Frustrated Over War, Trump Threatens Ally Oman

BY ALEXANDER WARD AND ROBBIE GRAMER

WASHINGTON—President Trump’s frustration with his inability to end the nearly sixmonth war with Iran boiled over Monday into again threatening to bomb Oman, the latest U.S. partner to draw the president’s ire over his view that the country is doing little to resolve the conflict.

“I don’t think they behaved very well, but we’d handle them very easily just like we do others,” Trump said Monday in the Oval Office. He didn’t go into specifics about what Omani officials did that drew his ire.

Earlier he had told Fox News in a phone interview: “If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the s— out of them.”

U.S. officials said the dynamic with Oman was murky. The Persian Gulf country that borders the Strait of Hormuz to the south is in talks with Iran to allow more commercial traffic in the waterway. U.S. officials said those negotiations were progressing and could relieve pressure on the global energy market and higher domestic gas prices.

But there is lingering concern within the administration that Oman could aid Iran in brokering a nuclear deal more favorable to Tehran, feeding Trump’s anger.

Oman is the latest country to draw Trump’s anger for not—in his view—doing more to help end the Iran conflict that he started alongside Israel. On Sunday, he ordered a cut to a joint U.S.-South Korea

military drill because Seoul wouldn’t help pry open the Strait of Hormuz.

“Would you like to give us a little hand,” Trump said, recounting a conversation he said he had with President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea before stressing that the U.S. didn’t actually need any help. “He said, ‘no thanks,’” Trump said. “And I said, ‘Wait a minute: We have 39,000 soldiers over there, guarding you from Kim Jong Un, your next door neighbor, and you’re not going to help us on a very easy military operation in Iran? That’s strange.’” Trump, a Republican, has also complained that European allies like the U.K. or Spain haven’t done enough to counter Iran, an extension of his decadeslong gripe that allies take more from the U.S. than they give.

A debate has raged within the administration about how to handle Oman.

Some senior aides privately accuse Oman of being a duplicitous actor that largely sides with Iran instead of seeking the best possible deal between Washington and Tehran, officials said. Others said Oman’s longstanding ties to Iran are a boon to the mediation process. Those officials assert that Trump is scapegoating Oman as he seeks others to blame for struggling to complete a nuclear deal.

There is also concern the Iran-Oman deal could solidify Tehran’s control over the strait, U.S. officials said, noting Trump prefers an agreement that fully reopens the passageway through which a fifth of the world’s oil and energy flowed before the war.

Steven Cook, a senior fellow for Middle East issues at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, said Iran is pressuring Oman into the joint plan so it has the patina of a legitimate cross-strait project.

“Trump’s threats only embolden the Iranians who sense further weakness,” Cook said. “Instead of being totally open, the strait is mostly closed.” The embassy of Oman in Wa s h i n g ton didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Trump in June set a 60-day deadline to end the war with Iran and push Tehran to give up its nuclear program. That deadline expired on Monday with neither side giving ground, leaving an unclear path to ending the conflict.

The U.S. has relied on Qatar and Pakistan as mediators to try to bring about an end to the war while it pushed Oman, the initial mediator, to the side.

Trump has told aides he would consider declaring Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon blocked and the war won if Tehran agreed to fully open the waterway, The Wall Street Journal has previously reported.

Relations between the U.S. and Oman have deteriorated in recent months.

Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi, who played a role in mediating U.S.-Iran talks before the war, repeatedly criticized the U.S. decision to launch the war, even appearing on CBS News to try to prevent the first wave of attacks.

“Whatever your view of Iran, this war is not of their making,” he said in a socialmedia post in March.

The Trump administration previously threatened to sanction and even launch strikes against Oman after intelligence assessments concluded that the Gulf state planned to impose tolls on vessels crossing the Strait of Hormuz with Iran in a bid to see the strait reopened. Oman repeatedly denied these assessments.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said that Iran’s tolling the Strait of Hormuz would be a red line for the Trump administration and set a dangerous precedent for other strategic international waterways around the world.