President Threatens To Bomb The Country That Was Helping Reopen The Strait He Demanded Be Reopened

WASHINGTON—The president has identified a grave threat to his goal of reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and it is the country quietly arranging to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

As a sixty-day window for peace talks with Iran expired Monday with no agreement, the president warned that if Oman “gets in the way,” the United States would bomb it. Oman’s offense, according to officials familiar with his thinking, is that it has been negotiating a deal with Iran to manage ship traffic through the strait, which is the outcome the president has spent months demanding. It is the second time he has threatened to bomb the country for helping.

The logic held together only as long as no one examined it. The president wants the strait open. Oman is working to keep the strait open. The president has therefore threatened to bomb Oman, on the theory that a nation solving your problem for you has denied you the chance to solve it yourself, a slight that can apparently only be answered with ordnance.

Diplomats called the situation delicate, by which they meant that the friendliest party in the region was now the one being threatened, and the war that was supposed to be ending had instead gained a fresh candidate. Oman, which had been mediating, was left to weigh whether mediation was worth the risk of succeeding.

The administration insisted the threat showed strength and resolve. Observers noted it mainly showed that Oman would be wise to stop helping, which would leave the strait closed, which was the problem the help had been solving. At press time the president was still demanding the strait be reopened, and still threatening the country reopening it.