Col. Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, keeps pointing at a map almost nobody in Washington bothers to look at.
China now runs seven or eight rail lines from its Pacific ports into the heart of Europe, two of them cutting straight across Iran.
Cargo that once had to squeeze through Hormuz can ride the tracks instead.
Those corridors, by his count, are the ONLY genuinely strategic target America has bombed inside Iran this entire war.
Follow that thread and the chokepoints start losing their bite.
Hormuz, Bab el Mandeb, even Suez matter a little less every year the trains keep moving, and no navy on earth can blockade freight that never touches water.
His verdict on the whole contest: sea power fading, land power rising, both sides holding nuclear weapons for the first time in history.
