INDIANAPOLIS — Hoosier consumers know we are at war every time they pump gasoline or diesel.
Thirty-four days into President Donald J. Trump’s “excursion” into Iran, the average gas price in Indiana is $3.94, up from $3.47 a gallon two weeks ago and $2.79 last month. It hit $4.08 nationally. If you drive a big rig, a gallon of diesel is $5.17, up from $3.84 in March. That will impact grocery prices.
If you farm, the price of fertilizer has jumped 30% to 40%, or by nearly $200 a ton. Farmers wanted “certainty” following a year of Trump tariffs; they are finding market chaos.
Before the war, inflation in the U.S. was expected to rise 2.4% as “affordability” jetted to the top of key political issues. Afterwards, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development revised it upward to 4.2% while Goldman Sachs now predicts a 3.1% increase.
From a military standpoint, the war has been an extraordinary success. President Trump said in a 19-minute address to the nation Wednesday that Iran’s navy and air defenses have been destroyed, its ballistic missile systems relentlessly degraded, its nuclear program buried in bombing rubble last June, reduced to “dust” and under constant satellite surveillance.
“Their ability to launch missiles and drones is dramatically curtailed,” Trump said.
Trump maintains there has been “regime change,” though the new ayatollah is said to be even more radical than his assassinated father; the Islamic Revolutionary Guard still maintains a sinister, iron grip on the populace after murdering an estimated 30,000 protesters last winter.
President Trump insists he is in “negotiations” with third tier regime officials, posting on Truth Social Wednesday, “Iran’s New Regime President, much less Radicalized and far more intelligent than his predecessors, has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE!”
But two tiers of Iranian regime officials have been killed by American and Israeli forces, so it is unclear who the United States is negotiating with. “Most of the people we had in mind are dead,” he told reporters. “And now we have another group and they may be dead also. So I guess we’ll have a third wave coming. Pretty soon we’re not going to know anybody.”
The fly in the ointment is the Strait of Hormuz, where 20% of the global oil supply flows.
President Trump suggested the war may end “shortly,” or in “two or three weeks,” but he offered this astonishing take: “We’re now totally independent of the Middle East. We don’t have to be there. We don’t need their oil. And the countries of the world that do receive oil through the Hormuz Straight must take care of that passage.”
Within minutes, global oil futures markets roiled, rising 4% to $109 a barrel.
Trump is naive in thinking that the U.S. is immune to global market trends. “This is the largest oil supply disruption in history by a factor of two,” said analyst Steve Rattner on MS NOW’s Morning Joe on Thursday. “Iran controls two or three islands and they can turn off the Strait at will. But even after five years, the market believes the oil prices will be higher than before this war started because there’s been infrastructure destroyed and there is concern about supply chains.”
Trump then made this astonishing assertion: “When this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally. It’ll just open up naturally. They’re going to want to be able to sell oil because that’s all they have to try and rebuild. It will resume the flowing and the gas prices will rapidly come back down. Stock prices will rapidly go back up.”
David Frum, writing for The Atlantic, explains, “How did Trump get Hormuz so wrong? His steadfast refusal to acknowledge that Americans live in a world economy. Trump wishes for a United States economy walled off from the rest of the world. That’s why he loves tariffs so much. A threat to the Strait of Hormuz may be the most war-gamed problem in the whole U.S. military inventory.”
Retired Gen. Mark Hertling, writing for the conservative Bulwark, adds, “Iran is a complex environment, and no military action stands alone. Tactical moves must be sequenced into an operational campaign, and military campaigns must be tied to a political objective.
“What is the objective?” Hertling asks. “What is the end state? Right now, that clarity is missing.”
Hertling said that “limited objective options” exist, like seizing Kharg Island or three islands just north of the strait. “Each of these missions, by itself, could be militarily feasible,” he explains. “They only make sense if they are tied to a clearly defined political end state.”
Will the Strait of Hormuz just reopen, as President Trump says, “naturally?”
Samatha Gross, a Brookings Institute energy expert, is skeptical because military escorts for tankers and insurance factors are fraught. “Part of what is keeping ships from going through this Strait is fear,” Gross said. “If we put forward an escort campaign, and that campaign fails, you’ve escalated the fear factor rather than reducing it.
“It’s not going to be enough for someone just to say that the Strait is open,” Gross adds.
When bellying up to the bar (or the pump), we Hoosiers might call this scenario “strait, no chaser.”
Brian A. Howey is an opinion columnist for State Affairs Indiana and the founder of Howey Politics Indiana. His writing offers analysis and opinion shaped by decades of experience covering Indiana politics. Email him at howey@stateaffairs.com.
