Last night Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that “many countries” would be joining the U.S. to keep the vital Strait of Hormuz waterway “open and safe.” Is the president desperate for international help?
That’s one way the media is framing it: Trump didn’t anticipate Iran sending oil markets into freefall by firing on international shipping, and is now scrambling to assemble a coalition to meet a threat he failed to foresee. It’s a neat narrative. It also fits a Trump incompetence storyline that this war has largely disproven.
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I don’t believe the U.S. and Israel sat down to plan this war and somehow overlooked the threat Iran has been waving around for decades. The U.S. has the capacity to escort ships through the strait unilaterally—it would significantly distract from the war, but this is not a case of Washington having no other option.
There is a dash of Trump’s deal-with-your-own-problems philosophy at work here.
