Francis P. Sempa
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)
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