Trump Calls Off Iran Attack, Urges Last Chance for Deal Amid Strait of Hormuz Tensions
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.
In my Second Treatise, I defined political power as a right to make laws, with penalties, only for the public good. All further questions, whether of “last chances,” blockades, or control of sea‑gates, must be brought under that description, or they stand as nothing but force. When an executive officer calls off a great assault already prepared, and does so without citing any new act of the legislative, this is what I there called prerogative: a power to act for the public good without, and sometimes against, the letter of standing rules. Such power may in extremities be necessary. But it is always suspicious. It is held on trust; it must be justified by manifest benefit to the people, and it must remain revocable.
Here the prerogative is double. First, there is the decision to have stood on the brink of so great an attack at all, merely to step back and offer talks; secondly, there is the continuing blockade of ports under the title of a “wall of steel.” If the legislative has not clearly authorized this state of near‑war, then power meant to execute the law has begun to make a law of its own — a dangerous transfiguration. The president speaks as if he could by solitary will move from overwhelming assault, to reprieve, to a final deadly stroke. That a few Gulf princes are said to have begged restraint does not alter the thing; it only reminds us how narrow a circle is allowed to weigh in on decisions that touch the lives, liberties, and estates of millions.
On the other side, Iranian officers insist that there are no talks with that president, only “technical discussions” with Oman for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, while they remain determined to “retain leverage over the strait.” I know nothing of the exact treaties that mark those waters. But reason teaches this much: the sea is originally common to mankind. Its channels, especially those upon which so many depend for trade and subsistence, cannot by mere will be converted into instruments of private dominion. Property in land arises, as I argued, when a man mixes his labor with what God has left in common, leaving “enough, and as good” for others. To seize a narrow passage that others must use, and make global commerce hostage to one’s separate disputes, is something else: it is to put one’s neighbours in a kind of state of war.
Yet I must distinguish. A people may defend their coasts; they may regulate traffic in their adjacent waters; they may, by just treaty, share control of a passage with a neighbour, as is said of Iran with Oman. What they may not rightly do is use innocent third parties — the crews and cargo of distant nations — as instruments to force political terms upon some enemy. When a cargo ship reports being struck by an “unknown projectile,” reason asks at once: was this necessary defence against an immediate attack, or was it terror employed to gain advantage? Without an impartial judge, men are tempted to be judges in their own case, every injury swelled into a justification of further harm, until a long train of abuses leaves no room for trust at all.
The president’s talk of a “last chance” before “decapitation” sits uneasily with any claim to be executing standing law. Laws are general, known, and prospective; they do not dangle destruction over a particular adversary’s head unless he comes, at once, to terms found good by one will alone. To threaten the annihilation of a regime, absent clear legislative judgment that such a war is necessary for the public’s safety, is to move from government back toward the state of nature, where every man may make war on whom he suspects. It is possible, of course, that the legislative has silently assented, or that past enactments are being stretched to cover present designs. But a people cannot be said to have consented to what they neither know nor can easily alter. Hidden authorizations are a poor cloak for visible arbitrary power.
Does the present posture justify resistance? That grave word must not be spent lightly. When I wrote that a “long train of abuses” can dissolve the bonds of obedience, I meant a settled design to invade the people’s property and subject them to absolute power over time, not a single threat, however rash, or one blockade, however burdensome. Here we see rather a precarious balance of prerogatives: a president wielding ships and sanctions at the edge of war, and a regional power brandishing control of a strait upon which many depend. I would counsel peoples on all sides to watch, to demand clarity from their own legislatures, to insist that any war — or any permanent bargain touching so vital a passage — be grounded in open law, not in the sudden temper of single men.
The workmanship of mankind is not ships or pipelines, but men themselves, sent into the world by one wise Maker to go about His business, not to be squandered for glory or leverage at sea‑gates; wherever rulers forget this, the appeal to heaven begins again in the hearts of their subjects.
From the works cited
- Second Treatise of Government — Prerogative as revocable emergency discretion — legitimate exactly as long as the public visibly benefits and no longer.
- Second Treatise of Government — Political power defined narrowly as the right to make laws, with penalties, only for the public good — anything beyond that definition must justify itself or stand condemned.
- Second Treatise of Government — The dissolution of a government is not the dissolution of society: a people can replace a broken legislative without descending into chaos. Fear of disorder is therefore no argument for enduring tyranny — but revolution answers only to 'a long train of abuses' tending the same way, not to every private grievance.