Trump's Lies Are an Obstacle to US-Iran Peace
The latest flare up of fighting in the Persian Gulf highlights how it's hard to end a war when one side insists on pretending its president's fantasies are real
The U.S. and Iran are shooting again, the second (and larger) flare up since they signed a Memorandum of Understanding in June.
The main point of contention is the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for international trade that Iran blocked in response to the initial U.S.-Israel attack in February. The MOU reflects U.S. desperation to get ships flowing again, giving Iran economic benefits in exchange for Iran merely promising to “make arrangements … for the safe passage of commercial vessels,” without specifying what those arrangements are. Iran has consistently asserted it will control Hormuz and charge fees for passage, while the U.S., especially President Donald Trump, has been acting as if the strait is totally open and on a fast track back to prewar normal.
Except it clearly isn’t. More ships went through after the MOU, but even at peak it was fewer than half the daily prewar average. They avoided the middle of the strait, fearing mines, and Iran told them to travel by Iranian coastal waters and register with a new “Persian Gulf Strait Authority.” The U.S., for its part, encouraged ships to bypass Iran by hugging Oman’s coast on the opposite side. Iran shot at some shipsnear Oman to assert control, the U.S. shot at Iran to contest it, then back-and-forth retaliation followed.
The fight could escalate or settle down again, but the underlying problem remains: a large gap between (1) the facts on the ground and the text of the MOU, and (2) the fantasy in Trump’s imagination. The U.S. government has been warped by an effort to pretend Trump’s make-believe is real, making peace impossible.
The U.S. lost the war Trump started, failing to…
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