PULSE

'Go Get Your Own Oil': Trump Abandons Hormuz, Deploys Third Carrier, and Dares the World to Fight Its Own War

The president of the United States told the world to go fight for itself on Tuesday, then sent 5,000 more American sailors toward the fight.

In a single chaotic day that encapsulated every contradiction of the five-week-old Iran war, Donald Trump publicly washed his hands of the Strait of Hormuz - the most strategically vital waterway on Earth - while the Pentagon quietly deployed a third nuclear-powered aircraft carrier toward the Middle East. He told European allies they were on their own, then the White House announced he would address the nation Wednesday evening to deliver what it called an "important update" on the conflict.

Meanwhile, U.S. strikes hit the central Iranian city of Isfahan with 2,000-pound bunker-buster bombs, sending a massive fireball visible for miles. Iran retaliated by striking a fully loaded Kuwaiti oil tanker anchored off Dubai, igniting a fire on the VLCC Al Salmi. And at gas stations across America, the national average price crossed $4 per gallon for the first time since 2022 - a 35 percent increase since the war began on February 28.

Day 31 of Operation Epic Fury is not a story about a war winding down. It is a story about a war that has lost its strategic logic but cannot find the door.

The Hormuz Surrender

The words landed like a bomb on trading desks and foreign ministries around the world. Speaking to reporters at the White House after signing an executive order on mail-in voting, Trump declared that securing the Strait of Hormuz was not America's problem.

"There's no reason for us to do this. That's not for us. That'll be for France. That'll be for whoever's using the strait."

He expanded on Truth Social minutes later, directing his fury at allies who have refused to join the war effort. "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," Trump wrote. "Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!"

He singled out France specifically, accusing Paris of blocking military overflight of French airspace for supply runs to Israel. France has allowed the U.S. Air Force to use the Istres base in southern France, but only with guarantees that aircraft landing there would not be directly involved in strike operations - a distinction that clearly enraged the president.

The broader context makes the statement even more jarring. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Trump had told aides he was willing to end the military campaign even if Hormuz remained largely closed, leaving the complex operation to reopen it for a later date. Trump and his advisers assessed that a mission to break Iran's chokehold on the strait would push the conflict well beyond his preferred timeline of four to six weeks, according to administration officials cited by the Journal.

All three major U.S. stock indexes rallied on the report. Investors heard what they wanted: the war might end. But the rally papered over a devastating strategic admission. The entire premise of the Iran war was that Tehran's closure of Hormuz after the initial strikes represented an unacceptable threat to global energy security. Walking away from that objective would mean the war achieved its stated goals in Iran's nuclear infrastructure while failing spectacularly on the economic front.

Roughly one-fifth of the world's oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz during peacetime. That flow is now effectively zero. Iran has mined approaches, deployed fast-attack boats from IRGC naval bases, and established what amounts to a selective blockade - a toll-booth enforced with missiles and drones. The consequences are visible at every gas pump in the Western world.

Isfahan Burns, the Al Salmi Burns, Everything Burns

While Trump was telling the world to sort out its own problems, American warplanes were actively creating new ones. In the predawn hours of Tuesday, U.S. aircraft struck a major ammunition depot in Isfahan, Iran's third-largest city and home to critical nuclear facilities. A U.S. official told the Wall Street Journal that 2,000-pound "penetrator munitions" - bunker-buster bombs designed to destroy hardened underground targets - were used in the strike.

The resulting fireball was enormous. Video shared across social media and later reposted by Trump himself showed a column of fire rising into the night sky, visible from neighborhoods across the city. Isfahan is home to roughly two million people. Its nuclear fuel fabrication plant and uranium conversion facility have been primary targets throughout the war, but this strike hit conventional military storage - suggesting the U.S. is now systematically degrading Iran's ability to sustain any kind of organized military resistance.

Hours later, Iran demonstrated that its ability to strike back remains very much intact. A drone attack hit the Kuwait-flagged Very Large Crude Carrier Al Salmi while it sat at anchorage at the Port of Dubai. The tanker was fully loaded. A fire broke out immediately. The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation confirmed the vessel was struck during an Iranian attack, and Kuwaiti authorities attributed the assault directly to Tehran.

