> The Strait of Hormuz blockade is a wartime measure. Iran couldn't have blockaded Hormuz in peacetime without triggering the kind of military response it's now already absorbing.

So they could have, for the reasons you have pointed out. It's not "because of the war" but it is a consequence for someone to do something they could have done and "triggered the kind of military response it's now already absorbing." - you and I have a very different idea of what reality is.

> The Economist isn't making a moral indictment as much as it's describing a consequence of routing payments through thousands of shell accounts across multiple jurisdictions.

Please don't do that. None of the last paragraph is about consequence of routing payments.

I have pointed out how the facts are a facade for demonization. I stand by it.