as strategic capability.
ABOUT DIMITRI LASCARIS: Dimitri Lascaris is a Canadian-Greek lawyer, journalist, and former board member of Independent Jewish Voices Canada. His investigative and analytical work focuses on Western foreign policy, Middle East geopolitics, and corporate accountability.
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