The US Navy broke 90% of Iran’s military equation. Sixty warships destroyed. Missile factories in rubble. Two carrier strike groups hold the perimeter. But Hormuz is still closed — because the last 10% only needs one burning tanker to shut down the world’s most critical shipping lane.
So why is the Pentagon rushing a ship that analysts once dismissed as a “failed experiment” — USS Tripoli, LHA-7 — through the South China Sea at high speed? What can 2,500 Marines do that 50,000 sailors and two supercarriers could not?
