(I say this with no sympathy to the Iranian government, just looking at reality.)

If operators are going to pay up anyhow, they might prefer chipping in for NATO support than publically rewarding such behavior...

"chipping in" could range from symbolic to substantial, as the alternative would be facing a never-ending stream of unilateral fees worldwide, in fact even all unaffected operators of internet cables are hereby motivated to organize a collective crowd-funding for military support of these cables: the future affected party could otherwise be themselves!

Now, she added, Tehran “has discovered the impact.”

The thing that mystifies me is that U. S. war planners "theoretically knew" this, too; at least, I would assume. The whole war strikes me as the current administration finding out the hard way why previous administrations all the way back to Reagan didn't commit to warfare against Iran, even if they wanted to. "FAFO", as the kids say, I guess.

OTOH, I do have theory floating around in my head that someone got one of the letters wrong and confused Iran with Iraq: "we kicked their ass before, we'll do it again!"

"Uh, different and much better-armed country, sir."

Or, as has been famously said, "Don't confuse me with the facts." [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Landgrebe

https://lite.cnn.com/2026/05/17/middleeast/iran-hormuz-under...

Why Russia goes along with it is debatable. Maybe they hope that the EU buys again from them, maybe that whole scenario was discussed in Alaska between orange man and Putin. Who knows. We only get lies and the real plans unfold years after.

The EU should however stop guessing what goes on between the dictators in secret and simply pursue its own interests.

So it gives us a bit of a glimpse of what would the world would look like with a more isolationist US, or a multipolar world.