In a way, the impasse between the United States and Iran over the still-closed Strait of Hormuz boils down to storage. The Trump administration believes that the two-week-old, semi-porous U.S. blockade of Iranian shipping will soon bring Tehran to its knees by forcing it to shut down oil wells as it runs out of storage space for crude it can no longer ship. That looming production shutdown, the administration believes , threatens Iran with permanent, severe damage to a major part of its economy,