By Joshua Arnold

One unavoidable side-effect of gasoline prices being prominently posted in front of every roadside service station is that Americans remain constantly aware of the volatile fluctuations in gas prices. Since the start of President Trump’s military action against Iran, the national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded fuel has jumped from $2.98 on February 28 to $3.72 on March 16. World oil prices, which ended December under $60 per barrel, have now reached as high as $106 per barrel (as of this writing, they sat at $93 per barrel). With a jump like that, not only Americans but the entire world is taking notice.

The current spike in oil and gas prices is a direct result of the U.S. military’s combat against Iran. Instead of acting like a responsible state that follows the laws of war and spares non-combatants, the Islamist Iranian regime reacted by launching missiles indiscriminately at all its neighbors, including at civilian targets.

Iran’s indiscriminate attacks have not spared international commercial shipping, including oil tankers. Since the conflict began, U.K. Maritime Trade Operations has recorded at least 14 reported attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf or Strait of Hormuz. This has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, as the owners and crews of those vessels naturally do not wish to become foolhardy casualties of war. (Notably, Iranian and Chinese ships continue to sail through unmolested.)

This closure affects global oil markets because the oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf produce 20% of the world’s oil supply, and their crude oil must pass through the strait to reach global markets. (The Strait of Hormuz, which separates Iran from the Arabian Peninsula, is the Persian Gulf’s only outlet to the sea; at its narrowest point, it measures a mere 24 miles across, no wider than the Amazon River in the rainy season.)

Global oil markets, in turn, affect U.S. gas prices because of the basic principles of supply and demand. Under normal circumstances, the U.S. only imports a small amount of oil from the Persian Gulf, around 2%, while countries like China and India import a much larger quantity. However, when the oil supply from the Persian Gulf is cut off, all the countries that did buy its oil still have the same demand for oil, and they go looking for other suppliers to make up the difference. Thus, an impact on the oil supply in one area of the world will affect oil prices globally.

American strategists have long considered an oil price shock due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to be an expected — or at least likely — consequence of war with Iran. “Planning around preventing this exact scenario — impossible as it has long seemed — has been a bedrock principle of US national security policy for decades,” CNN quoted an anonymous former security official.

Yet, to hear CNN tell it, the Trump administration did not prepare for this likely scenario at all. “Top Trump officials acknowledged to lawmakers during recent classified briefings that they did not plan for the possibility of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz in response to strikes,” the original version of the article claimed.

Such an outrageous claim was bound to be challenged. “Of course, for decades, Iran has threatened shipping in the Strait of Hormuz,” responded Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth. “This is always what they do: hold the Strait hostage. CNN doesn’t think we thought of that. It’s a fundamentally unserious report.” The National Review editors note that Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Iran against closing the Strait just last year, and that one of the Trump administration’s stated goals in the current conflict is to degrade Iran’s capability to do so.

CNN’s story now includes the following “CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to reflect additional developments and clarify that top Trump administration officials briefed lawmakers on long-standing military plans to address a major disruption to the Strait, according to one official, but that multiple sources familiar with the session said there was no indication there were any near-term solutions.”

There’s a big difference between, “The Trump administration totally forgot to account for this glaring vulnerability,” and, “The Trump administration considered the vulnerability but doesn’t have a near-term solution for it.”

As in all of life, politics is about trade-offs, and particularly so in war strategy. The Wall Street Journal reports that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Dan Caine briefed President Donald Trump on Iran’s ability to close the Strait of Hormuz with mines, drones, and missiles. “Trump acknowledged the risk … but moved forward” anyway, they wrote. “He told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait — and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.”

In hindsight, this assessment was clearly too optimistic, but every war strategy suffers from setbacks, accidents, and unknowns. On the other hand, allowing Iran the time to build more missiles and potentially a nuclear weapon could have resulted in even worse consequences.

The reason why the U.S. Constitution invests executive power in one individual is so that one seasoned leader can be responsible for weighing the various tradeoffs and reaching a final decision. In other words, the U.S. presidency exists to make hard decisions just like this one. And those who don’t like the decisions Trump makes had their opportunity to elect a different president.

While the heightened price of gas and oil is causing Americans undeniable pain at the pump, the National Review editors allow that “None of this is catastrophic. The price of Brent crude settled above $100 a barrel on Friday. That’s the highest in four years, not in, say, 60 years. But the clock is ticking.” Indeed, oil prices hit $113 per barrel in June 2022 and $128 per barrel in July 2008. In between, oil prices peaked in April 2011 ($108 per barrel), March 2012 ($105 per barrel), August 2013 ($102 per barrel), and June 2014 ($98 per barrel). So, administration critics do have legitimate grounds to hit Trump over high gas prices, but only as hard as they hit President Joe Biden for the historic inflation in 2021-2022.

That said, the Trump administration is not doing themselves any favors in public perception by appearing desperate and unprepared for this eventuality. The Trump administration has promised military escorts for oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, but they have yet to work out the logistics. Meanwhile, the U.S. issued a 30-day waiver for countries to buy sanctioned Russian oil — after President Trump slammed U.S. allies for doing just that — offering Russia’s tottering regime an invaluable financial lifeline.

Errors of strategy and judgment are inevitable in war, even when a superpower like the United States is dominantly pummeling a stubborn rogue regime like that of the Iranian mullahs. But just because the Trump administration has fumbled one snap does not mean that they failed to call the right play. A turnover can be costly, but the only thing that matters is the scoreboard when time expires.

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand. This article originally appeared here.