Goofyhoofy and albaby1, you can add this bit to your files.

Yep. Exactly what I'm saying.

Again, I think you're absolutely right in pointing out that the effect of our actions has been to block the Strait - and I don't think they have a good option to unblock it. But I don't for a second believe that was their objective. They wanted a quick win, Venezuela 2.0. The last thing they wanted was a long, drawn-out mess like we have now.

When they make these (ultimately incorrect) predictions about how short the conflict is going to be, it's because that's what they want to be the case. It's not that they have some secret desire for this to be a long quagmire and are trying to pretend otherwise - they want this to be a major win for the U.S. achieved on the cheap, and are trying to talk it into existence. And they're trying to talk oil prices down, not up.