The attack on the Al Salmi was the latest in a month-long campaign by Iran to target energy infrastructure and shipping across the Gulf. At least 24 people have been killed in Gulf states since the war began - most of them security personnel or foreign workers. The UAE has reported 11 deaths, Kuwait seven, with Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain each reporting two.

Iran also struck a gas pipeline in Pakistan on Tuesday, expanding the geographic reach of its retaliatory operations. The pipeline attack underscored Tehran's willingness to hit infrastructure anywhere it can, regardless of whether the target country is a combatant.

The human toll inside Iran itself continues to climb. The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRANA) reported on March 30 that 3,492 people had been killed in Iran since the war began - including 1,574 civilians, of whom at least 236 were children. Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who assumed power after his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the first wave of strikes on February 28, has shown no interest in capitulation.

The Third Carrier Sails - Into What?

On the same day Trump told the world America was done securing their shipping lanes, the USS George H.W. Bush departed Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, with orders to head toward the Middle East. The Nimitz-class supercarrier leads a strike group that includes more than 5,000 personnel aboard the carrier itself, plus the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers USS Ross, USS Donald Cook, and USS Mason.

It will be the third carrier committed to the Iran war. The USS Gerald R. Ford, which has been the primary strike platform since February, is currently undergoing repairs after sustaining damage from operational tempo and near-miss engagements. The USS Abraham Lincoln, which arrived in the region in January before the war began, continues operations. Adding the Bush and its air wing means the U.S. will have approximately 200 combat aircraft on three carrier decks in the theater - a concentration of naval aviation power not seen since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The contradiction is impossible to ignore. If the war is winding down in "two to three weeks" as Trump stated Tuesday, why deploy a carrier strike group that won't arrive in theater for at least 10 to 14 days? If Hormuz is someone else's problem, why send the naval assets required to force it open?

Forbes reported that the Bush had completed its Composite Training Unit Exercise on March 5, during which Carrier Air Wing 7 flew 1,586 sorties including 693 arrested landings by day and 682 at night. The ship was ready. The question was always whether it would be needed. Tuesday answered that question - though the White House's words said one thing and the Pentagon's actions said another.

Stars and Stripes reported that the carrier would initially head to the U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/6th Fleet area of operations, which includes the eastern Mediterranean. That routing positions the strike group to support operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, where the second front of this war continues to rage, before potentially transiting to the Persian Gulf.

$4 Gas and the Home-Front Reckoning

The number that will define this war politically arrived on Tuesday morning. The average price of gasoline in the United States crossed $4.00 per gallon, according to AAA - the highest level since 2022 and a 35 percent increase since the war began on February 28. Axios reported that Brent crude spot prices hovered around $107 per barrel, up more than 45 percent since the start of hostilities.

The $4 threshold matters less as an economic metric than as a political tripwire. It is the number Americans notice. It is the number that shows up on roadside signs and cable news chyrons. It is the number that makes a war feel personal. And it arrived while the president was simultaneously telling allies that securing the strait - the only mechanism to bring prices down - was their responsibility, not his.

The Energy Information Administration projected in its latest short-term outlook that prices could peak above $4.50 per gallon in the summer of 2026 before falling back toward $3 by year's end. But those projections rested on assumptions that analysts increasingly view as optimistic: that shut-in oil production would peak soon, that the Strait would gradually reopen, and that Iran's attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure would diminish.

None of those assumptions appears solid. Iran's IRGC has converted the Hormuz chokepoint into a weapon of economic warfare. Every tanker that tries to transit without Iranian approval is a target. The mining campaign has made even willing shippers hesitant. Insurance rates for Gulf transit have become effectively prohibitive. Lloyd's of London has expanded its war risk zone three times since the conflict began.

In the U.S. heartland, the price surge is compounding a broader economic squeeze. The Federal Reserve has been trapped between rising inflation - driven by energy costs - and slowing economic growth. Core CPI has remained stubbornly elevated. Rate cuts, which markets had priced in for early 2026, are now off the table. Some analysts are whispering about rate hikes. The word "stagflation" has migrated from think-tank memos to front pages.

