ANALYSIS: Trump Wants to "Clean Up" the Strait of Hormuz — and No One Realizes What That Means

Military terminology is never innocent

In the Department of Defense’s lexicon, “clearing” a maritime area involves a series of very specific operations. It means mine clearance—eliminating any underwater threats. It means surface superiority—ensuring that no hostile vessel can operate freely. It means air dominance—controlling every square kilometer of airspace above the strait. And it means, in the final analysis, neutralizing the adversary’s access-denial capabilities.

Iran has spent four decades building precisely these access-denial capabilities. Coastal anti-ship missiles, swarms of armed fast attack craft, sophisticated sea mines, miniature submarines, kamikaze drones. This entire arsenal was designed for one purpose: to make the Strait of Hormuz uninhabitable for any enemy naval force. Clearing all of this away isn’t something that can be done with a single tweet.

The Gap Between Rhetoric and Operational Reality

Here’s what military analysts know but Trump isn’t saying: a “cleanup” operation in the Strait of Hormuz against Iran’s will would be one of the most complex naval operations since the tanker war of the 1980s. The Pentagon certainly has plans for this scenario—they’ve existed for decades under various code names. But moving from plan to execution means crossing a line that four successive U.S. administrations have chosen not to cross.

The question, therefore, is not: Can the United States do it? The answer is yes, though it would entail losses and consequences. The question is: At what cost? And for what strategic objective that could not be achieved by other means?

A Formidable Asymmetric Military Power

Every time a U.S. president takes a tougher stance against Iran, part of the Washington establishment makes the same mistake: assuming it will be “like Iraq.” It will be nothing like Iraq. Iran possesses a strategic depth of 1.6 million square kilometers, mountainous terrain that makes any ground invasion a nightmare, a population of 88 million with a visceral nationalism that transcends internal political divisions, and a network of allied militias capable of striking at U.S. interests from Lebanon to Afghanistan.

But it is above all in the naval domain that the difference is most striking. The Revolutionary Guards have developed a “swarm” doctrine specifically designed to overwhelm the defenses of U.S. carrier strike groups. Hundreds of small, fast boats, loaded with explosives or missiles, attacking simultaneously from dozens of directions. Pentagon simulations—notably the famous Millennium Challenge 2002 exercise—have shown that this tactic could inflict catastrophic damage even on the world’s most powerful navy.

The Looming Nuclear Factor

And then there’s the elephant in the room. Iran is closer than ever to the nuclear threshold. IAEA reports indicate uranium enrichment at levels that have no civilian justification. A military confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz could be exactly the pretext Tehran’s hawks need to take the final step. Clearing the strait could create the very monster the operation claims to prevent.

This is the fundamental paradox that no one in the White House seems willing to articulate publicly: the more you corner Iran, the more irresistible the nuclear temptation becomes for the regime. And a nuclear Iran in a militarized Strait of Hormuz is the absolute nightmare of global geopolitics.

What Your Energy Bills Don’t Tell You Yet

The day the first shot is fired in the Strait of Hormuz, the price of a barrel of oil won’t just rise—it will skyrocket. Even the most conservative economic models predict an immediate doubling. Pessimistic scenarios predict a threefold increase within 48 hours. And this isn’t just theory: in September 2019, the attacks on Saudi Aramco’s facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais—which didn’t even affect the strait—triggered the sharpest one-day rise in oil prices since the 1991 Gulf War.

Now imagine that the strait itself were blocked. Not for a day, not for a week, but for an indefinite period. Global strategic reserves would last a few months. After that, it would be chaos. Europe, already weakened by its post-Ukraine energy dependence, would be hit hard. Asia—China, Japan, South Korea, India—which relies heavily on Gulf oil, would plunge into crisis. And the global economy, already under strain, could tip into a recession of unprecedented severity.

The trap the markets haven’t yet factored in

What is astonishing is the relative calm of the markets in the face of this statement. Brent crude has barely budged. Financial analysts seem to be treating Trump’s statement as rhetorical bluster, mere political noise. They may be right. Or they may be making the most costly mistake of the decade. Because the defining characteristic of crises in the Strait of Hormuz is that they shift from rhetoric to reality without the slightest warning.

On June 20, 2019, Iran shot down a U.S. RQ-4A Global Hawk drone over the strait. Trump ordered a retaliatory strike, then called it off ten minutes before it was to be carried out. Ten minutes. That is the margin separating the world today from a major conflict in the Gulf. And yet, the markets treat each new escalation as a non-event. Until the day when that is no longer the case.

