Trump, Iran, and the Strait of Hormuz: The Escalation That Has the World on Edge

There are moments when history seems to spin out of control, and you wake up each morning feeling like you’re turning a page in a book you never wanted to read. Since last night, it’s been exactly that. The echoes from Tehran and Washington ring out as an unmistakable warning: we are a hair’s breadth away from open confrontation. And this morning, the single topic saturating every conversation—from the quais of Paris to Geneva’s think tanks—is Iran’s ultimatum concerning the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian government has just announced that it would “completely shut” the waterway if the country’s nuclear plants or energy infrastructure were targeted. A threat that, in the current context, is anything but empty rhetoric.

To understand why this stretch of sea between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman has become such a flashpoint, you need to look at the last 48 hours. The Trump administration has let plans leak—plans that, if confirmed, would target strategic installations inside Iran. The idea of striking power plants is to hit the very nerve centre of a region where electricity and oil are the twin pillars of power. In response, Tehran is raising the stakes with a formidable asymmetric weapon: threatening to choke off maritime traffic. Nearly 20% of the world’s oil passes through this chokepoint. Shutting Hormuz would unleash a shockwave far more severe than the oil crises of the 1970s, or even the shock triggered by the war in Ukraine. Behind closed doors, experts agree that an open conflict combined with a blockade could create an energy crisis of unprecedented scale. We’re talking about a scenario where the price of a barrel becomes little more than an abstract number.

In moments like this, I’ve always found myself drawn to the bookshelf. Not for ready-made answers, but to find patterns that repeat themselves. When you see a US president engage in such a risky confrontation at the end of his term, I immediately think of a book that sits on my nightstand: “When You Come at the King: Inside DOJ's Pursuit of the President, From Nixon to Trump”. It’s not just a history of legal proceedings. It’s a perfect illustration of how an executive branch, cornered at home, sometimes tends to seek a way out through escalation abroad. The parallel with “One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General” is striking. These memoirs, from a former Attorney General, describe a political machine where international decisions are often made in an overheated echo chamber, far from the nuanced reality of a crisis room.

What strikes me too is the near-total absence of a certain political “grammar” in this confrontation. It feels as though the fundamentals of political science—the kind taught in works like “Power and Choice: An Introduction to Political Science” or “Introduction to Comparative Politics”—have been temporarily suspended. Normally, in an international standoff, there are guardrails, communication channels, backchannels. Here, we are witnessing a dialogue of the deaf, amplified by strong personalities. And we mustn't forget the actors in the shadows. I’m thinking of Naghmeh Abedini Panahi, that figure from Iranian civil society whose name keeps cropping up in the most insightful analyses of the situation. Her story, like that of so many others, is a reminder that beyond the missiles and tankers, there is an Iranian society watching this dangerous game with an anxiety that we here can scarcely imagine.

So, what should we expect in the hours ahead? Here are what I see as the three absolute points to watch:

• The response to the response: If Iran acts on its threat over Hormuz, don’t expect just a verbal condemnation. The Trump administration has shown in the past that it responds with force. The question is whether that response will be calibrated, or whether it will open Pandora’s box.
• The domino effect on energy prices: Markets are already on edge. Any closure, even partial, of the Strait would trigger an instant spike. For Europe, still dependent on certain sources, it would be an economic hammer blow in the middle of its transition process.
• National unity in Iran: Nothing unites a people like an external attack. A US strike on civilian infrastructure, like power plants, would have the opposite of its intended effect. It would temporarily erase internal fractures to create a united front against “the Great Satan.”

I say this without hyperbole: this is not just another episode of tensions like the ones we see in this region every six months. The threat of a “complete shutdown” of Hormuz, coupled with offensive plans targeting energy sites, places us in a zone of turbulence that foreign policy veterans are comparing to the worst moments of the Cold War. The history books, the ones that recount miscalculations and tragic escalations, are filled with chapters that begin exactly like this. The question remains whether today’s key players will have the foresight to turn the page before it’s too late. In the meantime, I’ll keep one eye on maritime traffic and the other on the statements that will come out in the next few hours. Because here, in Tehran as in Washington, this is no longer political fiction. This is real-time.