Trump: If You Want Oil, Go and Take it Yourself

In the America I grew up in, we were, at least, we liked to think, the Good Guys.
Now, we have gone full Bad Guy. MAGA seems to like that idea.
Oil corrupts.

Wall Street Journal:

President Trump told aides he’s willing to end the U.S. military campaign against Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed, administration officials said, likely extending Tehran’s firm grip on the waterway and leaving a complex operation to reopen it for a later date.

In recent days, Trump and his aides assessed that a mission to pry open the chokepoint would push the conflict beyond his timeline of four to six weeks. He decided that the U.S. should achieve its main goals of hobbling Iran’s navy and its missile stocks and wind down current hostilities while pressuring Tehran diplomatically to resume the free flow of trade. If that fails, Washington would press allies in Europe and the Gulf to take the lead on reopening the strait, the officials said. 

There are also military options the president could decide on, but they aren’t his immediate priority, they said.

Trump on Tuesday morning urged other countries to launch their own operation to wrest control of the strait from Iran, blaming countries like the U.K. for not joining the U.S.-Israeli mission against the Islamic Republic.

“Build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT. You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us,” Trump posted on his Truth Social network. “Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!”

Over the past month, Trump has expressed various opinions in public on how to handle the strait, part of a larger pattern of giving conflicting goals and objectives of the war overall. He has at times threatened to bomb civilian energy infrastructure if the waterway isn’t reopened by a certain date. On other occasions, he has played down the importance of the strait to the U.S. and said its closure is a problem for other nations to solve.

The longer the strait remains closed, the more it will roil the global economyand boost gas prices. Multiple countries, including U.S. allies, are reeling from the downturn in energy supply that once flowed freely through the chokepoint. Industries that rely on items such as fertilizer to grow food or helium to make computer chips are suffering from shortages. 

Without a swift return to safe passages, Tehran will continue to threaten world trade until the U.S. and its partners either negotiate a deal or forcibly end the crisis, analysts say.

Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert and vice president at the Brookings Institution in Washington, called ending military operations before the strait is open “unbelievably irresponsible.”

The U.S. and Israel started the war together and can’t walk away from the fallout, Maloney said. “Energy markets are inherently global, and there is no possibility of insulating the U.S. from the economic damage that is already occurring and will become exponentially worse if the closure of the strait continues.”