The blockade is back on. President Trump announced that the United States is reinstating its naval blockade on Iran, thanks to the Iranian regime’s continued attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
As the president said last week, the ceasefire that had been in effect since April is dead and gone because the regime showed its true face and made clear that it has no interest in peace.
The president wrote, “We are reinstating the Iranian blockade so named because it is the only thing stopping Iran’s ships or customers from entering or leaving. All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait. The USA will be, from this point forward, known as the guardian of the Hormuz Strait. But as such, and as a matter of fairness, we will be reimbursed at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the world. The process and formation will begin immediately.”
Talk about flipping the script!
Remember, it was Iran that had been threatening to charge tolls to any ship passing through the Strait of Hormuz—and now President Trump is saying that instead, the United States will take a fee.
It makes sense since the US is the only country willing to challenge Iran’s control of the Strait and protect shipping. Seems perfectly reasonable to me. Maybe it will motivate our NATO allies to do what President Trump has been urging them to do for months: step up to help.
The Memorandum of Understanding that was signed between the US and Iran last month is clearly out the window at this point. In response to repeated Iranian attacks on shipping, the US has carried out massive airstrikes against Iran for several nights in a row.
Will the apocalyptic Iranian death cult get the memo and change its ways as a result? Highly unlikely.
“We had a deal,” Trump stressed. “What nobody knows, we had a deal. It was a done deal. And then they broke it. They always break it. We’ve had 10 deals with these people. And so we’re just going to hit them very hard. And we’re going to keep the Strait and we’ll probably run it. We’ll become the guardian of the Strait. Maybe you’ll call it the guardian angel of the Strait. And we should be reimbursed for that. When we do that, we’re going to be reimbursed because the other nations are very wealthy. They’re on our side. And we can’t be expected to do that for nothing, unlike we had for many years.”
In other words, the president’s patience has run out.
Iran is back to its old tricks, reportedly firing missiles and drones at Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, and even its only two allies in the entire region, Oman and Qatar. The regime has not fired upon Israel yet in this latest round of hostilities. The Arab nations may not respond, but Iran knows that Israel will—and with overwhelming force.
Fasten your seatbelt. Iran’s leadership clearly has a death wish. They want to usher in the Islamic version of the end times and hasten the return of their Messiah. They call him the “Mahdi” or the “12th Imam.” It sounds crazy, but they truly believe it. This belief may be helping to drive their seemingly suicidal actions, including yet another Iranian plot to assassinate President Trump. Israeli intelligence uncovered the plot last week.
July 13th was the two-year anniversary of the attempted assassination of President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. As this anniversary passed, we were reminded that the enemies of the president and our country are relentless.
Senator Lindsey Graham stood against those enemies for decades. He passed away from cardiac arrest over the weekend, and President Trump had kind words for his ally and close friend.
“We lost a great man,” the President underscored. “He was a great politician, and he was a kind man. And you know who really lost? Israel, Ukraine—a lot of countries that he really fought for. And they lost somebody who was very special. But the real loser was the United States of America. We lost a great person, a kind person.”
Senator Graham was also an advocate for the long-suffering Iranian people. That’s one reason Iran’s regime threatened his life at Ayatollah Khamenei’s funeral just last week. And another reason why, now more than ever, the United States needs to finish the job against the world’s number one state sponsor of terrorism.
We are walking through “perilous times,” but they are also Biblically prophetic times. As heavy as it is, it’s exciting because we know that these are signs of the times.
