No Spin — Just Power

This weekend, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent did something increasingly rare in Washington: He said what the administration appears to be trying to accomplish.

Bessent, like Vice President J.D. Vance, has a talent for getting to the point. President Trump can be exhausting to listen to. Bessent is worth listening to.

Consider the Strait of Hormuz

Bessent’s formulation was blunt: “The strait is never going to go back to what it was, because the Iranians have used it, or tried to use it, as a vulnerability…”

Who started this particular game is almost beside the point. The interesting part is what comes next.

Bessent offered that, over the next two years, the strait would become “irrelevant”—just another body of water—with 50% to 70% of the energy now moving through Hormuz eventually traveling through underground pipelines.

That is a remarkably ambitious statement. It is also the sort of statement that deserves to be taken seriously precisely because it sounds so improbable.

These days, of course, there is no shortage of contradictory claims about what Washington, Tehran and everyone in between supposedly intend to do next. The Western press has not exactly distinguished itself. At this point, treating much of the coverage as neutral reporting requires a level of faith usually reserved for religion.

There have been few spectacles in modern history quite like the Western media’s campaign of self-discrediting. The Third Reich remains the unfortunate benchmark.

Meanwhile, President Trump appears to be pursuing several contradictory objectives simultaneously.

He is watching Iran’s economy buckle. He has repeatedly attacked Iranian targets. He says he is ready to negotiate. A 60-to-90-day cease-fire has reportedly come close to being arranged. And now comes the grand finale: The United States could supposedly be willing to end the war even without a nuclear agreement—provided Tehran fully reopens Hormuz.

In other words: Promise them whatever they want.
The hanging comes later.

At first glance, this looks less like a strategy than an American retreat disguised as a strategy.

But then there is the map.

And the map is where things get interesting.

First, alternative energy routes would increasingly fall under American protection or influence.

That does not make them immune to Iranian retaliation. The Mediterranean is not suddenly going to become Lake Geneva. Hezbollah could acquire new capabilities. The Red Sea remains the Red Sea. And precisely how Washington intends to bury hundreds of miles of pipelines—and, more importantly, protect the pumping stations—would be an interesting engineering question.

Still, the strategic geography would change.

Second, making Hormuz “irrelevant” would give Iran a powerful incentive to accelerate its nuclear program.

And Iran would not necessarily have to do it alone. New strategic circumstances create new friendships. A nuclear Iran would, in turn, make the argument for a preventive strike stronger.

That is the paradox: The more Washington tries to eliminate the strategic value of Hormuz, the greater the incentive for Tehran to acquire the ultimate insurance policy.

Third, “irrelevant” is another word for scarcity.

Oil. Gas. Fertilizer. Food.

If enough energy disappears from the global supply chain, the consequences eventually migrate from energy markets to supermarket shelves.

That is not necessarily an immediate crisis. It is a medium-term one. But Washington has spent considerable effort creating precisely the conditions under which it could happen.

It might even accept a future in which ships pay for the privilege of passing through Hormuz under Iranian control.

If that is the plan, it is not merely an energy strategy.

It is a declaration that the old Middle Eastern order is finished.

Fourth, Washington may be signaling that it no longer expects the Arabs to save themselves—or to save America’s position for it.

That would be a profound change.

The region’s states could increasingly become the infantry of conflicts they did not start and cannot control. The Middle East has plenty of wars already. What it lacks is a shortage of ways to create more.

Fifth, the old petrodollar bargain is losing some of its importance.

For decades, Arab oil revenues recycled into U.S. financial markets and Treasury securities helped bind the region to Washington.

If America needs those dollars less, the financial logic of the relationship changes.

The Middle East may remain rich. It may remain strategically important. But it may no longer be the financial growth story Washington once needed it to be.

And then there is the largest problem of all.

America has opened two enormous strategic fronts.

Ukraine.

The Middle East.

Neither is likely to be cheap. Neither is likely to be short. And neither is likely to end simply because Washington would prefer it to.

The Diplomacy Will Continue

Witkoff will fly to Moscow. Kushner will fly somewhere else. Someone will insist that someone else is “nobody.” Everyone will nevertheless want something from Washington.

Ukraine must not collapse.
Iran must remain under pressure.
The Middle East must not explode beyond control.

Good luck with that.

Because look at the map again.

Gaza.

Syria.

The Houthis.

The Kurds.

Hezbollah.

Iran.

And a collection of governments whose ability to act independently is considerably smaller than their ability to be hit by somebody else.

The region is not a chessboard.

It is a room full of gas leaks.

And Washington has just struck another match.

Then there is Eurasia.

For centuries, geography encouraged the fiction that Europe and Asia formed one immense economic space. That assumption is becoming increasingly difficult to defend.

The continent is fragmenting.

Trade between its eastern and western halves is becoming more expensive, more politically hazardous and less predictable. Supply chains are being redrawn. Routes are being weaponized. Geography is becoming geopolitics again.

That is what the American strategy looks like when viewed from above.

Not necessarily victory.

Not necessarily defeat.

Something more interesting.

A deliberate attempt to make the old system impossible to restore.

And if that is what Washington actually intended all along, then the joke may be on anyone still congratulating the United States for having “lost.”

The war was never only about winning the old Middle East.

It was about deciding what replaces it.