Trump's own polling on the war has deteriorated. An AP-NORC poll conducted in late March showed that 59 percent of Americans disapproved of his handling of the conflict. Among independents - the voters who decide midterm elections - disapproval was even higher. The $4 gas sign is going to make those numbers worse.

Allies Under Fire, Allies Pushing for More

The strategic picture in the Gulf is defined by a paradox that would be absurd if it weren't so dangerous. Trump is telling allies to go away. His Gulf allies are telling him to hit harder.

AP News reported Tuesday that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other Gulf allies are privately urging Trump to keep prosecuting the war against Iran, arguing that a month of strikes has not weakened Tehran enough. NBC News confirmed that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan have told the Trump administration to press ahead with bombing to ensure Iran can no longer threaten regional countries with ballistic missiles and drones.

India Today reported that Gulf allies are pushing not just for continued air strikes but for a ground operation - something the Pentagon has thus far avoided. Speaking at the Pentagon on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth would not rule it out. "We don't want to have to do more militarily than we have to," Hegseth said, in what has become the administration's standard non-answer on ground troops.

But the Gulf states are not just lobbying for escalation. They are dealing with the consequences of the war on their own soil. Saudi Arabia reported intercepting and destroying two Iranian drones on Tuesday alone. The kingdom has been hit repeatedly throughout the conflict, with Iranian strikes targeting the Ras Tanura oil terminal, military installations, and civilian infrastructure. The UAE has absorbed strikes on Dubai's port infrastructure, Jebel Ali facilities, and nearby airports.

Meanwhile, Europe is moving in the opposite direction. Spain announced Monday that it had closed its airspace to U.S. military aircraft involved in the Iran conflict, emerging as the continent's loudest critic of the war. Italy recently refused to allow U.S. military assets to use the Sigonella air base in Sicily for an operation linked to the offensive. Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto tried to paper over the split by writing on X that Italy was still allowing U.S. use of its bases and that relations remained strong, but the damage was done.

France, despite Trump's fury, continues to allow limited use of the Istres base under strict conditions. Britain has committed forces to the region - troops stationed 200 meters from Iranian strike zones in Bahrain - but has stopped short of joining offensive operations. The NATO alliance, designed for collective security, has fractured along the lines of this unauthorized war. No NATO partner was consulted before the strikes began. None have Article 5 obligations to support an offensive war of choice.

The Journalist Taken in Baghdad

In a development that underscores how the war has destabilized the entire region, an American freelance journalist was kidnapped in Baghdad on Tuesday. Iraqi security forces identified the journalist as Shelly Kittleson, who worked for Al-Monitor and had reported extensively from Syria and Iraq over many years.

A U.S. official blamed the Iranian-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah. Two cars were involved in the kidnapping. One crashed and a person inside was apprehended. Kittleson was transferred to a second vehicle that fled the scene, according to Iraqi security officials.

Dylan Johnson, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for public affairs, said on X that the State Department had "fulfilled our duty to warn this individual of threats against them." Al-Monitor released a statement standing by Kittleson's "vital reporting."

The kidnapping was not random. Iraq has become a proxy launchpad for Iranian-backed militias throughout the war. Iranian-aligned Popular Mobilization Forces have used Iraqi territory to fire rockets and drones at Gulf targets. Seven Iraqi soldiers were killed in an airstrike in Anbar province on March 25 - the Iraqi Ministry of Defence released a statement but did not identify who carried out the attack. The ambiguity was itself a message: Iraq is caught between its American and Iranian patrons, and the space for neutral ground has collapsed entirely.

The war's toll on press freedom has been staggering across the region. More than 270 journalists have been killed covering conflicts in the Middle East since October 2023, making it the deadliest period for war correspondents since records have been kept. Kittleson's kidnapping adds another name to a ledger that grows longer every week.