Trump and the Art of Brinkmanship

You have to give Donald Trump credit for one thing: he has mastered the art of coercive diplomacy like few presidents before him. Threatening to negotiate, escalating to secure concessions, and creating the impression of an unpredictable president whom no one dares to challenge—this is a strategy with historical precedents. Nixon called it the “madman theory.” Eisenhower had used it with nuclear weapons to end the Korean War. The principle is simple: if your opponent believes you’re capable of anything, they’ll give in before you even have to act.

But brinkmanship has a structural flaw that its practitioners systematically underestimate: it works only if the other side believes the bluff without ever testing it. The day the adversary decides not to back down—whether out of calculation, pride, or a misjudgment—the player on the brink has only two options left: jump or lose face. And in the Strait of Hormuz, jumping means a conflict whose outcome no one can control.

Escalation in Invisible Steps

What makes the current situation particularly dangerous is the silent buildup of military assets in the region. The U.S. aircraft carrier strike group deployed in the Gulf is not there for a courtesy visit. The Ohio-class missile submarines patrolling the Indian Ocean are not on a training exercise. The B-52 bombers redeployed to Diego Garcia are not undergoing maintenance. Every piece is in place. And when all the pieces are in place, all it takes is one incident—a downed drone, an overly aggressive patrol boat, a mine hitting the wrong ship—for the machine to spiral out of control.

Military history teaches us that the most devastating wars rarely begin with a deliberate decision. They begin with a series of escalations that each side considers rational, until the logic of escalation exceeds the decision-makers’ ability to control it. And yet, here is a president who is accelerating this spiral with a smile.

Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and the Deafening Silence

Notice the silence of the Gulf monarchies. No bombastic statement from Riyadh. No bellicose communiqué from Abu Dhabi. No provocative tweet from Mohammed bin Salman. This silence is not indifference—it is pure terror. Because the Gulf states know better than anyone what a conflict in the Strait would mean for them: all their oil passes through there. All their wealth depends on that corridor. One month of blockage, and the grandiose Vision 2030 projects would collapse like a house of cards.

Saudi Arabia has spent the last few years diversifying its alliances, drawing closer to China, and normalizing relations with Iran under Beijing’s auspices—precisely to avoid being held hostage in a U.S.-Iranian conflict. And now, with a single move, Trump has put these monarchies right back where they no longer wanted to be: forced to choose a side in a confrontation they did everything they could to prevent.

Qatar, Oman, and the Diplomacy of Survival

Qatar, whose liquefied natural gas transits through the same strait, is in an even more precarious position. The Sultanate of Oman, which controls the southern shore of the strait, has always played the role of a discreet mediator between Washington and Tehran. These small states instinctively understand that diplomacy is their only protection. And they watch with dismay as a U.S. president who seems to view diplomacy as a sign of weakness.

The question these capitals are asking themselves right now is the same one the United States’ European allies asked in 2003 before the Iraq War: Can we stop this machine from getting started? Or is it already too late to do anything other than seek shelter?

Beijing, the Big Winner of the Looming Chaos

Forty percent of China’s oil imports pass through the Strait of Hormuz. This figure alone explains why Beijing is monitoring the situation with a level of intensity that its measured diplomatic statements do not reveal. A conflict in the strait would be an energy shock for China—but it would also, paradoxically, be a monumental strategic opportunity.

Think about it. If the United States becomes bogged down in a conflict with Iran in the Gulf, that means military, diplomatic, and financial resources diverted away from competing with China in the Indo-Pacific. It gives Taiwan some breathing room. It means reduced U.S. pressure in the South China Sea. It means a U.S. economy weakened by soaring energy prices. Beijing doesn’t even need to lift a finger—it simply needs to let Washington inflict its own wounds.

The Maritime Silk Road Under Strain

But China is also playing a more subtle game. Its Maritime Silk Road depends on the stability of global shipping lanes. The port of Gwadar in Pakistan, the facilities in Djibouti, investments in ports in Sri Lanka and Myanmar—this entire logistics empire was built to reduce China’s dependence on the Strait of Hormuz. But the transition isn’t complete. A conflict right now would come too soon for Beijing.

This explains China’s current stance: publicly calling for calm, discreetly strengthening ties with Tehran, and frantically accelerating the development of alternative logistics routes. China does not want this conflict. But if Washington hands it to China, China will know how to turn it to its advantage.

The Sudden Realization of Energy Dependence

Europe has learned nothing from the energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine. None whatsoever. Three years after realizing that relying on Russian gas was a monumental strategic mistake, the continent finds itself just as vulnerable to a disruption in the Persian Gulf. The LNG terminals built in a rush to replace Russian gas are running on Qatari gas that passes through—you guessed it—the Strait of Hormuz.

