{"id":329808,"date":"2026-08-09T06:55:46","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T06:55:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=329808"},"modified":"2026-08-10T06:36:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T06:36:21","slug":"irans-hormuz-deal-with-oman-has-trump-poised-for-the-big-surrender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=329808","title":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s Hormuz deal with Oman has Trump poised for the big surrender"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nicholas Grossman \u2013 MS Now Aug 7, 2026<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Iran and Oman are reportedly finalizing a deal<\/a> to control the Strait of Hormuz, charging ships fees for passage<\/a>, and potentially blocking ships from \u201chostile countries.\u201d<\/a> Trump resumed bombing in early July<\/a> to prevent Iran from doing just that, and President Donald Trump has flitted between claiming the United States will control Hormuz and charge tolls<\/a>, pretending the strait is already open<\/a> and threatening to \u201chit very hard\u201d<\/a> if Iran doesn\u2019t fully open it soon.<\/p>\n

Yet Trump<\/a> and other top U.S. officials, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio<\/a> and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent<\/a>, are touting the Iran-Oman talks as diplomatic progress, indicating they\u2019re going to accept a deal on Iran\u2019s terms.<\/p>\n

This would arguably be America\u2019s most blatant loss in war ever, especially for a war the U.S. started.<\/p>\n

In February, before Trump started the war, Hormuz was open, treated as an international waterway, free to all. The U.S. was widely considered the dominant military power in the region. Gulf Arab states \u2014 Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait \u2014 made U.S. dominance the basis of their national security and economic strategies. And Iran was engaged in talks over its nuclear program<\/a>, albeit unlikely to make significant concessions.<\/p>\n

On June 17, after a lot of bombing, some extreme threats and a couple of ceasefires, the U.S. signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran that was mostly an American surrender<\/a>. The deal front-loaded sanctions relief and other economic benefits for Iran, and punted on all U.S. war aims. Iran agreed to nonspecified nuclear talks in the future, which the U.S. had before attacking. The written document<\/a> requires both parties not to threaten each other (Trump violated that almost right away) and committed Israel to end operations in Lebanon (which they never agreed to, and wouldn\u2019t). It effectively acknowledged Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz, saying Iran would \u201cmake arrangements\u201d to manage it with Oman, and wouldn\u2019t charge any fees \u201cfor 60 days only.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Hormuz did partially open, with daily crossings the highest in months<\/a> (though still not to prewar levels). Oil prices dropped.<\/p>\n

But the U.S. acted as if it was following a different deal in Trump\u2019s imagination<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Besides breaking the MOU with threats, Trump repeatedly lied about its contents, falsely claiming Iran made nuclear concessions, opened Hormuz and gave the U.S. \u201cjust about everything<\/a>.\u201d With U.S. encouragement<\/a>, some ships transited Hormuz outside Iranian waters, hugging Oman\u2019s coast. Then Iran shot at a few to assert control.<\/p>\n

So Trump started bombing again<\/a>. Again, Iran blocked the strait and fired missiles and drones at U.S. regional partners, hitting civilian infrastructure<\/a>, U.S. bases<\/a> and other targets.<\/p>\n

Now that this round appears over, it\u2019s clear Trump worsened America\u2019s position, failing to achieve any of his goals and strengthening Iran\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n

The U.S. used up even more precision attack missiles<\/a> and air defense interceptors<\/a>, creating shortages. That limits America\u2019s capabilities, encourages U.S. adversaries and \u2014 due to production bottlenecks \u2014 won\u2019t be easily solved.<\/p>\n

Iran again showed it can attack ships around Hormuz, despite U.S. efforts<\/a> to prevent it. Now Iran has Oman \u2014 which was working with the U.S. before Trump restarted bombing \u2014 on board with its plan to control the strait. Even at the low end of proposed tolls, 3% per ship<\/a>, Iran would gain tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue.<\/p>\n

The war widened, with Iran-backed militias getting more involved. Iraqi groups fired drones into Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. and Saudis launched airstrikes in Iraq<\/a>. The Yemen-based Houthis are firing at Red Sea shipping<\/a> and into Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are reportedly planning an offensive<\/a> against them.<\/p>\n

Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman reportedly urged Trump<\/a> against a larger attack on Iran, shifting under Iranian threat<\/a> from his earlier pro-war stance<\/a>. That implies the Saudis are begrudgingly open to paying tolls to their rival Iran. It\u2019s a serious vote of no confidence in the U.S.-led regional security architecture \u2014 a sentiment likely shared in other Arab capitals.<\/p>\n

And U.S. troops took additional casualties, bringing the total from the war to 18 killed and more than 600 injured<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true the U.S. killed enemy personnel and destroyed a lot of the Iranian government\u2019s stuff. But that\u2019s tactical, not strategic. All these setbacks amount to losing, no matter how favorable the loss-exchange ratio in combat.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s options remain: (1) humiliating surrender \u2014 losing freedom of navigation, accepting Iran\u2019s control of the Strait of Hormuz and allowing it to collect tolls \u2014 essentially a worse version of the MOU, the humiliation Trump couldn\u2019t tolerate once he realized he couldn\u2019t escape the commitments or sell lies about it; or (2) military escalation, perhaps even ground operations.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s gotten the U.S. into a terrible position, and has waffled between surrender and war, instead of committing to either. Now he appears out of ideas, repeating moves that already failed.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s tried threatening a campaign against civilian infrastructure at least seven times<\/a>, and keeps not doing it. That\u2019s better than unleashing war crimes that probably wouldn\u2019t achieve anything, but it\u2019s worse than doing nothing, since the threat-then-fold cycle saps him of credibility<\/a>. Now no threat will work even if Trump means it. He\u2019s bluffed too much.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s tried bombing to make the Iranian regime collapse, and when that failed, he tried bombing to force Iran to make concessions \u2014 which also failed.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s floated ground operations<\/a>, but that\u2019d be a terrible idea. For one, U.S. troops on Iranian soil would be targets for Iranian forces deeper in the large, mountainous country. Fortunately, Trump seems afraid of that, and though he\u2019s dropped a lot of bombs this term, he hasn\u2019t ordered any ground operations larger than a special forces raid.<\/p>\n

He can\u2019t sue Iran or declare bankruptcy<\/a>, like in business. He can\u2019t bully them like some of his domestic targets. Interstate war is the highest level of competition \u2014 there\u2019s no system to manipulate, no entity that can bail him out.<\/p>\n

That leaves surrender. For real this time. That looks to be the only way he can stabilize the situation enough to avoid the worst economic scenarios, and the only chance he has of lowering gas prices in time for the midterms.<\/p>\n

An empowered, more hard-line Iran, acknowledged as the premier power of the Persian Gulf, and with a big new stream of revenue might be less bad than a costly ground operation or more bombing just to get to the same result. But it\u2019s still really bad.<\/p>\n

Yet at this point, it\u2019s probably the least-worst option. Though it depends on Trump accepting that he\u2019s a world historical loser, rather than thinking another show of force will change circumstances in his favor, or at least make him temporarily feel strong.<\/p>\n

Source\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This would arguably be America\u2019s most blatant loss in war ever, especially for a war the U.S. started. To rub salt into the wound, it never needed to fight this war anyway. Trump probably ordered the strike on Iran at Israel\u2019s behest, having been convinced by Netanyahu that it would be an easy win<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":305944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[51,146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-329808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Iran","category-iran-u-s-israel-war"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=329808"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":329809,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329808\/revisions\/329809"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/305944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=329808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=329808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=329808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}