WASHINGTON – America’s NATO allies need to help open the Strait of Hormuz, but it doesn’t matter if they don’t. The war against Iran is already “won,” but thousands of ground troops are on the way there. If there is a peace deal soon, that’s great, but if there isn’t, that’s great, too.

Nearing a month into his war against Iran, President Donald Trump continues verbally attacking U.S. allies while enriching the purported enemy with billions of dollars in sanctions relief while offering no concrete plan to end the conflict.

“They are begging to make a deal, not me. They are begging to make a deal and anybody that saw what was happening over there would understand why they want to make a deal,” Trump said Thursday, adding later: “The reason they want to make a deal is they have been just beat to shit.”

During an hour of monologue and a half-hour question-and-answer session with reporters ahead of a Cabinet meeting, Trump yet again offered wildly contradictory claims about a war that has killed 13 U.S. service members, seriously injured hundreds more, left thousands of Iranians dead and has brought spiking gasoline prices and a new round of inflation at home.

As is typically the case with Trump, who is both a prolific liar as well as profoundly ignorant, it was impossible to know how much of what he said about the war was true, how much he believed was true but in reality was not, how much was a deliberate lie and how much reflected an irritation.

Trump was openly peeved, for example, by a Wall Street Journal report published Wednesday stating that he was eager to wrap up the war and move on. “I read a story today that I’m desperate to make a deal…. I’m the opposite of desperate. I don’t care. I want to know ― in fact, we have other targets we want to hit before we leave. We’re hitting them on a daily basis,” he said.

Trump stated that the war was over — “We already won” — but then also said that he was still considering seizing Iranian oil and may or may not use the military to confiscate uranium in Iran’s possession.

Deploying troops would almost certainly lead to the death of more Americans, as they would become far easier targets than U.S. planes and ships have been since the war began on Feb. 28. Robert Kagan, a veteran of the Reagan-era State Department and now an analyst at the Brookings Institution, fears that Trump is likely to use the thousands of Marines currently on their way there.

“He definitely is going to use ground troops. They wouldn’t be sending them if they didn’t plan to use them,” Kagan said. “Right now, he’s trying to buy time. Keep markets and oil prices calm. Keep his voters calm. While quietly telling Republicans to get ready to support ground troops. Which they will.”

Trump again complained that NATO allies were not helping him attack Iran and said, falsely, that NATO members have never helped the United States.

“I said 25 years ago that NATO is a paper tiger, but more importantly, that we’ll come to their rescue, but they will never come to ours,” he said.

In reality, the only time the alliance’s mutual defense clause was invoked was after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Trump appears not to understand that the alliance is a defensive one and does not require signatories to assist a member that chooses to launch a war of aggression, as he has.

And Trump continued to claim that whether the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s crude oil normally passes, is open to ship traffic does not matter for Americans because the U.S. is a net exporter of oil. “We don’t need the Hormuz Strait. We don’t need it. We don’t need it at all. We don’t ― we have so much oil. Our country is not affected by this,” he said, falsely.

In fact, though, oil is traded on a global market. A reduction in supply anywhere leads to higher costs everywhere, as Americans have already seen with gasoline prices more than $1 a gallon higher than before the war started.

Hours later, Trump wrote in a social media post that he was again postponing his threatened attack on Iran’s energy infrastructure, which, if carried out, would likely constitute a war crime.

“As per Iranian Government request, please let this statement serve to represent that I am pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 Days to Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time. Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media, and others, they are going very well. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP,” he said, again citing so-far nonexistent peace negotiations.

Whether and when a peace agreement will end the war and allow U.S. service members in the region to come home appears as unclear now as it was when Trump’s attacks started. Trump’s “special envoy” to Iran, his friend and fellow real estate developer Steve Witkoff, on Thursday confirmed that he had presented a 15-point peace plan to Pakistani intermediaries — a plan that Iran quickly dismissed as unserious.

“I don’t think a deal is coming,” said John Bolton, one of Trump’s first-term national security advisers and a longtime proponent of military intervention in Iran who has nonetheless criticized Trump for lacking a coherent plan. “Not clear if there will even be a meeting.”

And in the absence of a quick negotiated end to the war, said one former national security council staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity, there are likely only two options.

“Trump either folds and tries to declare victory, basically another ‘total obliteration,’ or he escalates,” the staffer said. “The latter is ripe with danger for our forces, and the former may not work if Iran isn’t ready to pull back from the fight.”

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