ANALYSIS: Trump, the Sole Master of Chaos — When the White House Admits It Has No Control

21 million barrels per day

While the world watches the president’s tweets, the real stakes are playing out in a 34-kilometer-wide maritime corridor: the Strait of Hormuz. Every day, about one-fifth of the world’s oil passes through this narrow waterway between Iran and Oman. Block it, and the global economy collapses within 72 hours. Crude oil prices skyrocket. Asian markets panic. Europe, already weakened by the war in Ukraine, would slip into recession.

The UN Security Council is set to vote this Tuesday on a draft resolution calling for the reopening of the strait. But the text has already been “watered down”—the diplomatic term for stripped of its substance. Because Russia and China will not allow a resolution that would legitimize U.S. military action. And because Washington does not want a text that would limit Trump’s options.

The weapon Iran doesn’t need to use

Iran doesn’t need to close the Strait of Hormuz to gain power. It simply needs to make people believe it could do so. Every mine laid in the waters of the Gulf, every drone flying over a tanker, every naval exercise by the Revolutionary Guards drives up the price per barrel by three dollars. And every additional dollar enriches Iran, weakens Western economies, and brings the threat from Tehran closer to the daily lives of every European motorist.

Trump knows this. That is precisely why his ultimatum is a dead end. To strike Iran is to close the Strait of Hormuz. Not to strike is to admit that the threat was hollow. In either case, he loses.

A text that says nothing

The draft resolution put to a vote this Tuesday is a masterpiece of diplomatic insignificance. It “calls for” the reopening of the strait. It threatens no one. It imposes no sanctions. It provides for no enforcement mechanism. It is a press release disguised as an international legal act, and everyone in the Security Council chamber knows it.

Russia will either abstain or veto the resolution, depending on Moscow’s mood and the status of its own negotiations with Washington over Ukraine. China will follow suit, because Beijing needs Iranian oil and refuses to set a precedent that could one day be applied to it in the Taiwan Strait. And the non-permanent members will vote according to the instructions their ambassadors received thirty minutes before the vote.

The Iraqi precedent haunts the corridors

And yet, this Security Council session matters. Not for what will be voted on, but for what will not be said. In 2003, Colin Powell waved a vial before this very same assembly to justify the invasion of Iraq. Twenty-three years later, the specter of that vial hangs over every discussion concerning the Middle East. No one wants to be the next to endorse a war based on fabricated pretexts. Nor does anyone want to be the one who did nothing while the situation spiraled out of control.

The UN is trapped by its own history. And Trump knows it.

45 hours, 56 minutes

While diplomats nitpick over details, the U.S. military carried out a rescue operation on Iranian soil. One American pilot has been recovered. A second pilot is still being sought. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth detailed the operation with surgical precision: 45 hours and 56 minutes. The figure is not insignificant. It says: we are capable of going in, staying, and getting out. It says: our special forces are already operating on Iranian soil. It says: the war may have already begun.

John Ratcliffe, Director of the CIA, invoked the sacred doctrine: “We leave no man behind.” It’s more than a military slogan. It’s a commitment that can turn a rescue operation into open war. Because if the second pilot is being held by the Revolutionary Guards, every hour that passes without his release becomes a potential casus belli.

Leaks That Are Worrying the White House

Trump has denounced “leaks” regarding the search for the co-pilot. He has threatened the press. This anger reveals two things. First, that the operation is not going as planned—a satisfied president does not threaten the media; he invites them to cover his victory. Second, that the U.S. security apparatus is not airtight. Classified information is circulating. Someone, somewhere in the chain of command, is speaking out. And that person does not agree with what is happening.

It is these faint signals that we must watch for—not the tweets, but the leaks.

A People Caught in a Vise

On the streets of Tehran, an Iranian man interviewed by BFM TV summed up what 90 million people are feeling: “I don’t know what to make of Trump’s behavior.” That sentence says it all. Confusion. Anxiety. And above all, the impossibility of reacting rationally to an irrational actor.

Iranians are caught between a rock and a hard place. On one side, a theocratic regime that hangs its own citizens for protesting in January. On the other, a U.S. president who threatens to destroy their civilization. They can neither flee, nor fight, nor negotiate. They wait. Just as one waits for a storm whose timing and intensity are unknown.

The Contrast Between the Rallies

BFM TV aired a striking report: the contrast between the rallies of 2026 and those of 2020 in Iran. In 2020, following the assassination of General Soleimani, millions of Iranians flooded the streets in a surge of furious nationalism. In 2026, the rallies are sparser, more weary, more resigned. Six years of sanctions, a pandemic, internal repression, and rampant inflation have sapped the capacity for collective outrage.

