He war gamed an Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. This is how it’s going
This feels like a quiet policy shift.
Welcome to Washington Secrets where we run you through the lessons learned from an Iran war game that looked at the economic impacts of shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, and drill into why Marco Rubio’s presidential hopes are surging (and if they are real) …
The first sign of a brewing crisis is when the United Nations slaps sanctions on Iran at the end of a month of fruitless talks to shut down Tehran’s nuclear weapons program.
Iran responds on Day 2. It withdraws from the atomic nonproliferation treaty and tests a nuclear weapon.
On Day 3, American bombs rain down on its nuclear facilities and air defenses.
By Day 5, Shia militias have launched attacks on Iran’s neighbors, and a day later, the Strait of Hormuz has been closed. A tanker is sunk by a mine and oil prices are on their way up.
These are not headlines from Operation Epic Fury in 2026. They are the starting point for a 2007 wargame run by the Heritage Foundation, which, with uncanny foresight, mapped just how a conflict would unfold and the devastating consequences for the U.S. economy.
It forecast that a million jobs would be lost in the following six months.
“We’ve been stuck in this Groundhog Day with Iran for the past 20 years,” said Bill Beach, former commissioner of Labor Statistics, who crunched the numbers for the wargame, and is experiencing a deep moment of deja vu. “It’s a cycle of rinse and repeat.”
The aim was to map how world economies would react if oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz fell to zero.
The answer? Not good.
Economists and analysts calculated that the price of West Texas Intermediate oil would surge to $150 (compared with $65 in the absence of a crisis) and, if nothing were done, it would slash nine-tenths of a point off U.S. gross domestic product in the following quarter.
READ MORE: Iran war causing largest disruption of oil in history, International Energy Agency says
That equates to a reduction in disposable income of $531 billion (by current prices) — or more than $4,500 per household.
This is the nightmare scenario haunting Republicans as they prepare for midterm elections. Overnight, three commercial vessels were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz, and West Texas Intermediate oil is up in price by 50%.
But all is not lost, according to Beach. His numbers represent the worst-case scenario.
Each day, the assembled wargamers, senior staffers and former officials from Congress, the Pentagon, Treasury, banking, industry, and beyond, devised …
This feels like a quiet policy shift.
Welcome to Washington Secrets where we run you through the lessons learned from an Iran war game that looked at the economic impacts of shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, and drill into why Marco Rubio’s presidential hopes are surging (and if they are real) …
The first sign of a brewing crisis is when the United Nations slaps sanctions on Iran at the end of a month of fruitless talks to shut down Tehran’s nuclear weapons program.
Iran responds on Day 2. It withdraws from the atomic nonproliferation treaty and tests a nuclear weapon.
On Day 3, American bombs rain down on its nuclear facilities and air defenses.
By Day 5, Shia militias have launched attacks on Iran’s neighbors, and a day later, the Strait of Hormuz has been closed. A tanker is sunk by a mine and oil prices are on their way up.
These are not headlines from Operation Epic Fury in 2026. They are the starting point for a 2007 wargame run by the Heritage Foundation, which, with uncanny foresight, mapped just how a conflict would unfold and the devastating consequences for the U.S. economy.
It forecast that a million jobs would be lost in the following six months.
“We’ve been stuck in this Groundhog Day with Iran for the past 20 years,” said Bill Beach, former commissioner of Labor Statistics, who crunched the numbers for the wargame, and is experiencing a deep moment of deja vu. “It’s a cycle of rinse and repeat.”
The aim was to map how world economies would react if oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz fell to zero.
The answer? Not good.
Economists and analysts calculated that the price of West Texas Intermediate oil would surge to $150 (compared with $65 in the absence of a crisis) and, if nothing were done, it would slash nine-tenths of a point off U.S. gross domestic product in the following quarter.
READ MORE: Iran war causing largest disruption of oil in history, International Energy Agency says
That equates to a reduction in disposable income of $531 billion (by current prices) — or more than $4,500 per household.
This is the nightmare scenario haunting Republicans as they prepare for midterm elections. Overnight, three commercial vessels were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz, and West Texas Intermediate oil is up in price by 50%.
But all is not lost, according to Beach. His numbers represent the worst-case scenario.
Each day, the assembled wargamers, senior staffers and former officials from Congress, the Pentagon, Treasury, banking, industry, and beyond, devised …
He war gamed an Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. This is how it’s going
This feels like a quiet policy shift.
Welcome to Washington Secrets where we run you through the lessons learned from an Iran war game that looked at the economic impacts of shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, and drill into why Marco Rubio’s presidential hopes are surging (and if they are real) …
The first sign of a brewing crisis is when the United Nations slaps sanctions on Iran at the end of a month of fruitless talks to shut down Tehran’s nuclear weapons program.
Iran responds on Day 2. It withdraws from the atomic nonproliferation treaty and tests a nuclear weapon.
On Day 3, American bombs rain down on its nuclear facilities and air defenses.
By Day 5, Shia militias have launched attacks on Iran’s neighbors, and a day later, the Strait of Hormuz has been closed. A tanker is sunk by a mine and oil prices are on their way up.
These are not headlines from Operation Epic Fury in 2026. They are the starting point for a 2007 wargame run by the Heritage Foundation, which, with uncanny foresight, mapped just how a conflict would unfold and the devastating consequences for the U.S. economy.
It forecast that a million jobs would be lost in the following six months.
“We’ve been stuck in this Groundhog Day with Iran for the past 20 years,” said Bill Beach, former commissioner of Labor Statistics, who crunched the numbers for the wargame, and is experiencing a deep moment of deja vu. “It’s a cycle of rinse and repeat.”
The aim was to map how world economies would react if oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz fell to zero.
The answer? Not good.
Economists and analysts calculated that the price of West Texas Intermediate oil would surge to $150 (compared with $65 in the absence of a crisis) and, if nothing were done, it would slash nine-tenths of a point off U.S. gross domestic product in the following quarter.
READ MORE: Iran war causing largest disruption of oil in history, International Energy Agency says
That equates to a reduction in disposable income of $531 billion (by current prices) — or more than $4,500 per household.
This is the nightmare scenario haunting Republicans as they prepare for midterm elections. Overnight, three commercial vessels were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz, and West Texas Intermediate oil is up in price by 50%.
But all is not lost, according to Beach. His numbers represent the worst-case scenario.
Each day, the assembled wargamers, senior staffers and former officials from Congress, the Pentagon, Treasury, banking, industry, and beyond, devised …
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