Lindsey Graham just told you the plan: run diplomacy through the motions, declare it failed, then seize the Strait of Hormuz by military force and charge tolls on the world's oil traffic. Working Americans will pay for this war at the pump while Washington's donor class cashes in on the sequel.
Graham, after spending four and a half hours with President Trump on Friday, laid out the whole sequence on CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "Let's try a diplomatic solution. I think it's going to fail," he said. "What happens next?" His answer: "President Trump is going to take the Strait of Hormuz over by force." The United States would control the waterway, charge a fee on all shipping to "pay for the operation," and expand the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia in calendar year 2026. And if Iran resists? "If Iran contests control of the Strait of Hormuz by the United States, we will obliterate them." A new policy, Graham added, would hold that if Hezbollah attacks Israel, the U.S. will hit Iran directly — not the proxy, the sponsor.
That's not a warning. That's a playbook telegraphed in plain English.
The Vance-Tehran Thread: Talking Peace While Planning War
Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance sat across from Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Switzerland on Sunday, kicking off the 60-day negotiation window established by last week's 14-point memorandum of understanding. Vance said the goal was to "transform the Middle East" and create "a future where everybody can work together to promote peace and prosperity for everyone," Benzinga reported.
The juxtaposition is the story. Graham predicts failure from the same White House that dispatched Vance to negotiate. The fix is in: diplomacy gets its turn on stage, and when it "fails" — as Graham already assures you it will — the military option is pre-positioned and ready.
Trump himself made the military threat explicit in a phone call with Fox News' Trey Yingst on Sunday. "We may take over the strait, if we have to," Trump said. "If they don't make a deal, we'll collect tolls." The Independent reported that Trump went further in what Yingst described as a profanity-laced tirade: Trump claimed he told Iranian officials, "You close [the Strait of Hormuz] and you won't have a country" and "We'll take over the rest of the country." That's a threat to occupy Iran — a new escalation from the president who started this conflict in February.
Iran Walks Out — Or Doesn't
Iranian media outlets Fars and Tasnim reported that the Iranian delegation left the negotiation venue in Switzerland in protest over Trump's threats. But Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the discussions, reported that negotiators remained engaged. The gap between those accounts is the gap between war and its alternative, and right now nobody in Washington is acting like the alternative is the point.
Iran announced Saturday it would close the Strait of Hormuz again after accusing the U.S. and Israel of violating the agreement. CBS News reported that Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei cited Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon as violations of the interim peace deal. Benzinga noted that Iran has insisted any agreement include an end to Israeli military action in Lebanon, which has killed more than 4,000 people and displaced over a million, according to The Independent.
Israel Undermines the Deal; Washington Threatens Iran Instead
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted Friday calling for Israeli forces to "burn all of Lebanon" — declaring that "for every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep," The Independent reported. Trump has been unable or unwilling to curb this rhetoric or the Israeli assault. Vance warned Israeli officials from the White House briefing podium not to alienate the United States, and remarked on a podcast that Israel couldn't simply "kill" its way out of every problem. But when it came down to it, Trump's threats landed on Iran, not Israel.
The $300 Billion Flip
Graham's position on the deal's $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran shifted conveniently. He previously compared it to "a Marshall Plan for Germany with the Nazis still in charge." On Sunday, he said his concerns eased once he learned the money would likely come from Gulf allies rather than Western governments. "Before, I thought the money was coming from the West," Graham told CBS. Now, he argued, Gulf-state funding would signal that "the Sunni Arabs believe that Iran has changed to the point they want to be a business partner." He still called the MOU "problematic" but dismissed the money as insufficient to reconstruct Iran. The money question — who pays, who profits, whose interests are served — got a quick rewrite once the funding source changed.
Graham spent four and a half hours with the president and came out predicting the diplomacy he says he supports will fail. That's not skepticism. That's a script. The question isn't whether talks collapse. It's who wrote the collapse into the plan, and how much it costs the rest of us when they play it out.
