Was it a slip of the tongue, or was it a deliberate remark meant to signal to the world and particularly the Gulf countries the future plans of the Trump administration towards the Gulf once its war against Iran ends?
Talking to reporters last week about prospects for ending the war, US President Donald Trump, when speaking about the Strait of Hormuz, said “the Strait of Trump”.
He then excused himself and commented he meant the “Hormuz Strait”. It should be noted that days earlier Trump had called on countries that benefit the most from oil and gas transiting the Strait of Hormuz to shoulder the responsibility of keeping it open.
The incident illustrates the fact that it is risky to try to come to grips with the ultimate objectives of the American administration in staging this war. Does it plan to control Iran’s Kharg Island for an indefinite period? Or does it intend to work with the Israelis to bring about what they have described as “state collapse” in Iran?
Kharg Island sits on the Doroud oil and gas field, which holds an estimated 7.6 billion barrels of oil, and it has a storage capacity of around 31 million barrels of oil, which, on the day the war erupted on 28 February, was at 58 per cent capacity, according to trade intelligence firm Kepler.
Controlling the Island would be a great win for Trump as it would provide his administration with the power to control the amount of oil that can be exported to China through the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump has been deliberately vague on when and on what terms he will end the war.
Last weekend, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in Paris after attending a ministerial meeting of the G7 group foreign ministers that the United States has from one to two weeks to end its military operations in Iran.
His statement contradicts reports about the Pentagon planning for a “ground attack” on Iran and increasing the size of the American forces needed to put various military options in Trump’s hands in case he needs them when pushing the Iranians to negotiate.
Iran has insisted that it will be the one on whose terms the war will end.
On 28 March, the war entered its fifth week, and Iran has been targeting Israel and other targets in the Gulf with missiles and drones. Moreover, the Houthis in Yemen also started attacking Israel with missiles on the same day in a move that was not unexpected but that speaks volumes about the staying power of Iran and the pro-Iranian militias.
The question, if the war drags on for further weeks, will be what is enabling Iran to withstand a bombing campaign that has already gone on for four weeks?
Experts believe that the American administration and Israel underestimated the Iranian capacity to survive such a bombing campaign and also the degree of support, however indirect, that both Russia and China would provide to Iran.
The Russian government recently understandably denied press reports that it is providing Iran with advanced drones.
Russia has enjoyed good relations with Trump, in his first term in office as well as in the 13 months of his second, and it has no interest in losing the goodwill of the White House. This is all the more the case in that Trump has been trying to stop the war in Ukraine more or less on terms that most Europeans and the Democrats in the United States see as too close to those that Russia would like to impose on Ukraine.
Furthermore, the US administration has waived sanctioning Russian oil exported via the “shadow fleet” of oil tankers. The Russians have also succeeded in maintaining a balance in their respective relations with all the warring parties, though this balancing act would be tested if the US administration decides, as Trump has said it might, to seize Kharg Island by force.
It goes without saying that should this happen Russia’s credibility as a great power would be on the line, and the Kremlin would have to make hard choices in the light of further escalation in the Gulf.
In this case, the future of Iranian-Russian relations would be in doubt if the Iranian regime remains in power once the war is over, for these will depend on the amount and the kind of support that Moscow provides Tehran in containing the disastrous consequences of the war on Iran’s military and economic resources and whether it warns the US and Israel not to target Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor.
An ominous sign in this regard was the Russian decision to evacuate Russian personnel from the site this week.
In launching the war on Iran I am not sure that the Trump administration weighed the far-reaching consequences of its decision. Perhaps the world, and perhaps also the US for that matter, has now woken up, in the fifth week of the war, to its destabilising consequences for international peace and security. Whether the great powers will be able to manage those consequences only time will tell.
It was interesting to hear that the former head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency said recently that Iran now has the “initiative” in the war.
One of the challenges facing the three great powers, the United States, China, and Russia, in the world order that is emerging before our eyes will be to re-evaluate their relations with the middle powers, since Iran’s defiance of the mightiest military in the world has proven that the great powers are not always in the driver’s seat.
It has shown that the world’s middle powers, of which Iran is one, can impose their terms on world politics as well.
Trump will also most likely fail in his attempt to re-name the Strait of Hormuz the Trump Strait.
The writer is former assistant foreign minister.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 2 April, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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