Iran says it shot down US MQ-1 drone over Strait of Hormuz

The significance here is less the loss of a single drone than the IRGC's framing of a cumulative count, which turns a routine intercept into a public scoreboard over the Strait of Hormuz. That matters most for shipping and energy flows through the waterway, and for the US–Iran military relationship, where each incident sets a precedent for the next. Whether the tallying rhetoric escalates, and whether the US contests the IRGC's account, is the open question worth watching.