by Arlene Dickinson
I’m no military strategist but even from the outside, some things just seem like basic common sense. Like knowing who your friends are before you start a fight, and having a plan for the morning after.
That’s apparently not how this war with Iran was handled. And honestly? It’s mind-blowing.
I did some homework for this article because it really matters on things so serious and that seem so out of proportion from one story to the next. It’s too hard to tell what’s true anymore unless you dig and are prepared to ask questions and not just accept what you’re reading. And for you, my subscribers, that includes this article. I have an opinion and it’s mine based on what I understand but I’m not a journalist and this is complex. I don’t pretend to know the depth of all of it. If you read it, please also do your own homework. If I’m wrong please comment and help us all learn together.
Here’s a quick primer on the Strait of Hormuz, for any who wonder exactly what it represents. Picture a narrow stretch of water, barely 39 kilometres wide at its tightest point, sitting between Iran and Oman. It’s the only sea exit from the Persian Gulf. Through that single bottleneck flows roughly one-fifth of all the oil traded in the entire world, every single day. About 3,000 ships pass through every month. Close it, and you don’t just inconvenience a few countries. You bring the global economy to its knees. Oil prices spike. And, guess what? Food prices follow because the gas that flows through that strait is used to make the fertilizers that grow over 40% of the world’s food. India has already declared an emergency to protect hundreds of millions of homes dependent on cooking gas. The world’s busiest airport, Dubai, was hit by a drone and temporarily shut down. About 1,000 oil tankers are currently sitting stranded, going nowhere.
That Strait is Iran’s trump card. And they’re playing it well.
Where things got genuinely head-scratching for me is on the seeming lack of a plan. The US and Israel launched coordinated strikes on Iran on February 28th. Trump declared Iran’s military “totally decapitated.” He claimed to have “destroyed 100% of Iran’s military capability.” Victory, essentially, was announced. He said Iran had no military left and no hope. He bragged about the US dominance and its ability to precision strike and destroy Iranian forces. But Iran was apparently more ready than Trump. And so, Trump needs help even as he says he doesn’t.
We’re just over two weeks into this war and things aren’t going great. Not one country has committed warships to help US keep that strait open. Not one. And here’s a detail that speaks volumes. The US Navy itself has been refusing near daily requests from the shipping industry to escort vessels through the strait. So, in other words, Trump is demanding allies do something that his own navy isn’t doing.
Trump is now on social media demanding that Britain, France, China, Japan, South Korea, Norway and others step up. His message to anyone who hesitates? “We will remember.” That’s certainly not coalition building. That’s threatening your own allies into helping clean up a mess they had no part in making and never agreed to in the first place. And it isn’t working.
France said its aircraft carrier is staying in the Eastern Mediterranean. Norway’s Ministry of Defence announced it has no plans to send ships. Japan says the bar for sending ships is “extremely high.” Britain and South Korea are hedging. Germany said flatly it will not become “an active part of this conflict.”
And then there’s us in Canada. Trump has spent months threatening to absorb us as the “51st state,” slapping us with tariffs and publicly mocking our leaders. I personally am grateful that our PM didn’t hedge. He made a statement that may be one of the most pointed rebukes of American foreign policy made by Canada in recent memory, telling Parliament directly that “Canada is not participating in the United States and Israeli offensive and will never participate in it.” He went further, noting that “the United States and Israel acted without engaging the United Nations or consulting with allies, including Canada.”
We have historically been one of the US’s most reliable friends and largest trading partner and we just publicly declared our independence from US foreign policy. That doesn’t happen by accident. That’s the accumulated consequence of years of disrespect finally being spoken out loud. It’s principled, it’s disciplined, and it’s the right thing for us to do.
The real irony in all of this is that for years, Trump’s entire brand has been built on “America First.” He brags all the time about not needing anyone. NATO is a rip-off. Allies are freeloaders. He has publicly humiliated world leaders, slapped allies with ridiculous tariffs, and made it clear the US goes it alone and that everyone else’s job is to just do what he says.
And yet here we are. He desperately needs those exact same countries. And they’re saying no loudly, and on the record.
A senior Middle East security expert at King’s College London described Trump’s coalition push as “a desperate move” to calm markets, with no actual plan behind it. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said it even more bluntly: “On the Strait of Hormuz, they had NO PLAN.”
Iran’s military commander is saying “Americans falsely claimed the destruction of Iran’s navy. Then they falsely claimed the escorting of oil tankers. Now they’re even asking others for backup forces.”
But here’s the twist that makes this whole situation even more extraordinary. Iran isn’t just blocking the strait militarily. They seem to be playing a smart long game. Iran is reportedly offering to let certain tankers through but only if the oil is paid for in Chinese yuan, not US dollars. What does that mean? It means Iran is offering China, Japan and South Korea (some of the very countries Trump is demanding help from), a private side deal. Skip the coalition. Bypass Washington. Pay in yuan and your ships get through.
BTW China doesn’t even need to help reopen the strait, because Iranian oil is already flowing to China just fine. Iran is only blocking countries affiliated with the US and Israel. So why would China risk its ships and its credibility to bail out the country that started the war?
That one move on the yuan potentially drives a wedge between the US and its most critical partners, while simultaneously chipping away at the dollar’s long-standing dominance in global oil trade. It’s not a military masterstroke. It’s an economic one. And apparently nobody in the USA saw it coming.
So what’s the real lesson here?
It goes without saying that the Iranian regime is beyond horrific. The people of Iran are caught in an untenable situation, victims first of their own intensely cruel and terrorist government, and now of a war launched without a plan, without allies, and without an exit strategy.
Wars are easy to start. The chaos that follows is where wars are actually won or lost and that’s precisely where allies, planning and diplomacy matter most. You can’t spend years burning those bridges and then demand people sprint across them for you when things go sideways.
The human cost is already devastating with over 1,300 reported dead in Iran, civilians killed across the Gulf, hundreds of thousands displaced in Lebanon, American military personnel lost. Oil is over $100 a barrel. Global food security is being flagged as a serious risk.
And the President of the USA is now demanding help from partners he spent years telling he didn’t need and in fact harming their economies, while his enemy quietly offers many of those same partners a better deal.
We used to be one of America’s closest friends and now we have publicly declared we will no longer be an echo of Washington’s decisions. Trump is not the leader of the free world. The free world is rejecting him.
Like I said, I’m not a journalist or a military strategist. But even I know this is not how allies work. And it’s definitely not how wars are won.
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