Navy to 'guide' vessels through the Hormuz Strait. Well, sort of.

According to the news on Sunday, President Donald Trump was ordering the U.S. Navy to guide stranded ships in the Persian Gulf through the Iranian-controlled Strait of Hormuz. It was reported that he was "frustrated" with the lack of movement and the fact that the U.S. blockade didn't seem to be working. He posited the gambit as a humanitarian imperative.

“Many of these Ships are running low on food, and everything else necessary for largescale crews to stay on board in a healthy and sanitary manner,” Trump said, adding that any interference in the operation would “unfortunately, have to be dealt with forcefully.”

But then it turned out that despite Adm. Bradley Cooper saying that the U.S. military would begin supporting merchant vessels “seeking to freely transit” the strait, it was clear there was no plan to actually physically escort the ships. In fact, as Axios reported this morning, the Navy is merely going to let merchant vessels "phone a friend" and get advice for how to get through.

Starting Monday, the U.S. Navy will help U.S.-flagged and other commercial ships cross the strait by advising them on how to avoid mines and standing ready to intervene if Iran attacks them. U.S. officials say there's no current plan for full-fledged naval escorts. Instead, Navy ships will be "in the vicinity" and at the ready, alongside U.S. military aircraft.

The markets shrugged, with Brent Futures remaining at $111 as of 7:20 a.m. this morning. “The market is becoming accustomed to some of Trump’s posts about progress on Iran negotiations proving premature later on,” Saul Kavonic, head of energy research at MST Financial in Sydney, Australia, told Al Jazeera.

According to Axios, Trump "wants action" to force Iran to deal. "Project Freedom" was supposedly a step down from directing the military to open the strait by force. But we know the Navy has not been prepared to do so from the moment it was closed after the U.S and Israel decided to launch the war by bombing Iran on Feb. 28. They may have in mind the Tanker Wars between Iran and Iraq throughout the 1980's where the U.S. assisted by escorting Kuwaiti vessels through the Gulf. During Operation Earnest Will starting in 1987, there were some 30 U.S. vessels in the region at its peak; there are an estimated 16 in the region today according to reports.

During Operation Earnest Will and several other overlapping U.S. operations from 1987-1988 there were heavy firefights between combatants, damage and injury from mines, and 37 U.S. sailors were killed on the U.S.S. Stark when it was blasted by Iraqi missiles on May 17, 1987. The Iraqis said it was an accident.

No one has forgotten. The Iranians, in response to Trump's latest bluster, have warned that any attempt to escort ships through the strait will be seen as an escalation. "WARNING," posted parliamentarian leader Ebrahim Azizi, "any American interference in the new maritime regime of the Strait of Hormuz will be considered a violation of the ceasefire. The Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf would not be managed by Trump's delusional posts!"

IRGC spokesman Brigadier General Mohbi, said any vessel trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz without adhering to the regime's "transit protocols," will "face serious risks."

"Violating vessels will be stopped with force," he said according to Iranian state media today.

If history and the current state of military capabilities is a guide, Trump's best option right now is to rely on messaging rather than force to keep the oil markets from crashing. If the shrug from those markets today is any indication, however, it is not clear that gambit is going to work any better.