Trump May End War Without Hormuz Deal

President Donald Trump has privately signaled to aides that he is willing to end the war on Iran without an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Trump on Tuesday morning urged allied nations to "Build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT" in a social media post.

"You'll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us," he added. "Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!"

Trump previously said that "if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately 'Open for Business,' we will conclude our lovely 'stay' in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!)."

The U.S. moved the USS Tripoli and the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit to the Middle East as Trump reportedly considers sending up to 10,000 ground troops to the region.

When asked for comment, the White House referred Newsmax to recent comments by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Leavitt told reporters this week: "President Trump is going to move forward unabated, and he expects the Iranian regime to make a deal with the administration."

She added, "The full reopening of the strait is something the administration is working towards, but the core objectives of the operation have been clearly defined for the American people by the commander in chief."

Rubio said on Monday in an interview with Al Jazeera that the military campaign will continue until the U.S. achieves its objectives, predicting that this will take a few more weeks.

"The Strait of Hormuz will be open when this operation is over," he said. "It will be open one way or another. It will be open because Iran agrees to abide by international law and not block a commercial waterway, or a coalition of nations from around the world, with the participation of the United States, will make sure that it is open one way or the other."

Rubio added: "We have very clear objectives that we're trying to achieve here. Those objectives are the destruction of their air force, which has been achieved; the destruction of their navy, which has largely been achieved; a significant reduction in the number of missile launches that they have, which we're well on our way to achieving; and we are going to destroy the factories that make those missiles and those drones that they are using to attack their neighbors and the United States and our presence in the region."

"We will achieve those objectives," he continued. "We are well on our way or ahead of schedule. We will achieve them in weeks, not months. And then we'll be confronted with this issue of the Strait of Hormuz, and it will be up to Iran to decide. And if they choose to try to block the strait, then they will have to face real consequences, not just from the United States, but from regional countries and from the world."

Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert and vice president at the Brookings Institution, said that Trump ending the military campaign before the strait is reopened would be "unbelievably irresponsible" in an interview with the Journal.

"Energy markets are inherently global, and there is no possibility of insulating the U.S. from the economic damage that is already occurring and will become exponentially worse if the closure of the strait continues," she added.

Rich Goldberg, a former National Security Council official in the first Trump administration and now a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Iran's control over the strait will decline as it loses more military assets during the war.

"Once you've achieved those strategic objectives, it naturally follows" that the U.S. "would focus on the Strait of Hormuz, because you would have done so much damage to their external threat, and you would have reallocated your military resources to that mission," Goldberg said.