Ibid.

cartoons about power — sources cited

← all cartoons

Eight on Tuesday. Down from a hundred and thirty.

Toll Plaza

August 12, 2026 · Ibid.

Charcoal cartoon of a highway toll plaza standing in open sea. Donald Trump, in a high-visibility vest, leans from the left booth thumbing a hand tally-counter beneath a sign reading HORMUZ, his striped barrier arm lowered over the water. Facing him from a mirror-image booth marked REZAEI, under a crooked plank sign reading WILL NOT OPEN, Mohsen Rezaei mans the other booth with his own barrier down. A single small dhow idles in the gap between the two lowered arms; far off on the horizon a small freighter smokes from its engine room.

Trump said the United States "totally" controls the Strait of Hormuz, where Kpler data showed eight vessels transited on Tuesday, down from roughly 130 a day before the war. Iran's newly appointed Supreme National Security Council head Mohsen Rezaei told Chinese ambassador Cong Peiwu the strait "will not be opened" until Washington accepts conditions including sanctions relief, unfrozen assets, compensation and a region-wide ceasefire. A US Navy MH-60 helicopter fired two Hellfire missiles into the engine room of the Panama-flagged M/V Vela Nova to enforce the American blockade of Iranian ports.