I was seated next to a mid-level defense contractor at a rather pleasant dinner party in Georgetown last evening when the news finally broke. After weeks of back-channel whispers and fluctuating crude prices, President Donald Trump announced that a historic peace deal with Iran could be signed as early as today. The centerpiece of this magnificent diplomatic triumph? The immediate and unconditional opening of the Strait of Hormuz to all commercial traffic. As someone whose stock portfolio is heavily leveraged in global maritime logistics, I felt a profound sense of relief wash over me. I raised my glass of moderately priced Pinot Noir to the room, ready to toast the triumphant return of uninhibited international shipping.
But, as is always the case in our modern, hyper-critical media environment, the joy was incredibly short-lived. No sooner had I expressed my admiration for President Trump’s pragmatic approach to maritime commerce than a fellow guest—a rather tedious academic whose name escapes me—pulled out his phone to inform the table that the Israeli Defense Forces were currently launching heavy airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut.
I sighed, placed my glass back on the linen tablecloth, and felt the familiar, exhausting weight of regional nuance ruin my evening.
It is a deeply frustrating experience to watch a historic moment of geopolitical stabilization be overshadowed by the localized collapse of a few residential blocks. We are standing on the precipice of a monumental agreement that will see millions of barrels of oil flow freely through one of the world’s most vital maritime chokepoints, and yet, the global conversation has been instantly hijacked by the distraction of explosions echoing across the Lebanese capital.
It is incredibly difficult to cultivate a historic aura of peacemaking when the background noise of precision-guided munitions keeps drowning out the brass band we hired for the signing ceremony.
Let us be absolutely clear about what is happening here. President Trump has achieved something remarkable. He has looked at the tangled, generations-long web of Middle Eastern animosity and correctly deduced that the only thing that actually matters is whether or not container ships can get from point A to point B without paying exorbitant insurance premiums. The opening of the Strait of Hormuz is a victory for the global supply chain, a victory for the American consumer, and, frankly, a victory for those of us who prefer our Amazon Prime deliveries to arrive unhindered by asymmetrical naval warfare.
Yet, Tehran is now casting doubt on the timing of the deal, citing the ongoing bombardment of neighboring Lebanon as a complicating factor. I find this sort of diplomatic foot-dragging to be incredibly unprofessional. When you have agreed to open a strait, you open the strait. You do not check your watch, point to a completely different country, and suggest that the optics are bad because the sky over Beirut is currently filled with smoke. It is this exact lack of compartmentalization that has held the Middle East back for decades.
And then we have the Israeli military, who claim these attacks on the Lebanese capital are in response to Hezbollah firing into Israeli territory. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz released a joint statement confirming they were targeting Hezbollah strongholds in the Dahiyeh suburbs. I have nothing against Prime Minister Netanyahu or Minister Katz—I actually found Netanyahu to be quite charming during a brief encounter at Davos a few years ago—but I must ask: could this not have waited until Monday?
I am not suggesting that Israel does not have the right to respond to Hezbollah. I am simply suggesting that there is such a thing as scheduling. When the President of the United States is trying to sign a peace deal that will drastically reduce the cost of my maritime freight investments, it is simply bad manners to authorize a bombing campaign that dominates the Sunday morning news cycle.
We are entirely committed to regional stability and the free flow of capital, which is why we must occasionally level a city block to ensure everyone knows exactly how peaceful we are prepared to be.
It is a matter of perspective, really. The people complaining about the strikes in Dahiyeh are suffering from a chronic inability to see the big picture. Yes, the sounds of explosions in a densely populated urban center are unpleasant. Yes, the destruction of infrastructure is unfortunate. But we must weigh these localized inconveniences against the absolute majesty of an unobstructed global shipping lane.
If we demand that every single corner of the Middle East be completely devoid of violence before we celebrate a peace treaty, we will never celebrate anything. Peace, in the modern era, is not the absence of war. Peace is the localized containment of war to areas that do not directly impact the transit of crude oil.
By this metric, President Trump’s deal is a resounding success, regardless of whatever is currently falling from the sky in Lebanon. We have to learn to embrace the duality of the region. You can have a beautiful, historic signing ceremony in one room, while a proxy conflict escalates rapidly just next door. This is not hypocrisy; this is simply multitasking.
If the water is navigable, the region is at peace. I cannot stress this enough. I do not send my container ships through the sky above the Lebanese capital, so what happens in that airspace is entirely irrelevant to my quarterly earnings.
I, for one, refuse to let the negativity win. I refuse to let the footage of strikes on Beirut ruin the very real, very tangible joy of knowing that the Strait of Hormuz will soon be open to all. I will not allow the joint statements of Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel Katz to distract me from the sheer economic beauty of what Donald Trump is attempting to accomplish today.
We must ask ourselves what kind of world we want to live in. Do we want to live in a world where we are constantly paralyzed by every geopolitical dispute, every territorial skirmish, and every retaliatory airstrike? Or do we want to live in a world where we can look past the rubble, ignore the sirens, and celebrate the fact that a massive, heavily laden oil tanker can safely navigate a narrow passage of water without being harassed by fast attack craft?
I know which world I prefer. And so, while Tehran casts doubt and the IDF continues its operations in Dahiyeh, I will be enjoying the rest of my weekend. I strongly suggest the residents of Beirut do the same, perhaps by focusing on the positive economic indicators that are sure to follow this historic, partially-signed, heavily-bombarded peace deal.