The European Union has absolutely no credible naval projection capability in the Gulf. The EUNAVFOR mission in the Red Sea has already demonstrated the limits of European capabilities when confronting the Houthis. Faced with Iran, those limits would be humiliating. This means that Europe is watching an American president over whom it has no control make decisions in a region on which it is vitally dependent, without having the slightest ability to influence the course of events.

Paris, Berlin, London: Three Powerless Nations

Macron can make phone calls. Scholz can express concern. Starmer can consult. But none of the three can change the course of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Gulf. This is the harsh reality of European power in 2025: total energy dependence, near-total security dependence on Washington, and a structural inability to protect its own strategic interests when they diverge from those of the United States.

And yet, how many European summits have been devoted to strategic autonomy since 2017? How many speeches on “European sovereignty”? How many billions promised for defense? The Strait of Hormuz is the ultimate reality check—and Europe is failing it before it even begins.

The Pentagon: Between Obedience and Restraint

There is a telling discrepancy between Trump’s statement and the Pentagon’s communication. Senior U.S. officers are trained in a discipline of language that the commander-in-chief seems to regard as optional. When Trump says “clean up,” the Department of Defense speaks of an “enhanced presence” and “freedom of navigation operations.” This semantic discrepancy is not insignificant. It reveals an institutional tension between a president who wants to project force and a military establishment that weighs the real cost of such projection.

Retired officers, no longer bound by the duty-in-reserve, are more direct. Several admirals and generals have publicly expressed concern over rhetoric that could trap the United States in a spiral of escalation. One of them put it with brutal clarity: “We can enter the strait in a position of dominance. But getting out without the world going up in flames is another story.”

Lessons the military leadership has not forgotten

Officers at Central Command (CENTCOM) who plan operations in the Gulf have not forgotten the 2002 Millennium Challenge exercise. In that simulation, General Paul Van Riper, playing the role of the Iranian adversary, sank a significant portion of the U.S. fleet using exactly the asymmetric tactics that Iran has since perfected. The exercise was halted and restarted with modified rules to ensure a U.S. “victory.” Twenty-three years later, Iranian tactics have only become more sophisticated, particularly with the addition of drones and hypersonic missiles to their arsenal.

The Pentagon’s institutional memory knows what the White House’s political memory chooses to forget: a conflict in the Strait of Hormuz is not a surgical operation. It is a fire at an oil refinery.

1987–1988: When the Strait Was Already Ablaze

For those who think a conflict in the Strait is a theoretical scenario, history offers a stark reminder. During the Iran-Iraq War, between 1987 and 1988, the United States conducted Operation Earnest Will—escorting Kuwaiti oil tankers through the Strait under the American flag. What was supposed to be a limited protection operation turned into a series of naval clashes, culminating in Operation Praying Mantis in April 1988—the largest U.S. naval battle since World War II.

On that day, the U.S. Navy destroyed half of Iran’s operational fleet. But it also discovered that Iranian mines, fast attack craft, and coastal missiles were far more dangerous than anticipated. The frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts nearly sank after striking a mine. And the downing of Iran Air Flight 655—in which 290 civilians were killed by a missile fired from the USS Vincennes—remains one of the darkest tragedies in U.S. naval history.

Why 2025 Makes 1988 Seem Almost Simple

In 1988, Iran had no anti-ship ballistic missiles. No kamikaze drones. No cyber capabilities. No armed allies in Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria capable of simultaneously striking U.S. interests throughout the region. Today, Iran has all of that. And the Houthis have demonstrated in the Red Sea that even a non-state actor can sustainably disrupt global maritime traffic with relatively modest means.

Apply this capacity for disruption on the scale of Iran—a state with 40 years of experience preparing for this exact scenario—and you’ll understand why Pentagon planners do not share the casual optimism of the presidential statement. The Strait of 2025 is not the Strait of 1988. It is infinitely more dangerous.

Iran as a bargaining chip

What if all of this had nothing to do with the Strait of Hormuz? It’s a possibility worth exploring. Trump is a negotiator who uses maximum pressure as a precondition for any discussion. He did it with North Korea—“fire and fury” followed by a summit in Singapore. He did it with China—a trade war followed by “Phase 1” agreements. The pattern is always the same: escalate, intimidate, then reach out.

If that’s the case, the statement on the Strait isn’t a war plan—it’s an opening for negotiations. The message to Tehran would be: “Look at what I’m willing to do. Now, sit down at the table and give me a nuclear deal that I can present as a victory.” ” It’s brutal, it’s risky, but it’s consistent with Trump’s modus operandi.

The problem with this theory

The problem is that Iran is neither North Korea nor China. The regime in Tehran is a theocracy whose domestic legitimacy rests in part on its resistance to American pressure. To yield publicly under military threat is to sign its own political death warrant. The Iranian reformers who might have been able to negotiate have been sidelined. The ultra-conservatives who now dominate the regime have neither the will nor the leeway to make concessions under pressure.

