Trump Calls Off Iran Attack, Urges Last Chance for Deal Amid Strait of Hormuz Tensions

The takes

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  Adam Smith

  1723–1790, Scotland (the Scottish Enlightenment: Kirkcaldy, Glasgow, Edinburgh)

  Gunboats at the Bottleneck of the World’s Oil

  When the Strait of Hormuz becomes a chessboard for reputations, the labouring poor pay in dearer fuel for games they did not choose to play.

  A single narrow strait now bears a burden once carried by many scattered markets. We are told that through this pass, in times of peace, goes about a fifth of the world’s oil. Over it, fleets manoeuvre, cargo ships report mysterious blows, and presidents speak of “walls of steel,” of “last chances,” and of attacks that would have been the greatest since the last great war. One government proclaims that it defends its borders but seeks not to widen the war; another calls off a vast assault and immediately names the reprieve a decapitation deferred. The theatre is grand, the language sanguinary, yet the persons most concerned are the least mentioned: those whose wages will buy less when the oil is dear.

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  John Locke

  1632–1704, England (writing amid the Exclusion Crisis and the Glorious Revolution)

  Prerogative at the Edge of the Strait

  When a single man suspends the largest of wars with a word while ships are turned from a vital sea‑gate, we are no longer debating strategy but the outer limits of political trust.

  A president boasts that he was ready to launch “the biggest attack since World War II,” then declares he has held back, that this is Iran’s “last chance” before “decapitation.” At the same time, his forces maintain a “wall of steel,” a blockade of Iranian ports, and redirect, disable, and board commercial ships. On the other side, Iran’s rulers say, “We defend our borders, but we do not seek to expand the war,” even as they insist on leverage over the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil once passed. I read such reports not as a strategist, but as a man who once tried to define what counts as rightful government, and when force ceases to be law at all.

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  Niccolò Machiavelli

  1469–1527, Florence (republican secretary and diplomat, then exile, amid the Italian Wars)

  Trump’s Cancelled Strike on Iran Is the Most Dangerous Kind of Mercy

  By brandishing “the biggest attack since World War II” and then holstering it, the president has staked American power on a middle course that can only be redeemed by swift, decisive results—or exposed as a ruinous hesitation.

  The scene is simple in its outline and intricate in its consequences. Over the weekend, the president of the United States orders what he later calls “the biggest attack since World War II” against Iran, then calls it off. He keeps in place a blockade of Iranian ports, proudly renamed a “wall of steel.” Soon after, he declares that this restraint is Iran’s “last chance” to make a deal “before decapitation,” while Tehran’s president replies that Iran will defend its borders but not seek to expand the war. Around them circle Oman, Pakistan, the Gulf states, and a cargo ship struck by an “unknown projectile” in the Strait of Hormuz.

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