Lebanon: The Second Front Nobody Planned For

While the Hormuz drama dominated headlines, the war's second front in Lebanon continued its grinding escalation. Israel reported four soldiers killed and three injured during combat in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, pushing the Israeli military death toll in Lebanon to 10 since the ground operation began.

Lebanon's health ministry said Israeli attacks had killed 1,247 people as of March 30, including 124 children. More than one million people - roughly one in every six Lebanese - have been displaced from their homes. Three Indonesian UN peacekeepers have been killed in southern Lebanon, adding an international dimension to an already explosive situation.

Hezbollah opened this front on March 2, four days after the war began, firing rockets at Israeli positions and declaring it was avenging the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei. Israel responded with overwhelming force, striking southern and central Beirut and launching a ground invasion with at least three divisions. Israel's defense minister said ground troops would "advance and seize additional strategic areas" to stop Hezbollah attacks.

The USS George H.W. Bush's initial routing through the eastern Mediterranean is almost certainly connected to this front. Carrier Air Wing 7 provides the kind of persistent strike capability that ground commanders in Lebanon will need as Israel pushes toward the Litani River. But the carrier's eventual transit to the Persian Gulf would leave the Lebanon theater with diminished air support - another operational contradiction in a war full of them.

The human cost in Lebanon is being compounded by a humanitarian crisis. Hospitals in southern Lebanon are overwhelmed. Supply lines have been cut. International aid organizations report difficulty moving through areas under active bombardment. The UN peacekeeping force, UNIFIL, has been caught between the combatants, with three of its members already killed and its mandate effectively suspended by the violence.

Wednesday's Address: What Can Trump Say?

The White House announced Tuesday that Trump would deliver a prime-time address to the nation on Wednesday evening regarding the Iran war. No details were provided about what he would say, but the timing suggests this is meant as a pivot point - an attempt to frame the narrative before events frame it for him.

The president has been making conflicting predictions for weeks. He has said the war is almost over. He has threatened to obliterate Iran's energy plants. He has told aides he is willing to walk away without reopening Hormuz. He has deployed a third carrier. He has told allies to fight their own battles while his Gulf partners beg him to fight harder. He has predicted the conflict would end in "two to three weeks" while his Pentagon plans for months of sustained operations.

A prime-time address is a heavyweight tool. Presidents use them to declare wars, end them, or announce turning points. Trump has several options. He could announce a ceasefire framework. He could declare mission accomplished on the nuclear front and frame the Hormuz question as a separate, future operation. He could escalate further, threatening the strikes on Kharg Island and desalination plants he mentioned earlier this week.

What he cannot do is resolve the fundamental tension at the heart of this war: the United States started a conflict without allied support, without congressional authorization under the War Powers Act, and without a clear exit strategy. Five weeks in, the military objectives - destroying Iran's nuclear infrastructure and missile capability - appear partially achieved. But the economic objective - reopening the strait and stabilizing global energy markets - is further away than ever. And the human cost - over 3,000 dead in Iran alone, 1,247 in Lebanon, 13 U.S. service members killed, 24 dead in Gulf states - continues to mount.

The Liberation Day tariff anniversary falls on April 2, 2026 - one year since Trump's sweeping trade tariffs reshaped global commerce. The timing is coincidental but symbolic. The trade war disrupted supply chains and raised consumer prices. The Iran war is doing the same thing, only with missiles instead of tariffs and blood instead of balance sheets.

At $4 gas and climbing, with three carriers deployed, a journalist kidnapped in Baghdad, European allies in open revolt, Gulf allies demanding ground troops, and a president who says it's not his problem - the Iran war has entered a phase where the contradictions have become the story.

Trump will stand at a podium Wednesday night and try to make sense of it all. The world will be watching, and listening for an answer to the question he posed to allies on Tuesday: if not America, then who?

Nobody has an answer yet. That silence is the most dangerous sound in the Middle East right now.

Sources: AP News, NBC News, BBC, Al Jazeera, Axios, Wall Street Journal (via Reuters), Stars and Stripes, Navy Times, Forbes, India Today, ABC News, CNBC, Politico, Financial Express, Ynet News, Wikipedia (2026 Iran War), HRANA

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