If Trump really wants shipping to flow through the Strait of Hormuz it’s time he enacted Operation Retreat

At first glance, the latest product of the strategic mind of Donald J Trump looks promising, not to say valiant and brave. “Project Freedom”, so much more gentle-sounding and uplifting than operations Midnight Hammer and Epic Fury, is nothing less than, in his words, a “humanitarian gesture” designed to rescue “neutral and innocent” crews stranded for weeks and build “goodwill” in the conflict. It’s all very well, but there are at least three things wrong with the project that suggest it’s not been fully thought through. Quelle surprise, as they say in Tehran.

First, according to Trump, the project sounds like it’s almost a joint operation with Iran, a sort of modern maritime version of the Christmas Day truce between the Germans and the British, when Tommies and Fritzes emerged from the trenches to play football and swap stories. Trump, with chutzpah unusual even for him, declares he’s doing all this on behalf of the “United States, Middle Eastern Countries but, in particular, the Country of Iran”. Which is odd, because this restriction on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz is Iran’s blockade, not his own, and he’s not proposing to lift his own embargo on traffic moving into and out of Iran’s ports.

If the Iranians want to let the tankers and the container ships through, they don’t need any help from the US Navy. Little wonder, then, that their reaction is to call Trump “delusional” and to promptly blow up an oil tanker off the nearby coast of Fujairah, one of the less well-known of the United Arab Emirates. Even more forcefully, Tehran says it’s managed to hit a US Navy frigate with a couple of missiles as it ventured a little too near the Iranian coast – speaking to Axios, a US official has denied it was hit, and the Iranian claim is currently unverified.

Trump claims that “my Representatives are having very positive discussions with the Country of Iran, and that these discussions could lead to something very positive for all”. Well, it certainly doesn’t sound that way, and the negotiating chamber that the Pakistani government has set up for the parties in Islamabad remains empty. Trump seems to think – well, we know by now he actually believes this – that if he says something, then it will come true. Which is why he keeps telling us he’s the best president ever: if he isn’t, then why is his face on the new US passports and on the 250th birthday coins, and why has the Kennedy Centre been renamed for him? It’s perfect logic, but in reverse. Fools some, though.

The second reason this latest desperate attempt by the Americans to extricate themselves from this mess of Trump’s making will fail is that there is far less to it than meets the eye. Tellingly, it is a “project”, not a military operation, and it has soon become clear that there will be no convoys of merchant shipping moving through the narrow Strait of Hormuz, as there was when the West acted in this way during a previous crisis in the 1980s, the Iran-Iraq war. No. The Americans will merely provide assistance and advice about the best channel out of the strait and into the open seas. This sounds a little like the Pentagon’s version of the AA’s excellent Route Planner, which can also “guide” you from A to B and avoid the bank holiday jams. Handy, but not really the guarantee of safety that an international shipping company and its crews need. That is perhaps why the price of a barrel of oil actually went up after Trump’s latest brainchild was launched into a sceptical world.

Third, and this shouldn’t really need saying, a Truth Social post is not the same as a military plan. No doubt the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan “Razin’” Caine, has, as ever, taken Trump’s incoherent urge to do something that sounds good and tried to turn it into an order of battle, with rules of engagement and optimal resources and all logistically sound – but it remains, at bottom, just another daft idea.

Project Freedom will not free up shipping any more than Operation Midnight Hammer “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear material or ambitions, and no more than Operation Epic Fury has brought the collapse of the Islamic Republic and its unconditional surrender. It will not stop the price of a gallon of gas at the pumps from hitting $5 quite soon, which is armageddon so far as those guys in their Maga caps, Dodge Rams and Chevy Silverados are concerned. What Trump really needs is a safe route out of his stupid war. It’s called Operation Retreat.