India, July 13 -- This week's episode of Point Blank paints a picture of a war in the Middle East that has slipped far beyond its declared objectives, turning into a systemic confrontation over leverage, prestige and control of a critical maritime chokepoint-the Strait of Hormuz. What began, in Washington's telling, as a campaign to "emasculate nuclear Iran" is now centered on a narrow waterway barely 22 miles wide at one point, through which a large portion of the world's energy supplies must pass.

According to Executive Editor Shishir Gupta, the military objective when this war began on 28 February was clear: neutralize Iran's nuclear capabilities. That aim, he argues, has effectively disappeared from the table, replaced by an immediat...