And yet, this weariness is not submission. It is simmering anger. Trump calls on the Iranian people to “rise up.” But the Iranians who rose up—in 2019, in 2022, in January 2026—were imprisoned, tortured, and hanged. The U.S. president is asking unarmed civilians to do what the world’s greatest army hesitates to do itself.

An Invisible Arsenal

Beneath the Zagros Mountains, Iran has built what military analysts call “underground cities.” These are tunnel complexes dug hundreds of meters deep, capable of withstanding even the most powerful American bunker busters. Stockpiles of ballistic missiles. Centrifuges. Laboratories. Everything that satellites cannot see.

These facilities fundamentally alter the strategic calculus. Striking Iran from the air—as Israel did against Iraq’s nuclear program in 1981—has become exponentially more difficult. It would require a bombing campaign lasting several weeks, not a surgical strike. And even then, no one can guarantee that all the facilities would be destroyed. Iran has learned from Iraq. It has learned from Libya. It has learned that the only protection against U.S. intervention is to make that intervention so costly that it becomes unthinkable.

Retaliation Beyond the Gulf

Tehran has warned: in the event of an attack, the retaliation will extend “beyond the Gulf states.” This is no empty threat. Iran has a network of proxies stretching from Lebanon to Yemen, from Iraq to Syria. Hezbollah, despite its recent losses, retains the capability to strike against Israel. The Houthis have demonstrated their ability to disrupt maritime trade in the Red Sea. Iraqi militias can target U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria.

A war against Iran would not be a bilateral conflict. It would be a regional conflagration with simultaneous flashpoints across five theaters of operations. And amid this conflagration, Trump’s son-in-law—Michael Boulos—is serving as a consultant on the Lebanese issue, adding a layer of nepotism to an existential crisis.

Staged Disappointment

“I am very disappointed in NATO.” Trump uttered this phrase on the same day he issued his ultimatum to Iran. This is no coincidence. It’s a message: if the allies do not support U.S. action in the Middle East, they cannot count on Washington when their own security is threatened. Article 5 in exchange for aircraft carriers in the Gulf. The nuclear umbrella in exchange for a vote in the Security Council. Everything is transactional.

The Europeans are stunned. Not by the disappointment—Trump has been expressing his disappointment with NATO since 2016—but by the timing. At the very moment he is threatening to start a war that could close the Strait of Hormuz and plunge Europe into recession, he is reminding his allies that they owe him obedience. The word is not too strong. In Trump’s vision of alliances, there are no partners. There are clients.

A Speechless Europe

And yet, Europe’s silence is deafening. Neither Paris, nor Berlin, nor Brussels has issued a strong statement in the face of the threat to annihilate “an entire civilization.” The memory of the JCPOA—the nuclear deal that Trump tore up in 2018 and that Europe failed to save—weighs heavily as an unprocessed humiliation. Europeans know they have no leverage over Trump. They know they have no leverage over Iran. They know they depend on oil from the Gulf. So they remain silent.

This silence comes at a price. With every hour that Europe remains silent, it becomes an accomplice by omission—to an ultimatum that violates international law; to rhetoric that dehumanizes an entire people; and to an escalation that could lead to the first major war between declared and threshold nuclear powers since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

What Trump Really Wants

Trump has laid out his conditions: “We need a deal that’s acceptable—one that I find acceptable.” The repetition is telling. Not a deal acceptable to the international community. Not a deal acceptable to both parties. A deal that he, personally, finds acceptable. Diplomacy reduced to the satisfaction of an ego.

In concrete terms, Trump wants Iran to renounce all nuclear enrichment, dismantle its ballistic missile program, abandon its regional proxies, and accept unlimited intrusive inspections. In exchange, he would offer the lifting of sanctions. This is exactly what Iran has been refusing for twenty years. And it is exactly what no regime in the world would accept under the threat of annihilation, because yielding under maximum pressure means political death.

The Window That Is Closing

Nicolas Conquer, founder of Western Arc and an analyst of Middle Eastern affairs, summed up the situation with brutal clarity: “This is a final olive branch. The ball is in their court.” But that outstretched hand is holding a gun. And the “ball in their court” is literal—thousands of cruise missiles on ships positioned within firing range of Iranian facilities.

The window for negotiation is closing at breakneck speed. Every day that passes without an agreement strengthens the hawks on both sides. In Washington, those who want to strike are gaining ground. In Tehran, so are those who prefer national martyrdom to capitulation. And in the middle, there is no one. No credible mediator. No reliable channel of communication. No Kissinger. No Lavrov. No one.

The Infernal Mechanism

This is how wars begin. Not with a rational decision. But through a series of ultimatums, red lines, provocations, and responses that, taken individually, seem manageable, but together form an irreversible chain of events. A downed pilot. A rescue operation. Leaks to the press. An ultimatum. A UN vote. An Iranian retaliation. A snowball effect.