This means that the brinkmanship strategy could hit a wall: an adversary that prefers confrontation to humiliation. And in that case, the forces deployed to intimidate become forces engaged in a fight that no one had really planned to see through to the end.

Strategic Somnambulism

Historian Christopher Clark described the outbreak of World War I as the result of “sleepwalking”—leaders who marched toward disaster with their eyes open but their minds closed, each convinced that the other would back down. We may be reliving exactly this scenario in the Strait of Hormuz.

Washington is convinced that Iran won’t dare. Tehran is convinced that Washington is bluffing. The Gulf monarchies are convinced that reason will prevail. And no one—absolutely no one—has a credible Plan B for the moment when all these convictions turn out to be false at the same time.

The Scenario No One Wants to Name

Here’s what could happen. An incident in the Strait—an Iranian patrol boat getting too close, a downed drone, a drifting mine. “Proportionate” U.S. retaliation. A “legitimate” Iranian response. A “necessary” U.S. counter-response. Houthi missiles striking Saudi Arabia. Hezbollah stirring up trouble in Lebanon. Militias attacking U.S. bases in Iraq. Oil at $200. Markets in free fall. And suddenly, the world discovers that the “clearing” of the Strait of Hormuz was not a limited operation but the first domino in a cascade that no one can stop anymore.

This scenario is not fiction. It is the baseline scenario for every strategic simulation conducted by the Pentagon, the RAND Corporation, and the IISS in London over the past twenty years. And the fact that Trump seems to be ignoring it—or worse, considering it an acceptable risk—should alarm every citizen who pays their gas bill and every parent with a child of military age.

For whom does the bugle sound?

Who, exactly, requested this operation? Which ally begged Washington to go and clear the strait? What vital American interest is under threat to the point of justifying the risk of a conflict with Iran? The oil passing through Hormuz is mainly bound for Asia—not for the United States, which has become largely energy-self-sufficient thanks to shale oil. So why risk American lives to protect the supplies of China and Japan?

The official response—“freedom of navigation is a vital interest”—is technically true. But it masks a more complex reality. This operation, if it is indeed taking place, primarily serves a domestic political purpose: to project an image of strength, divert attention from domestic difficulties, and position Trump as the president who “does what others dared not do.” This is geopolitics in the service of domestic politics. And it is the most dangerous way to conduct world affairs.

The Cost of Posturing

Every show of force comes with an opportunity cost. Every dollar spent on operations in the Gulf is a dollar not spent on the technological race with China. Every ship deployed in the Strait is a ship missing from the Western Pacific. Every diplomatic cycle consumed by the Iranian crisis is a cycle lost to the alliances that truly matter for the long-term security of the United States.

And yet, we forge ahead. Just like in 2003. As if Iraq had taught us nothing. As if Afghanistan had shown us nothing. As if twenty years of wars in the Middle East had produced only one lesson: that it is easy to get in and almost impossible to get out.

You can’t just “clean up” a strait

The Strait of Hormuz cannot be “cleaned up” the way you clean a driveway. It is a living space, crisscrossed by conflicting interests, long-standing memories, and even longer-standing grudges. Iran has lived there, fished there, traded there, and projected its power there for three thousand years. The United States has been patrolling it for four decades. No one has a monopoly on these waters, and no one ever will—regardless of the naval and air forces deployed.

What Trump calls “cleaning up” is in reality an attempt at absolute domination of a space that geography, history, and politics make impossible to dominate absolutely. It is the kind of hubris that has led empires to their downfall—from Philip II’s Spain in the English Channel to Britain at Suez. And empires that forget the lessons of previous empires are doomed to relearn them in the most painful way possible.

What Should Keep Us Awake at Night

Tonight, somewhere in the Strait of Hormuz, a twenty-two-year-old American sailor is looking out at the Iranian coast from the deck of a destroyer. He probably doesn’t know that the president has just described his mission as a “cleanup.” He probably doesn’t know that the financial markets are betting that nothing will happen. He probably doesn’t know that retired admirals are expressing concern for his safety on television. What he does know is that he is there, in a 33-kilometer-wide strait, facing an adversary who has been waiting for this moment for forty years.

And that’s what should be keeping us awake at night. Not the word “clean up.” Not politics. Not oil. But that twenty-two-year-old sailor, and all those like him, whose lives depend on their commander-in-chief’s ability to distinguish between a bold statement and a viable mission order.

The Strait of Hormuz is not a slogan. It is the most dangerous place on the planet. And it has just become a little more dangerous.

Signed, Jacques PJ Provost