Trump Proceeded with Iran War Despite Hormuz Blockade Risk

Two weeks into the largest U.S. military operation in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a central question has crystallized: Did the Trump administration understand what it was getting into?

The answer, according to multiple current and former officials, reporting from CNN, the Washington Post, and other outlets, is both yes and no. President Trump was briefed on the possibility that Iran would respond to U.S.-Israeli strikes by closing the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway through which roughly 20 million barrels of oil flow each day, about one-fifth of the global supply. He was told it was a risk. He went to war anyway [1][2].

What the administration did not adequately plan for, multiple sources say, was the scale, speed, and tenacity of Iran's response — and the cascading economic consequences that have since sent crude oil prices from under $67 a barrel to nearly $120 in barely two weeks [3][4].

The Decision

The strikes that launched Operation Epic Fury on February 28, 2026 did not emerge in a vacuum. They were the product of weeks of lobbying by Israel and Saudi Arabia, who argued that the moment was right to neutralize Iran's nuclear program and degrade its military capabilities [5]. The Washington Post reported that U.S. intelligence assessments saw no imminent threat, but regional allies argued the window for action was closing.

Inside the White House, the decision was not unanimous. Vice President JD Vance, a former Marine who built his political brand as a critic of foreign wars, initially counseled caution. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, already managing the fallout from January's Venezuela operations, offered only tepid support [6]. But as it became clear that Trump favored military action, Vance shifted — advocating for a fast, decisive strike to minimize American casualties. The louder pro-war voices from outside the White House eventually drowned out the quieter calls for restraint.

Trump deliberated for weeks before giving the final order. He was briefed that the "most likely" outcome of killing Supreme Leader Khamenei would be replacement by another hardliner, though officials held out hope for a friendlier successor [2]. By the time the third round of U.S.-Iran nuclear talks ended in Geneva on February 26 — with Oman's foreign minister reporting "substantial progress" — Trump had likely already made his decision [7].

The Hormuz Gamble

The Strait of Hormuz has been the single most predictable flashpoint of any conflict with Iran for decades. Every Pentagon war game, every National Intelligence Estimate, every think-tank simulation of a U.S.-Iran conflict has centered on the same question: What happens when Iran closes the strait?

Yet according to CNN's reporting, the Pentagon and National Security Council "significantly underestimated Iran's willingness to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to U.S. military strikes while planning the ongoing operation" [1]. The key reason, multiple sources told CNN: officials believed Iran's closure of the strait would hurt Tehran more than Washington — a view reinforced by the fact that Iran had made empty threats about the strait after U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities the previous summer.

Source: GDELT Project

Data as of Mar 14, 2026CSV

The White House furiously disputed the reporting. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called CNN's story "100% FAKE NEWS," insisting that the Pentagon had been planning for this contingency "for DECADES" [8]. Montana Senator Tim Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL, dismissed the report as "garbage." Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters: "Of course, for decades, Iran has threatened shipping in the Strait of Hormuz" [1].

But the administration's own response undercut its denials. CNN reported that while officials from the Departments of Energy and Treasury were present at some pre-war planning meetings, "the agency analysis and forecasts that would be integral elements of the decision-making process in past administrations were secondary considerations" [1]. Trump's preference for a tight circle of close advisers had the effect of sidelining the interagency debate over potential economic fallout — precisely the kind of worst-case-scenario analysis that might have given the president pause.

A Chokepoint Closed

What followed the February 28 strikes was swift and devastating. Iran's navy, Revolutionary Guard Corps, and proxy forces moved to choke the strait almost immediately. Tanker traffic collapsed — first by 70%, then to near zero [4][9]. Mines were seeded in the waterway. Drones, missiles, and fast boats attacked commercial vessels. At least 15 ships were struck in the first two weeks [10].

Iran's newly installed Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei — elevated after the killing of his father in the opening strikes — declared that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed as a "tool to pressure the enemy" and that "not one litre of oil" would pass [11][12].

The IRGC published target lists of U.S. tech companies operating in Gulf states and launched drone strikes on AWS data centers in the UAE and Bahrain [13]. The conflict metastasized beyond the strait itself, with Hezbollah entering the war and Iranian retaliatory strikes hitting targets across the region — including in Arab countries that had played no part in the original operation [2].

The Mine Problem

Perhaps the most damning detail in the emerging picture of pre-war planning is what happened with the U.S. Navy's minesweeping capability.

In September 2025 — just five months before Operation Epic Fury — the Navy decommissioned the last four Avenger-class mine countermeasures ships stationed in Bahrain. The USS Devastator, USS Dextrous, USS Gladiator, and USS Sentry, each having served over 30 years, were shipped back to the United States for scrapping in January 2026 [14][15].