Historian Barbara Tuchman described this mechanism in The Guns of August: in 1914, no European leader wanted a world war. Each thought the other would back down. Each was trapped by their own threats, alliances, and mobilization schedules. The result: 20 million dead.

We’re not there yet. Not yet.

What “alone” really means

Let’s return to the word from the beginning: “alone.” The president is the only one who knows what he’s going to do. This means the secretary of state cannot reassure Tehran. It means the Pentagon is preparing all scenarios simultaneously without knowing which one will be chosen. It means that the allies—Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates—are planning their own defense without clear guidance from Washington. It means that the risk of a fatal misunderstanding is at its highest.

When a single man controls the decision to go to war or make peace, and no one knows what he will decide, the entire international system operates blindly. Signals are scrambled. Channels for de-escalation are cut off. Deterrence—which relies on rational predictability—ceases to function.

And that may be exactly what Trump wants.

Nixon, but without Kissinger

Richard Nixon theorized the “madman strategy”: making the adversary believe that the American president is unpredictable enough to press the nuclear button. The idea was that this irrational fear would force the enemy to negotiate more favorable terms. But Nixon had Henry Kissinger to open secret channels, to reassure behind the scenes, and to transform apparent madness into calculated leverage.

Trump doesn’t have a Kissinger. He has a son-in-law who acts as an advisor on Lebanon, a Secretary of Defense who details military operations on Fox News, and a CIA director who spouts military slogans. Nixon’s unpredictability was a tool in the service of a coherent strategy. Trump’s unpredictability is the strategy itself. And the difference between the two is 90 million Iranian lives.

The Cost of Fear

And yet, one must acknowledge that the approach yields short-term results. North Korea came to the table in 2018. The Taliban signed an agreement in 2020. The Abraham Accords. Unpredictability forces action. But each time, the result has been a cosmetic agreement followed by a return to the status quo ante. North Korea has more nuclear warheads than before. Afghanistan has fallen back into the hands of the Taliban. And the Abraham Accords did not prevent the outbreak of violence on October 7, 2023.

The pattern is clear: diplomatic spectacle, zero strategic results. The question is whether Iran will be the next iteration of this cycle—or the exception that will shatter the pattern in a bloodbath.

The Forbidden Questions

Who authorized the air mission that led to the downing of the American pilot over Iranian territory? Why were American planes flying over Iran even before the ultimatum had expired? What was the real objective of this mission—reconnaissance, provocation, or testing of air defenses in preparation for a larger operation?

These questions are not being asked. Not by Congress, not by the press, and not by allies. Because asking these questions means challenging the official narrative of the heroic pilot and the spectacular rescue. It suggests that the escalation is not a response to Iranian intransigence, but a deliberate American provocation. And that suggestion, in the current climate, falls on deaf ears.

Congress’s Silence

Article I of the U.S. Constitution grants Congress the exclusive power to declare war. Not the president. Congress. And yet, on this April 7, 2026, as a president threatens to destroy an entire country in the coming hours, the Capitol is silent. No emergency debate. No invocation of the War Powers Act. No special committee.

The Republicans support their president. The Democrats are afraid of appearing weak on national security in an election year. And the constitutional mechanism designed to prevent a single man from starting a war—the mechanism the Founding Fathers intended to be the ultimate safeguard—has become an empty shell.

The White House says the president is “the only one” who decides. The Constitution says otherwise. Guess who wins.

90 million bated breaths

Tonight in Tehran, a mother will prepare dinner, wondering if the sirens will sound before dessert. An engineering student will check his phone for the hundredth time, searching for news on the Telegram channels that the regime hasn’t blocked yet. An elderly man who survived the Iran-Iraq War—eight years of bombings, chemical weapons, and trenches—will gaze at the sky with a terrifying calm—the calm of someone who knows exactly what the word “war” means and who refuses to flee.

These people are not the “regime.” They are not the “nuclear program.” They are not the “mullahs.” They are the civilization that Trump threatens to destroy tonight. Human beings with first names, dreams, debts, unfinished love stories, and children who have school tomorrow. If tomorrow even exists.

The world is watching, the world is waiting

And we, from behind our screens, what are we doing? We’re watching. Just as we watch an accident in slow motion from the sidewalk across the street. With that obscene fascination for the impending catastrophe. With that secret conviction that it won’t happen—because it’s never happened before, because deterrence works, because the adults in the room will prevent the worst from happening.

But the White House has just told us that there are no more adults in the room. There is only one man. Alone. With the power to change the world tonight.

And no one—no one—knows what he’s going to do.

Signed, Jacques PJ Provost