🇮🇷 Iran's escape route from the blockade is 3,700 trucks deep and rotting in the sun The overland plan is collapsing at the borders. Truckers wait up to 20 days to reach Turkey, sit for days at the Pakistani crossing with no water, food or sanitation in 122-degree heat, and at Pishin only 40 of the 700 waiting trucks get through on any given day. Apricots have spoiled in the queues. Iron ore, cement and bottled gas sit stranded. A container from China now costs $12,000 overland against $3,000 by sea, and the Iran-China Chamber of Commerce puts the blockade's added cost at $18 billion a year, with bottlenecks adding up to a third of the price of ordinary goods by the time they reach Tehran. Most of that damage is bureaucratic, meaning Iran's own customs system is failing under volume it chose to create. Food inflation hit 128% in August, and the truckers already walked off the job over fuel prices this month. Iraq shut its cargo terminals over the weekend after accusing Tehran of launching the pipeline attack from Iraqi soil, which points at the real vulnerability. Every one of these routes belongs to somebody else, and each neighbor can close a gate whenever the war makes it convenient. Source: The Wall Street Journal / Writer: Daniel