Their replacements — Independence-class Littoral Combat Ships equipped with mine countermeasures mission packages — have, in the words of multiple naval analysts, "struggled to meet the requirements of operational mine countermeasures missions" [16]. The Avenger-class ships were specifically designed with non-magnetic signatures and low acoustic footprints to operate inside mine-threat zones. The LCS operates outside the threat zone and deploys counter-mine devices remotely — a fundamentally different and less proven approach.

Iran possesses an estimated stockpile of thousands of sea mines, including cheap contact and magnetic mines that can be dropped from virtually any small vessel [16][17]. U.S. forces sank 16 Iranian minelayers on March 10 alone, but officials acknowledged that Iran retains 80-90% of its small boat and mine-laying capability [18]. A "hasty clearance" to open even one narrow shipping lane could take days; achieving acceptable safety levels for tanker traffic could take weeks or months [17]. UK Defence Secretary John Healey acknowledged that mine clearance is "near impossible during active conflict" [10].

The timing raises uncomfortable questions. The Navy eliminated its dedicated minesweeping presence in the Persian Gulf just months before launching a war in which mine warfare was among the most predictable Iranian responses.

Economic Shockwave

The economic consequences have been staggering — and are still accelerating.

Source: FRED / U.S. Energy Information Administration

Data as of Mar 9, 2026CSV

WTI crude oil surged from $66.96 per barrel on February 27 — the day before the strikes — to $94.65 by March 9, with Brent crude touching nearly $120 [3][4]. The International Energy Agency authorized a record 400-million-barrel release from emergency reserves, dwarfing all previous collective actions [19]. Gulf countries, with storage filling up and nowhere to ship their oil, have been forced to cut total production by at least 10 million barrels per day [4].

The downstream effects have rippled across the global economy. Gasoline prices surged 19% in a single month [20]. Airlines face up to $24 billion in additional fuel costs, with ticket prices rising at least 11% [21]. The Philippines ordered a four-day government workweek to conserve fuel [22]. Fertilizer prices — roughly one-third of global trade transits the Hormuz — jumped from $475 to $680 per metric ton [4].

According to the IMF, every 10% rise in oil prices reduces global economic growth by 0.15% and raises inflation by 0.4%. With prices having nearly doubled, the math points toward stagflation — the toxic combination of rising prices and slowing growth that defined the 1970s [4][23].

The crisis has been described by analysts as the largest potential supply disruption in modern oil market history, both in absolute volume and as a share of global demand — worse than the 1973 Arab oil embargo, worse than the Iran-Iraq Tanker War, worse than the 1990 Gulf War [23]. Bernstein analysts warned that a prolonged disruption could send prices to $150 per barrel [23].

A Government Divided

Congress has so far declined to constrain the president's war-making authority. The Senate rejected a war powers resolution on March 4, with only two Republicans — Thomas Massie and Warren Davidson — breaking ranks. The House followed suit in a 212-219 vote [24][25]. Senate Democrats have since threatened to force procedural war votes to compel public hearings on the conflict [26].

But anxiety is mounting. Republican members are increasingly alarmed at the political fallout from surging energy prices heading into midterm elections [20]. The administration has scrambled to mitigate the damage — lifting sanctions on Russian oil stranded at sea, considering Jones Act waivers, and invoking the Defense Production Act to restart shuttered offshore drilling platforms in California [27].

Two weeks in, the Trump administration is, by CNN's account, "no closer to settling on a defined strategy for finishing a conflict that has grown only more complicated and unwieldy by the day" [2]. The U.S. military death toll has reached 13, including six Air Force crew killed when a KC-135 Stratotanker crashed in Iraq [28]. Over 1,400 Iranian civilians are dead, including at least 165 — most of them children — in a strike on a school in Minab [26].

Source: Pentagon / Reuters / CNN compiled reports

Data as of Mar 14, 2026CSV

The Price of Certainty

The emerging portrait is one of an administration that understood the risks in the abstract but convinced itself the worst-case scenario would not materialize. Officials believed Iran would not follow through on its decades-old threat to close the strait because doing so would damage Tehran's own economy. They wagered that the shock-and-awe tempo of Operation Epic Fury would degrade Iran's ability to act before it could mount a meaningful response. They bet that the world could absorb the disruption.

They were wrong on all three counts.

The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed. Iran's new supreme leader has made its continued closure a matter of national identity and resistance. The mines are in the water, and the Navy that decommissioned its minesweepers five months ago cannot clear them during active combat. Oil prices are approaching levels that threaten a global recession. And the administration's own allies — from GOP members of Congress to Wall Street analysts who forecast $50-$60 oil for 2026 — are watching the consequences unfold with mounting alarm [20][29].

The question is no longer whether Trump knew the risk. He did. The question is why, knowing the risk, the most predictable consequence of a war with Iran was treated as an afterthought in the planning that preceded it.