So what's left of the Iranian regime is basically like the Houthis now, reduced to getting world attention by committing random acts of piracy and firing at random ships off their coast. To make whatever point they were trying to make. Seems like a win to me. Declare victory, say the straight is open, just like the Red Sea is open. If anything moves at shipping, destroy its source. They don't have a right to attack merchant vessels, and there's no reason to negotiate with them either.
> They don't have a right to attack merchant vessels
This is a sovereign nation that is being attacked by a waning superpower. It's war and they are retaliating in really the only way that they can force America to back off - which is make the war really expensive and even more unpopular domestically.
That's clearly the strategy the headless Iranian regime is pursuing. Their prior strategy of arming regional proxy regimes and paramilitary groups to deter and expand their reach failed spectacularly, in large part because it sufficiently irritated the Gulf states, and Israel, and the US. So if all that matters here is whether they pick a winning strategy, then it's questionable whether further aligning all their neighbors against them is going to work out in their favor.
However, even if it were a winning strategy, on the bet that the US will back off if the IRGC can inflict enough economic pain on US allies, it would still objectively amount to piracy and terrorism to attack merchant vessels not aligned at all to the US or involved in any way in the war. If you think the US or Israel has no right to attack and degrade Iran's military capacity to the degree they feel is necessary for their own security, you can't possibly say the IRGC somehow has a right to attack third parties to the conflict. If the disparity between who has the right to do what hinges upon who the aggressor is, consider that it was Iran which first fired a missile from its own territory at Israel, not the other way around. But in what case is a private vessel flagged in Malaysia and on its way to Japan or something a valid target? To say so would explicitly mean that every country in the world is fair game because Iran is at war with the whole world. If that's the case then what exactly is wrong with the world removing that regime?
You seem to be implying that whether or not it's successful, the Iranian regime's strategy is justified in some vague moral sense. That isn't an argument, it's a feeling. All it exposes is that you have a favorite side in this war, which is at least anyone who opposes America, if not the Iranian regime specifically.
> Declare victory, say the straight is open, just like the Red Sea is open. If anything moves at shipping, destroy its source.
Do you understand the concept of asymmetrical warfare? Hiding hundreds of launchers, firing them, and losing them is already accounted for by Iran, while a decent chance of losing any asset going through is prohibitively expensive. The strait is closed.
