Deterrence Is Not Warmongering. Weakness Is.

Opinion | Valeria Rios | Shadowfetch Right

Iran just gave Washington the cleanest foreign-policy test there is: whether America still protects free passage, American personnel, and the commercial arteries that keep ordinary families from getting crushed by chaos abroad.

According to the BBC, the United States launched fresh strikes on Iran after Tehran struck a ship passing through the Strait of Hormuz; Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps then said it had closed the waterway “until further notice” and warned of a severe response to U.S. “aggression.” The BBC also reported that U.S. Central Command said the MV GFS Galaxy, a Cyprus-flagged vessel, suffered significant engine-room damage, that one civilian crew member was missing, and that U.S. strikes hit 140 Iranian military targets, including missile and drone sites, communication networks, and coastal surveillance locations. NPR, carrying Associated Press reporting, similarly reported that Iran apparently responded with attacks targeting Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, and quoted CENTCOM saying the strikes were meant to “degrade Iran’s ability to attack civilian mariners and commercial vessels freely transiting the strait.” (BBC; NPR/AP)

Good. That is what deterrence looks like when it is more than a bumper sticker.

The anti-war left will call this escalation. Some isolationist voices on the right will call it another forever-war trap. Both arguments deserve to be heard, because Americans are right to be allergic to vague wars, nation-building fantasies, and foreign-policy elites who never admit what their last brilliant theory cost. But this is not a college seminar about abstract restraint. A ship was hit in one of the world’s most important waterways. Crews were forced to abandon ship. A civilian is reported missing. Iran then claimed authority to close a strait that does not belong to Tehran like a private driveway.

A serious country cannot shrug at that.

The Strait of Hormuz is not some distant blue line on a cable-news map. The U.S. Energy Information Administration calls it the world’s most important oil transit chokepoint. In 2022, EIA says oil flows through the strait averaged 21 million barrels per day, about 21% of global petroleum liquids consumption, and that in 2022 and the first half of 2023 the strait carried more than one-quarter of global seaborne traded oil; EIA also says around one-fifth of global liquefied natural gas trade moved through it in 2022. (EIA)

Translation for normal people: if Iran can terrorize that route, your commute, grocery bill, utility bill, and small-business margins are on the table. Tehran’s missiles don’t have to land in Los Angeles to hit a Boyle Heights contractor trying to keep a truck fueled, a mom stretching a food budget, or a manufacturer wondering whether shipping costs are about to make payroll uglier.

This is where conservative foreign policy has to be clear-eyed, not performative. No, America should not police every border, settle every civil war, or spend treasure we don’t have on utopian democracy projects. But yes, America should punish attacks on commercial shipping, protect U.S. forces and partners in the Gulf, and make unmistakably clear that closing Hormuz carries a price.

That is not liberal internationalism. That is self-interest with a flag on it.

The strongest counterargument is that military response can spiral. It can. The Middle East has a graveyard full of confident plans. Congress should demand regular briefings, clear objectives, casualty transparency, and a firm line between restoring freedom of navigation and sliding into regime-change mission creep. The administration should explain what success means: reopened shipping lanes, degraded launch capability, protection for U.S. personnel, and a path that gives Iran a choice between de-escalation and heavier costs. Conservatives should never hand any president a blank check just because the bombs are flying under a Republican letterhead.

But “don’t write a blank check” is not the same as “do nothing while an adversary attacks ships and threatens the energy bloodstream of the free world.” Restraint without consequence is just permission with nicer branding.

The Trump administration’s response is defensible because it appears targeted at military capacity tied to the threat: missile and drone sites, communications networks, and coastal surveillance, according to the BBC’s summary of CENTCOM’s statement. That matters. The goal should be to destroy the tools Iran is using to menace civilian mariners, not to pretend American power can redesign Persian politics by Tuesday afternoon.

And while we’re being honest, this crisis also exposes the stupidity of America’s domestic energy self-sabotage. Every barrel we refuse to produce responsibly at home makes hostile chokepoints more powerful. Every permitting delay, activist lawsuit, and bureaucratic chokehold on pipelines and export infrastructure hands leverage to regimes that understand energy as a weapon. The conservative answer is not just “send carriers.” It is drill, build, permit, export, harden, and make sure America and our allies are not held hostage by tyrants with missiles and maritime maps.

Energy dominance is not a slogan for donor dinners. It is national security for waitresses, welders, truckers, and parents who cannot absorb another geopolitical price spike because elites decided fossil fuels were morally icky until the next crisis made them necessary again.

There is also an alliance lesson here. Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, and shipping nations that depend on safe passage have direct skin in this fight. Europe and Asia, whose economies depend heavily on Gulf energy and maritime trade, should not treat U.S. naval power like a subscription service someone else pays for. If the Strait of Hormuz is a global chokepoint, then keeping it open is a global burden. America can lead. America should not be milked.

So yes: hit the launchers. Hit the surveillance systems. Hit the command nodes enabling attacks on civilian shipping. Then say exactly what comes next if Iran keeps firing — and exactly what stops if Iran backs down.

That is not bloodlust. That is deterrence.

A weak America invites tests. A reckless America creates disasters. A conservative America should do neither. It should defend its people, protect commerce, keep objectives tight, make allies carry weight, and remember that peace is not purchased by pretending pirates, theocrats, and terror states are misunderstood stakeholders in a graduate-school dialogue circle.

Iran tried to turn Hormuz into a hostage note. Washington’s answer should be simple: open the waterway, stop hitting ships, and quit threatening American bases — or lose the machinery you use to do it.

That is the right line. Hold it.