Twenty percent of the world's oil and natural gas passes through the Strait of Hormuz in peacetime. Right now it isn't peacetime, and Iran is still blocking it, and Thursday's news is that fresh Iranian missile strikes against Israel and Gulf Arab states are the answer to Trump's address to the nation — an address in which the president claimed American strategic objectives were "nearing completion" while simultaneously threatening to hit Iran "extremely hard" over the next two to three weeks.
The gap between what the White House is saying and what is actually happening on the ground is wide enough to park an aircraft carrier in. Iran's military stated Thursday that its armament facilities are hidden and will never be reached by Israeli or American forces. Tehran rejected Washington's ceasefire outreach. The missiles keep flying.
Britain is convening a call Thursday with 35 countries — every G7 democracy except the United States — to discuss diplomatic and political measures to restore shipping through Hormuz once the fighting stops. The notable absence of the U.S. from that coalition is worth sitting with for a moment. Washington has insisted Iran must allow free transit through the strait. Trump told the rest of the world to "build some delayed courage" and take it themselves. The allies are apparently taking that seriously, just not in the direction Trump intended.
The economic ripple effects are already running. Oil markets have been volatile for weeks. Shipping insurance rates through the region have spiked to levels that make some routes economically unviable. Small businesses that depend on components shipped through Hormuz are getting hurt in ways that don't make the front page but add up fast.
The strategic picture is murky in the way that wars in the Middle East always become murky — lots of declared objectives, unclear actual outcomes, alliances that shift depending on which week you're looking at. What's not murky is the arithmetic: twenty percent of global energy flow running through a choke point that one party is willing to blockade is a crisis, not a negotiating position. And right now, the diplomacy to resolve it is happening in a room the United States isn't in.