Iran strikes US bases in Jordan after Washington hits Larak Island in the Hormuz chokepoint

Today's headline is not one strike — it is the exchange that follows. Washington hit a launcher on an island because the strait is a chokepoint; Tehran hit bases in Jordan because retaliation must land somewhere visible. Each side acted on terrain, not on the full consequence. Sun Tzu warned that the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting — yet chokepoints exist precisely because someone always believes a limited blow will stay limited. Seneca would have recognized the pattern from Rome: you cannot control how others interpret your restraint, and you cannot un-strike once the mine is in the water. The useful reading is not who fired first this morning. It is what both sides now owe the passage they were trying to protect.