As the war in Iran approaches the two-week mark, the Trump Administration is still struggling to provide clear answers on two questions: What are the aims of this “little excursion,” as the President called the American and Israeli attacks this week? And how will the U.S. mitigate the war’s effects on oil prices, and thus economic activity, around the world?
An American President might be expected to offer some guidance. And yet, as our political columnist Susan B. Glasser points out, Donald Trump continues to contradict himself. This week, he has declared victory—“We won,” he said—but also insisted that “we’re not finished yet.” It’s fallen on others to squint at the situation, looking for some semblance of a plan. Glasser offers a dire comparison, writing that “Trump now sounds little different than Vladimir Putin in how he justifies the conflict—and in how much power he has claimed for himself to dictate America’s participation in it.”
The economic consequences of the war, meanwhile, have only raised the political stakes at home. Right now, much of the oil and gas that normally comes out of the Persian Gulf and into international markets is trapped on tankers, unable to pass freely through the Strait of Hormuz. During a briefing this morning, Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, addressed the Iranian threats to the strait, insisting that “we have been dealing with it, and don’t need to worry about it.”
But the world, of course, is very worried about it, and our economics columnist John Cassidy argues that the U.S. has proved indefensibly ill-equipped for the oil shock its attacks have unleashed. Trump has no excuse; Tehran engaged in similar tactics during a showdown in the President’s first term, threatening to block the strait and disrupt oil infrastructure. “Whether out of arrogance, capriciousness, or collective amnesia,” Cassidy writes, “this recent history was ignored.”
Cassidy provides essential analysis about what the Administration should have known, how it could have better prepared for this potential economic crisis, and what might happen next. For now, Cassidy notes, “the search for the fall guy is on,” as the President and his allies try to spin higher gas prices as a possible net benefit for the American economy. But, Cassidy adds, “the truth is we are all Trump’s fall guys.”
For more: the longtime New Yorker contributor Bernard Avishai writes about sheltering in place in Jerusalem, and about how long a war alliance might really last between Trump and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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