In response to Iran closing off the Strait of Hormuz amid the war with the US and Israel , the US Navy has been blocking Iranian ports since mid-April . Washington hopes to restrict Iran's exports — particularly oil — and to put additional pressure on the leadership in Tehran. "The United States could maintain such a blockade militarily for months, in some scenarios even for more than a year," international security expert Shahin Modarres from Rome's Tor Vergata University told DW. This is bad