The Persian Missile Crisis
Historical analogies are never exact, and some can be misleading. With the announcement by President Trump of a naval blockade or quarantine of the Strait of Hormuz, the specter of another Cuban Missile Crisis comes to mind. In October 1962, President John F. Kennedy ordered the U.S. Navy to institute a blockade of Cuba to prevent more offensive weapons from being supplied to the Castro regime in Cuba by the Soviet Union. Kennedy used a blockade instead of air strikes on missile installations in Cuba to give maximum flexibility for diplomacy to end the crisis. Kennedy’s blockade worked, a deal was struck, but it was, to quote the Duke of Wellington about Waterloo, a “close run thing.”
The current war against Iran was launched because President Trump today, like President Kennedy in 1962, was unwilling to countenance a dangerous enemy obtaining the capability to deliver nuclear weapons against our country and our country’s interests. The direct threat to the U.S. in Cuba in 1962 was considerably greater than the threat posed in 2025-2026 by a nuclear-armed Iran, but in some respects, that is because President Trump acted preemptively in June 2025 and March 2026 to dilute the threat, instead of reacting to an established fact as Kennedy did in October 1962. (RELATED: The Return of Realism in American Foreign Policy)
Trump’s preemptive strikes have destroyed Iran’s navy, inflicted significant damage to its ballistic missile inventory, and further degraded Iran’s ability to develop and deliver nuclear weapons. The one “weapon” Iran has in spite of the U.S. and Israeli attacks is its control of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil travels. This explains, more than anything else, Iran’s unwillingness to accept U.S. ceasefire terms. Trump’s announcement of a blockade, however, takes that “weapon” out of Iran’s hands. (RELATED: From Marathon to Hormuz)
Like Kennedy’s naval blockade of October 1962, Trump’s naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz (the entrance and exit of the Persian Gulf) will play to America’s strengths. We are a maritime power that is uniquely capable of establishing what Alfred Thayer Mahan called “command of the sea.” (RELATED: Who Controls the ‘World Ocean’ Commands the World)
In October 1962, the U.S. had the advantages of both geographical proximity and unmatched sea power in the Caribbean Sea. In today’s Persian Gulf crisis, the U.S. enjoys unmatched sea power in the region, but Iran enjoys geographical proximity to the Strait of Hormuz. Trump’s naval blockade nullifies that Iranian advantage by rendering irrelevant Iran’s geographical control of the Strait. An effective naval blockade will mean that the U.S. Navy, not the Iranian regime, will determine whether any ships enter or exit the Strait. A U.S. naval blockade can simultaneously help strangle Iran economically and remove Iran’s best arrow from its diplomatic quiver.
There are, of course, risks to the U.S. that accompany a naval blockade. It presents the possibility of a naval clash between the U.S. and China, the latter of which relies heavily on oil exports from Iran and the Persian Gulf. It may pose even greater strains on America’s deteriorating relationships with other NATO countries, which also rely heavily on Persian Gulf oil. It also places our naval assets even more in harm’s way than they have been to date in the war.
But a successful naval blockade may also cause NATO members, India, and perhaps even China to put pressure on Iran’s leaders to be more open to accepting America’s ceasefire terms, which include ending the enrichment of uranium at weapons-grade levels and returning the Persian Gulf to the free flow of international commerce.
Perhaps the better historical analogy with which to understand Trump’s moves is the failed diplomatic effort to deny nuclear weapons to North Korea. The North Korean communist regime announced its intentions to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1994. After a decade’s worth of intense bilateral and multilateral diplomatic efforts to forestall North Korea’s acquiring a nuclear weapon, the rogue regime announced to the world in 2005 that it possessed nuclear weapons and the next year conducted its first underground test of a nuclear weapon.
Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons has progressed on a similar path until Trump’s presidency. Several U.S. administrations attempted through diplomacy to persuade Iran to give up its effort to acquire nuclear weapons, but all such efforts, including the much-touted Obama administration’s nuclear agreement, failed. Trump understood that, which is why he withdrew the U.S. from Obama’s agreement. Since the 2016 campaign, Trump has repeatedly stated that Iran will not acquire nuclear weapons on his watch. Someday, Trump’s enemies and critics will learn to take this president at his word.
READ MORE from Francis P. Sempa: