Fareed Zakaria: Maybe the U.S. Will Get an Agreement and a Way out of the War But It’s a ‘Bizarre Situation’ That the Strait of Hormuz Remains Closed

EXCERPT:

ZAKARIA: "It tells me that President Trump is trying to find a way to end this war unilaterally. The problem he has is that he wants to end the war, clearly, at this point. The Iranians get a vote, and their vote seems to be to continue it because they want to exact a price by stressing the world economy, driving the price of oil up, keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed. So the president seems to be, in a sense, unilaterally saying, 'Look, we are going to wind down activities.' My guess is what he‘s doing is saying 2 to 3 weeks, because that gives him enough time to pummel the Iranians even more, which is what his Gulf state allies want, Saudi Arabia, the UAE. And then it seems as though they‘re preparing for a strategy where they simply leave. And maybe the Strait of Hormuz is still closed, maybe it‘s not, maybe they get an agreement, but it‘s a way out. It doesn‘t — it strikes me as a rather bizarre situation because you would have the Strait of Hormuz closed, oil would still be extremely expensive, but it appears that the White House is searching for a way out. And as they have through this entire process, they‘re sort of freelancing and throwing stuff up and seeing if it will work, and that seems the new idea: just quit and go home after a few more weeks of this pounding."