Trump Proclaims U.S. ‘Guardian of the Strait.’ Senator Graham’s Beloved Sister Appointed to His Senate Seat. Rubio: Hey, Let’s Dismantle the ICC. The Importance of Being Ro. In Praise of the Battle-axe. And More
With the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz to be reimposed, President Trump has given the United States a nifty new title—“guardian” of the Strait:
“We’ll become the guardian of the strait. Maybe we’ll become the guardian angel of the strait, and we should be reimbursed for that,” he said. “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.”
“We guarded the strait for 50 years, and we never got paid for it,” he added. “We guarded it for nothing.”
This time, the president says, we’ll charge a service fee:
“The U.S.A… 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,” he said.
The Free Press’s Aaron MacLean says the president got it half right—MacLean supports the reimposition of the blockade, but not the toll. An editorial in the generally hawkish Wall Street Journal hopes that the president realizes the memorandum of understanding Iran signed with him was a fraud:
“The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,’” Mr. Trump added, “but as such, and as a matter of FAIRNESS, will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped.”
Bracket that last part for now, as no one knows how serious Mr. Trump is about a $15-a-barrel toll on oil exiting the Strait. It’s a bad idea, but the impulse that the U.S. should be compensated for doing what only it can in defense of Hormuz and the global economy isn’t crazy. Better ways can be found for the wealthy Gulf countries and Asian buyers of Gulf oil and gas to chip in.
Most important is Mr. Trump’s commitment to the Strait. After ducking the matter in wartime, and then trying to solve it via diplomacy only for Iran to renege, the President now declares U.S. guardianship. This was always required to “finish the job,” as he lately describes his goal.
Rich Lowry was for ending the “phony peace.” Wall Street Journal international affairs guru Walter Russell Mead contends (“The ‘Irrepressible’ U.S.-Iran Conflict“) that both sides have too much to lose to reach an agreement. Oil prices have surged. But are we being myopic? Victor Davis Hanson—sage and classicist—looks ahead in “The World Made Anew“:
Soon the Strait of Hormuz—Iran’s supposed trump card—will be nearly as irrelevant to global energy markets as it is already to the United States. … The United States is the largest producer of oil and gas in history and does not need Middle Eastern oil or gas—or, for that matter, much of anything else besides.
Possibly Best News of the Day. “Why We’re Dismantling the International Criminal Court,” by Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the Wall Street Journal, throws down the gauntlet to an elite-created tribunal (think Amal Clooney) that seeks to override the U.S. Constitution:
Most of us would struggle to imagine a world in which U.S. soldiers, police officers, Border Patrol agents and elected leaders could be dragged before an international court, tried by judges from random countries across the globe, found guilty under international laws we neither consent to nor control, and then imprisoned thousands of miles from America.
But that is what the International Criminal Court now claims the power to do.
The ICC was born at the turn of the century. At first, it was marketed as a narrow backstop to prosecute the gravest crimes. Now the ICC and its allies seek a standing world tribunal with near-unlimited reach, empowered to override the courts and constitutions of the U.S. and other sovereign states—and to prosecute and arrest our citizens.
Americans never agreed to any of this.
Marco-ed Man. The Left, meanwhile, appears to regard Rubio as the most dangerous threat to the socialist project.
South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster appointed the late Senator Lindsey Graham’s sister Darline Graham Nordone to fill her brother’s seat for the rest of his term. It was an undeniably sweet moment as Graham brought up his little sister after their parents died. National Review’s Jeffrey Blehar says that, between Graham and Senator Mitch McConnell, we must prepare for a changing of the guard. Never forget: Lindsey Graham’s finest hour.
Not His Finish Hour. What a Free Press headline bills as “Ro Khanna’s Dishonest Israel Stunt” didn’t come off as the camera-friendly Congressman must have hoped. TFP’s sub-head:
The California lawmaker turned a brief West Bank confrontation into a national controversy—and revealed how Israel has become a stage for the Democratic Party’s next political fight.
An editorial in the New York Post calls Khanna’s West Bank “hostage stunt” a “new low for a total phony”:
Rep. Ro Khanna’s latest showboating stunt is too much even for other Democratic electeds — not only a transparent ploy to get past his all-in bet on the Graham Platner campaign, but a transparently pathetic bid to play victim of those darn Israelis.
Just days after his scorched-earth defense of the Maine Senate candidate failed to stop the implosion, Khanna (D-Calif.) rushed off to the Middle East to change his storyline.
He headed to the West Bank, intentionally directing his entourage into a restricted zone, then pretended he’d been taken hostage by Israeli “settlers” run amok.
In reality, he was briefly stopped by local security; after the army checked out his story he was free to proceed on his inane “fact-finding” mission.
The Federalist’s fun headline is “Ro Khanna Is Very Important, Explains Ro Khanna“:
Brace yourself, because Khanna explained that Israel had made a major mistake by crossing a very important man: “Free advice to the Israelis: It’s not a good idea to detain long-shot presidential candidates,” he told the Times.
Let’s get serious again. Corey DeAngelis has an excellent op-ed in the Washington Post (have you noticed the vast improvement in the WaPo’s opinion pages?) headlined “School choice for me, but not for thee.” Senators, who routinely pick private schools for their own kids, prevent other parents from choosing.
May I use this to revert to the late Lindsey Graham for a moment? Unlike many people who come to Congress from humble beginnings and then rival Croesus for gilt-edged investments, Graham died with very modest wealth. It was the portfolio of an intelligent average guy. Somehow, I can’t get over this modesty and probity in a high place.
A “trans” activist expressed the hope that the murder of Ann Widdecombe, outspoken conservative, former Member of Parliament, Brexit-backer, Strictly Come Dancing alum, and Catholic convert, was “extremely painful.” U.K. counter-terrorism officials have been called in to investigate the murder.
In an obituary at Unherd, Mary Harrington celebrates Ann Widdecombe as “Britain’s last Battleaxe.” What a glorious and enviable accolade “battleaxe” is! A snippet to inspire you:
If she’d been losing out since the war, the British Battleaxe was eclipsed by the death of Diana. As a public figure, she held on in the Tories in the person of Ann Widdecombe, until David Cameron — the man who arguably Dianafied the Tories — forced her disgusted departure, with her calling him “big-headed” and “dismissive of everything that had gone before”. After this, Widdecombe stood more or less alone: the last British Battleaxe in a world grown simpering, sentimental, and mandatorily progressive.
In keeping with her status as the People’s Battleaxe, as well as conviction politician, her murder has prompted an outpouring of memories. Friends and sparring-partners alike all recall her as funny, warm, and courteous even to those with whom she disagreed. This is all in keeping with the culture of pre-Diana Britain: one that saw public service as a duty, and private life and conscience as inviolably private. But this outlook has grown less common. Especially among 21st-century progressives, it has come to seem just as self-evident that private conscience ought always to conform to public duty, while the presence of any boundary between the two is cause for suspicion.
Please, God, make me a battle-axe.
