{"id":31323,"date":"2026-03-22T19:29:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T19:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/31323\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T19:29:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T19:29:11","slug":"trumps-changing-course-on-strait-of-hormuz-strategy-raises-questions-about-us-war-preparation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/31323\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s changing course on Strait of Hormuz strategy raises questions about US war preparation"},"content":{"rendered":"

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. \u2013 At war with Iran, President Donald Trump<\/a> is cycling through an increasingly desperate list of options as he searches for a solution to the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>. He is jumping from calls to secure the waterway through diplomatic means to lifting sanctions and now escalating to a direct threat against civilian infrastructure in the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n

Trump and his allies insist they were always prepared for Iran to block the strait, yet the Republican president\u2019s erratic strategy has fueled criticism that he is grasping for answers after going to war without a clear exit plan. On Saturday came his latest attempt, via an ultimatum to Iran<\/a>: Open the strait within 48 hours or the United States will \u201cobliterate\u201d the country’s power plants.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s aides defended the threat as a hard-edged tactic to press Iran into submission. Opponents framed it as the failings of a president who miscalculated what it would take to get out of a geopolitical mire.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump has no plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, so he is threatening to attack Iran\u2019s civil power plants,\u201d said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass, adding: \u201cThis would be a war crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s lost control of the war and he is panicking,\u201d said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., responding to Trump’s post.<\/p>\n

Over the course of roughly a week, Trump has repeatedly shifted his approach on the crucial waterway for global oil and gas transport. There is growing urgency for Trump as soaring oil prices<\/a> rattle global markets and pinch American consumers months before pivotal midterm elections.<\/p>\n

Trump and diplomacy<\/p>\n

Trump tried his hand at a diplomatic solution last weekend when he called for a new international coalition<\/a> to send warships to the strait.<\/p>\n

Allies turned him down. Trump then said the U.S. could manage on its own<\/a>. On Friday he suggested other countries would have to take over<\/a> as the U.S. eyes an exit. Hours later he indicated the waterway would somehow \u201copen itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t all of a sudden walk away after you\u2019ve kind of created the event and expect other people to pick it up,\u201d Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. told ABC’s \u201cThis Week.\u201d <\/p>\n

Trump’s Treasury Department on Friday made its latest attempt to get a handle on the soaring gas prices, by lifting sanctions on some Iranian oil for the first time in decades. That relieved some of the pressure that Washington traditionally has used as leverage against Tehran.<\/p>\n

The goal was to send millions more barrels of oil into the global market. It is not clear, however, how much of a dent that would make in lowering pump prices or how the administration could prevent Iran from cashing in on the renewed sales. <\/p>\n

The administration earlier temporarily lifted sanctions on some Russian oil.<\/p>\n

An ultimatum to Iran<\/p>\n

Trump’s ultimatum, conveyed while he spent the weekend in Florida, carries a threat of remarkable aggression. His previous messaging has mostly focused on U.S. success in hitting Iran\u2019s air force, navy and missile production. This time, the threatened target is the energy infrastructure that powers hospitals, homes and more.<\/p>\n

His social media post \u2014 51 words, much of them in capital letters \u2014 did not have the appearance of a message that underwent the careful legal scrutiny needed justify an attack on civilian infrastructure, said Geoffrey Corn, a military law professor at Texas Tech University and a retired lieutenant colonel in the Army who served as a military lawyer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt certainly has a feeling of ready, fire, aim,\u201d Corn said of the Trump\u2019s moving strategy. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe overestimated his ability to control the events once he unleashed this torrent of violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

That type of widespread attack would probably be a war crime, Corn said. For military leaders, it could force a choice between obeying an order to carry out a war crime or refusing and facing criminal sanction for willful disobedience, he said.<\/p>\n

Laws governing warfare do not explicitly forbid attacks on power plants, but the tactic is allowed only if an analysis finds that the military advantages outweigh the civilian harm, legal scholars say. It is seen as a high bar to clear because the rules of war are, at their core, designed to separate civilian and military targets.<\/p>\n

The White House has already faced intense backlash after the U.S. was blamed for a missile strike on an Iranian elementary school<\/a> that killed more than 165 people.<\/p>\n

Trump aides justify latest attempt to rein in the crisis<\/p>\n

Trump provided scant detail on which plants might be targeted and how. He gave Iran until Monday to reopen the strait or else the U.S. will strike \u201cvarious POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s team came to his defense Sunday, offering justification for striking Iran\u2019s energy grid..<\/p>\n

Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guard controls much of the country\u2019s infrastructure and is using it to power the war effort. He said potential targets include \u201cgas-fired thermal power plants and other types of plants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking on Fox News, Waltz said he wanted to get ahead of \u201chand-wringing\u201d from the global community, calling the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. \u201cThe president is not messing around,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

NATO’s secretary-general, Mark Rutte, who has allied himself closely to Trump, tried to calm tensions. He said he understood Trump’s anger and stressed that more than 20 countries are \u201ccoming together to implement his vision\u201d of making the strait navigable as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Yechiel Leiter, cautioned against an all-out attack like the one Trump threatened. \u201cWe want to leave everything in the country intact, so that the people who come after this regime are going to be able to rebuild and reconstitute,\u201d he told CNN’s \u201dState of the Union.”<\/p>\n

Trump’s threat could prove counterproductive: If it’s carried out, Iranian leaders said they would completely close the strait<\/a> and retaliate against U.S. and Israeli infrastructure.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim in Washington contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. \u2013 At war with Iran, President Donald Trump is cycling through an increasingly desperate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[328,8822,38,14574,102,2245,14573,101,4368,771,82,8976],"class_list":{"0":"post-31323","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-strait-of-hormuz","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-chris-murphy","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-edward-markey","12":"tag-hormuz","13":"tag-mark-rutte","14":"tag-mike-waltz","15":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","16":"tag-thom-tillis","17":"tag-washington-news","18":"tag-world-news","19":"tag-yechiel-leiter"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116274486496858420","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}