Whoever’s calling the shots in Iran wasted yet another chance for peace over the weekend, and now President Donald Trump will again call Tehran’s bluff.
Iran’s negotiators refused to satisfy America’s demands Saturday in talks in Pakistan, as regime leaders bet that playing the Strait of Hormuz card would get Trump to blink.
Instead, he played it right back at them — announcing his own blockade, so that Iran’s oil exports (which had continued despite the war) will also be blocked.
The prez is thinking outside the box with this blockade and his plans to escort ships through the Strait; if necessary, he can later order US forces to take Kharg Island and eviscerate the regime’s power base.
This also guarantees that Tehran’s effort to charge a toll on all tankers crossing the Strait will fail — honoring an American commitment to freedom of the seas that goes back to President Thomas Jefferson, the Barbary Pirates and the US Marines’ triumphant excursion “to the shores of Tripoli.”
Of course Iran’s rulers (whoever they are at this point) responded with fresh bluster, vowing a “strong and forceful response” to Trump’s move and huffing that it would end the cease-fire.
Utter bull: Tehran has almost no offensive capabilities left except those that threaten Strait shipping, and those assets can now be eliminated as completely and readily as the rest of its Navy, missile launchers and drone capabilities already were.
It can’t seriously mine the Strait without choking off its own exports, nor can that blockade last once America and its allies’ minesweepers, backed by the US Navy, get down to work.
Trump’s blockade won’t much impact Europe or the Americas, while our Middle Eastern allies are switching to export routes that don’t rely on the Strait; it’s Iran and its allies (mainly China) that will now suffer most.
Beijing and its dependents in Moscow will soon regret vetoing the UN Security Council measure to reopen the Strait.
Meanwhile, the Iranian hardliners behind this lunacy will face more internal pressure from other regime factions; everything they’ve tried to do has blown up in their faces.
They assumed America would be help captive by conventional wisdom; our president proved them wrong.
Trump once again tried to reach a peaceful settlement; the Iranians again refused: Now they’ll pay yet a higher price for thinking they could get him to chicken out.
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