US President Donald Trump told aides he is willing to end the military campaign against Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed and leave a complex operation to reopen it for a later date, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing administration officials.
The report mentions that Trump’s first option remains to open the Strait by negotiating an ending of the war with the Iranian regime, while a second option would be to demand that its allies, especially the Gulf States and NATO, lead the operations to reopen the Strait.
Other military options are being considered by the US President, WSJ noted, citing the officials, but they are not currently his immediate priority.
The report also mentioned that the US government estimates that any military campaign centered around reopening the Strait of Hormuz would take between four and six weeks.
Trump’s comments came on the same day that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that a long-term solution to the Strait of Hormuz crisis could be achieved without a military operation, but rather by rerouting the Gulf States’ pipelines.
“Long-term solutions include rerouting energy pipelines westward, across Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea and Mediterranean, bypassing Iran’s geographic choke point,” Netanyahu explained in an interview with conservative US media outlet Newsmax.
Currently, the Strait is one of the main chokepoints in the energy market, with 20% of global oil exports passing through it.
While Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman have territorial waters in the Strait, the presence of Iran on the other side of Hormuz has made it vulnerable, with the Islamic regime having the capabilities to threaten global energy markets by attacking ships that go through the Strait.
According to Gulf and Israeli officials cited by AP, the Gulf States believe that Iran hasn’t been weakened enough yet, almost a month after the bombing campaign against Iranian military assets began.
Gulf officials were especially insistent that the current situation offers a key opportunity to take out the Iranian regime, even after being hesitant during the begining of the war due to the short notice that they received prior to the Israeli and American joint strike.
