On: Strait of Hormuz: Iran, US seize ships

The news from the Strait of Hormuz is not a new story. It is the old story of provocation and response, of the small act meant to draw the large one, of the test of will measured in the seizure of a ship. The President says he is not rushing to an agreement. That is prudent. But the greater question is not the speed of the agreement, but its foundation. An agreement made from a desire for peace at any price is as worthless as one made from a desire for war at any cost.

The timing is everything. To act now, in heat, is to grant the provocation its power. To ignore it is to invite another. The right course is to absorb the insult, to let the world see it for what it is, and to choose the moment of response that advances the principle, not the passion. The small boats, the seized ships - they are meant to make us look. We must see, instead, the pattern. We must calculate the weight of our answer so that it crushes the design, not merely the deed.

I know this waiting. It is the heaviest labor. To hold the proclamation until the victory makes it stick. To know a thing is right and just, and yet to know that stating it now will only make it harder to achieve later. The border states were held by such patience. The world’s narrow straits are held by it now.

The work is never finished. It is only advanced or lost. Today, it is not advanced. But it is not yet lost. That is the space in which we must work.