Trump Is Desperate To End Iran War, Three Ships Hit In Strait Of Hormuz", "author": "Novara Media", "source": "transcript", "text": "The war in Iran is now entering its third week, and something unexpected has happened: Donald Trump appears desperate to end it. The president told Axios in a five-minute phone call that the conflict will end soon because there's practically nothing left to target. But Israel has other plans.
The Israeli defense minister stated his country will continue striking "as long as necessary" until all objectives are decisively achieved. Given Israel's stated intention is the complete destruction of the Iranian state, this could last considerably longer than Trump anticipates.
The Strait of Hormuz Crisis
The desperation from both sides is being driven by events in the Strait of Hormuz. The passage is the only water route connecting the Persian Gulf to open sea, and under normal circumstances carries 20% of the world's oil supply. Iran's response to American and Israeli bombing has been to keep that strait closed — effectively detonating much of the global economy.
In a statement carried by Iranian state television, their military's central operational command was unambiguous: "Any vessel whose oil cargo or the vessel itself belongs to the United States, the Zionist regime, Israel, or their hostile allies will be considered legitimate targets."
The enforcement of this policy has been dramatic. In the last 24 hours, three more ships have been hit by unknown projectiles in the Strait of Hormuz. Photographic stills show an oil tanker flagged to Thailand catching fire after being struck; its crew needed to be evacuated.
The US military released footage showing what it claims is the destruction of sixteen Iranian mine-laying vessels near the strait's southern coast — alongside a characteristically confused post from Trump on his social media platform, Truth Social. The president wrote that if Iran has placed any mines in the Hormuz Strait and they are not removed immediately, "the military consequences will be at a level never seen before." He added: "I mean does he mean beyond Hiroshima and Nagasaki? I mean that would be the implication."
It's unclear whether this threat is credible. The US says it has no reports of Iran laying mines — but if Iran has laid them and doesn't remove them, consequences will be severe. If they've been placed and then removed, that's a giant step forward. Either way, the US is bombing ships anyway.
Iran's Strategic Advantage
Some analysts believe the mining story might be a red herring. Mines would be relatively indiscriminate in their consequences, and Iran obviously wants some ships to keep flowing through. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Iran's control of the strait means it has actually been able to export more oil now than before the war started — quite extraordinary.
According to data from Tanker Tracking firm Kpler, since the war started on February 28th — just under two weeks ago — seven tankers have loaded oil off Iranian coast. At least two of the most recent loadings are out of the Persian Gulf. Over the past six days, tankers have loaded a daily average of 2.1 million barrels of Iranian oil, higher than the 2 million barrels a day Iran exported in February.
The ships crossing the straits are part of what analysts call the shadow fleet: old tankers used by Iran and Russia to evade sanctions, the majority of which ends up in China. The Wall Street Journal reported that ship crews crossing the strait were blaring from loudspeakers: "We're a Chinese ship. We're coming through. We're friendly."
This doesn't sound like a strategic win for the Americans.
Conflicting War Aims
Further confirming that the US and Israel have conflicting war aims, Axios reported that on Monday — the first time since the two countries launched their joint operation against Iran ten days ago — the Trump administration asked Israel to halt strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure. The outlet reports this was the first time the Trump administration has reigned in Israel.
The White House cited three reasons for its request: such strikes harm the Iranian public, a large portion of which opposes the regime; Trump aims to cooperate with Iran's oil sector after the war — similar to his approach with Venezuela; and the strikes could trigger massive Iranian retaliatory attacks on energy infrastructure across Gulf States. Much of this has already happened.
International Response Ramps Up
The international response to the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz is also ramping up. Javier Blas, an energy expert at Bloomberg, said early this morning that inside the G7 and the G20, most countries are absolutely livid with Trump's attack on Iran — but don't mistake their indignation with a desire to let Iran take the global economy hostage via oil.
The response has taken the form of an announcement from the International Energy Agency: its member states have agreed to the biggest release of strategic oil reserves in its 50-year history. In coming weeks, 400 million barrels will be released — equivalent to what the world uses over four days or what normally flows through the strait in around 20 days.
The fact that this is the biggest ever release of those reserves shows just how big a crisis Israel and Trump have created.
Nuclear Claims Under Scrutiny
The White House is going into overdrive to justify why they started what many view as an utterly stupid war. Here's Trump's chief negotiator, Steve Wickoff, speaking to CNBC: "If they have children, think about what this world would look like if you didn't have Donald Trump as president. Because in a year if you had someone who didn't have the courage to do this action, you'd have 30 or 40 nuclear bombs."
Even outlets usually sympathetic to the American foreign policy establishment were deeply unimpressed. Greg Carlstrom, the Economist's Middle East correspondent, wrote: "There is no remotely plausible scenario in which Iran would have had 30 to 40 nuclear bombs a year from now. This isn't even the usual case of Wickoff not doing his homework and not understanding his brief. Here he's just making things up."
Critically, Iran doesn't have the nuclear material for anything like that — nor does it have delivery mechanisms to take such a hit beyond the Eastern Mediterranean. As discussed yesterday with Valina, who stopped the IRGC from building long-range ballistic missiles: those weapons are defensive and only permitted for use in their region; they are not an offensive technology designed to hit Western Europe.
America's Decline Accelerating
It feels when you see Trump's statements that the Americans are scrambling now for some kind of offramp. But it's a little bit bigger than that — they're reading a script for a different film. When you see Wickoff and all of them saying this is going fabulously, the war will be over soon or at their discretion, it's total embarrassment.
This is just hastening American decline. Opinion of the United States around the world has been really low since around the time of the Iraq war — it may have had a bounce under Obama because that's the way people work; they prefer the salesman to the actual substance. But it's back on the floor now.
What does this mean concretely? In five to ten years, this is going to precipitate far more trade deals with China and far more joint military exercises with China — sounds outlandish now, but it will happen. It will be client states first and then core allies after. What you're seeing is what many say is we're already in a multipolar age: two big states, China and the United States, with several regional powers underneath.
The Abraham Accords were considered a glimmering achievement of the Trump administration — totally in tatters now because why would any state trust the United States as a partner after this? Particularly if you think about GCC countries like Bahrain but especially the UAE — they have big money even from Saudi. They need some kind of mechanism for self-defense.
One alternative is keeping America on side, but also reaching out to Beijing and Moscow and wanting good relations with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping because they can at least reign in the Iranians a little bit. That's a really good example of that.
"The opinion of the United States has been incredibly low since around the time of the Iraq war. It may have had a bounce under Obama because that's the way people work — they prefer the salesman to the actual substance."
Bottom Line
This piece makes two compelling arguments: first, Trump and Israel are fundamentally at odds about what victory looks like in Iran, rendering their "victory" narrative incoherent; second, America's credibility as a global partner is collapsing faster than conventional analysis allows. The strongest evidence comes from Iran's increased oil exports despite the war — showing they're winning economically while America escalates militarily. But the piece's biggest vulnerability is its reliance on unnamed sources and unverified claims about Iranian weapons systems. The nuclear threat rhetoric from Trump's team is demonstrably false, yet the article presents this without sufficient grounding in established facts.