Trump’s path to reopening the Strait of Hormuz may run through Oman

Oman keeps popping up in these stories for a reason. It's the one Gulf capital both Washington and Tehran will actually pick up the phone for, and that quiet channel is doing more real work right now than most of what gets said on camera. Iran can insist all it wants that it isn't talking to the United States. Fine. Nobody believes the theater anymore, and honestly nobody needs to. If Muscat is the room where the Strait of Hormuz stays open, that's the room that matters.

There's something almost old-fashioned about this kind of diplomacy, the kind that doesn't happen on Twitter or in a press conference. A third party with credibility on both sides, carrying messages back and forth, letting each government save face while the actual problem gets solved. That's how deals used to get done before everyone decided that foreign policy was a content strategy.

Trump gets mocked for saying he can end conflicts other presidents couldn't touch, but reopening Hormuz would be exactly that kind of win, and a massive one. A fifth of the world's oil moves through that strait. Keeping it open isn't a talking point, it's the difference between stable energy prices and another inflation spiral that hits every American filling up their tank.

None of this is guaranteed to work. Iran has walked away from better deals before. But betting on Oman's back channel instead of insisting everything happen through official, cameras-rolling negotiations is the kind of pragmatism that actually gets results instead of headlines.