The US strikes on Iran were paused temporarily because Kuwait and Saudi Arabia refused permission to use their bases for that purpose. Now permission to use those bases has been secured (probably in exchange for protection guarantees and other political concessions) so the strikes can resume.
(I'm not claiming that any of this is a good idea, just explaining the state of affairs.)
Iran attacked, the US blocked and countered, attacking the source of the attacks.
> “Iranian forces launched multiple missiles, drones and small boats as USS Truxtun (DDG 103), USS Rafael Peralta (DDG 115), and USS Mason (DDG 87) transited the international sea passage. No U.S. assets were struck.”
Step 1 appears to have been US ships entering the strait. Iran claims they fired on a tanker but who's to say.
* Oil futures (not spot price) have been completely detached from reality, with credible evidence of corrupt insiders making money by front-running Trump’s social media posts
* Negotiations never went anywhere; despite Trump’s social media claims (see point 1), they barely even got to the negotiation table
* There is no potential for an exit that doesn’t leave us worse off than where we started, because Iran is control of whether the conflict continues, not the US, and it’s in their best interest to continue the conflict until they get major concessions (like permanent ability to tax the straight)
In short, the Trump administration is a clown show whose only really competence is corruption.
Whatever the case, I'd love to hear your Asian proxy war plan. Japan and Korea vs China?
It is really strange how when you offer to negotiate with the leaders of a country as a pretext to assassinate them... twice... it becomes difficult to negotiate with those who replace them.
Nobody could have seen this coming.
Also maybe Trump doesn’t want chaos but I doubt he runs the show so much at this point.
I mean, what's Trump going to do? Murder Iranian leaders harder?