Donald Trump promised voters he would not start wars. On February 28, he partnered with Benjamin Netanyahu to bomb Iran, shattering that pledge with stunning speed and, it turns out, catastrophic miscalculation.
For eleven consecutive nights, US warplanes have struck Iranian aircraft hangars and drone storage facilities. Iran has retaliated with attacks on American air bases and Gulf states, with both sides now locked in a battle over the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint through which one-fifth of the world's oil moved before the conflict began. Tankers sit idle. Oil, gas, and fertilizer shipments remain frozen.
What Trump envisioned as a swift, cost-free regime change operation has become a grinding disaster that has already consumed $37.5 billion in military spending and claimed the lives of three American service members. The war is now as unpopular with American voters as Vietnam was six years into that conflict.
The president fundamentally misjudged Iran's capacity to absorb punishment and its willingness to weaponize the strait itself. When he ordered the strikes that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared the head cut off the snake. But the Iranian regime proved far more resilient than Trump anticipated. Protests that he believed would destabilize the government never materialized with the force he expected. Within five months, his gambit had collapsed into a protracted standoff with no clear exit.
A ceasefire memorandum signed in June briefly halted the bombing and promised 60 days of negotiations on the strait's future. It lasted until Iran fired on commercial tankers using a shipping lane near Oman rather than a route approved by Tehran. Trump responded by calling Iranian leaders "scum" and declaring the ceasefire dead.
The contradiction at the heart of the conflict now defines American policy. The US claims its mission is simply to ensure oil shipments can move through the strait, reframing a return to pre-war conditions as victory. Yet Iran, emboldened by American miscalculation, has signaled its intention to permanently control the waterway and charge tolls on passing vessels. Trump faces an impossible choice: accept a long, grinding war that keeps the strait closed, or escalate further in hopes of finally breaking Iran's will.
Netanyahu himself acknowledged late in the conflict that he and Trump had failed to appreciate the Hormuz problem early enough. "It became understood as the war went on," he admitted. For decades, Iran experts and previous administrations had considered a prolonged strait closure a doomsday scenario worth avoiding at all costs. Trump's team apparently gave it no serious thought.
The White House operating without expertise, strategy, or restraint has proved incapable of managing the fallout. Trump, who built a business empire in Dubai, has dismissed loyalists who tried to warn him. When former State Department representative Nate Swanson spoke up, far-right activist Laura Loomer branded him disloyal, and he was forced out. The Iran negotiating team now lacks the specialists who understand Tehran's logic, its resilience, or its red lines.
The economic shockwaves are reverberating globally. Rising oil prices are driving inflation that makes everyday life more expensive and forces governments to borrow at higher costs. If no settlement emerges by 2027, some economists are predicting global growth could fall by 1.3 percent or more. Europe faces particular exposure. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the continent has become dependent on Middle Eastern gas, especially from Qatar, which has slowed production during the conflict. A winter of shortages looms, reminiscent of the 1970s oil crisis when the British government imposed power cuts to preserve energy supplies.
Trump's ad-hoc solutions reveal a leader making policy on impulse. He briefly floated the idea that the US could charge tolls on vessels passing through the strait in exchange for safe passage, despite international law prohibiting such arrangements. His own Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has said such tolls would violate the law. Yet the willingness of both Washington and Tehran to propose them signals contempt for the international legal framework that has governed freedom of navigation.
The danger extends beyond the strait itself. Other coastal nations watching Iran weaponize this waterway are now calculating how to use their own strategic chokepoints as leverage. If the United States and Israel can attack Iran at will, as Tehran's leaders see it, then controlling shipping routes becomes the only defense available. The militarization of the world's sea lanes may have only just begun.
Author James Rodriguez: "Trump wanted a quick win and a legacy. Instead he got a quagmire that will reshape global oil markets and haunt Western economies for years."
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