Trump Must Accept Iranian Control of Strait of Hormuz, NYT Argues

The Strait of Hormuz is a waterway roughly 21 miles wide at its narrowest point, sitting between Iran and Oman. Through it flows approximately one-fifth of the world's traded oil. For decades, American presidents have treated control of this passage as a given—a sphere of influence to be managed, protected, and if necessary, defended by military force. But the arithmetic of power in the Persian Gulf has shifted, and President Trump faces a choice that his predecessors largely avoided: acknowledge that Iran, by virtue of geography and military capacity, holds genuine leverage over one of the planet's most critical energy arteries.

This is not a matter of preference or ideology. It is a matter of physics and proximity. Iran's coastline runs along the strait's eastern edge. Its navy, while modest by global standards, is positioned to disrupt shipping, lay mines, or harass commercial vessels with relative ease. The cost of such disruption would ripple instantly through global markets. Oil prices would spike. Economies dependent on steady energy supplies would feel the shock within days. Insurance premiums for transit would climb. The economic weapon is real, and Iran knows it.

For years, American policy has rested on the assumption that military superiority could overcome geographic disadvantage—that enough carrier groups, enough firepower, enough resolve could keep the strait open regardless of Iranian wishes. This approach has produced a grinding cycle of tension, occasional confrontation, and the constant threat of miscalculation. A Revolutionary Guard speedboat moves too close to an American destroyer. A drone is launched. Rhetoric escalates. The world holds its breath. Then, usually, things de-escalate. But each cycle carries risk, and risk compounds.

The Trump administration's challenge is to move beyond this pattern without surrendering American interests. That requires a clear-eyed assessment of what can and cannot be controlled. Iran's ability to influence passage through the strait cannot be wished away or bombed into irrelevance. It can only be managed through negotiation, deterrence, and a realistic understanding of mutual vulnerability. If American oil markets depend on passage through waters Iran can disrupt, then Iran has leverage. Pretending otherwise is not strategy; it is denial.

This does not mean capitulation. It means recognizing that sustainable policy in the region must account for Iranian power rather than ignore it. It means understanding that threats of military action, while sometimes necessary, are expensive and unreliable as permanent solutions. It means accepting that some degree of Iranian influence over the strait is the baseline condition, not a failure of American will.

The alternative is a continued drift toward confrontation, with each side testing the other's resolve, each miscalculation raising the stakes. Energy markets would remain volatile. Shipping would remain at risk. The possibility of a larger conflict would linger. None of this serves American interests. A president willing to see the situation as it actually exists—rather than as he might wish it to be—has an opportunity to reshape policy toward something more durable. That requires accepting an uncomfortable truth: in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran is not a problem to be solved through force alone. It is a geographic fact to be managed through statecraft.