Former Vice President Mike Pence weighed in on the escalating standoff over the Strait of Hormuz on June 28, 2026, framing Iran’s recent actions as forcing Trump into a binary decision. “The Iranian regime is leaving the President a choice: surrender Hormuz to Iranian terror or fight for it, like he always should have once he started the war, and reopen the Strait by force,” Pence wrote on X, sharing a Wall Street Journal editorial headlined “Iran Is Winning the Battle of Hormuz.”
What the Editorial Argued
The Journal’s editorial board argued that Iran has been using force to nullify the terms of its memorandum of understanding with the United States almost as soon as it was signed. “The best selling point for President Trump’s memorandum of understanding with Iran was that at least it opened the Strait of Hormuz,” the board wrote. “Well, now the regime is trying to nullify those terms by using force against commercial vessels, Gulf states and U.S. bases. All of this violates the deal and calls into question why Mr. Trump signed it.” The piece detailed a rapid sequence of escalation: after Iran struck a tanker carrying Qatari crude, the U.S. retaliated against Iranian military sites and began escorting oil tankers with heavy air cover, prompting Iran to fire drones and missiles at civilian targets and U.S. bases in Bahrain and Kuwait.
Araghchi’s Claim of Authority Over the Strait
Central to the Journal’s argument was a statement from Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi asserting Iran’s exclusive control over the waterway. Speaking at a joint press conference with his Iraqi counterpart in Baghdad, Araghchi said, according to Al Jazeera’s reporting, that the memorandum of understanding gives Tehran control of the strait and urged “all parties not to interfere” in its management. He stated explicitly, “The Strait of Hormuz remains under the total oversight and management of Iran through the 30 coming days, and after all obstacles are removed the total capacity of the waterway will be restored.” He added, “This responsibility rests on the Islamic Republic of Iran. There is no other party or state in this respect. This is totally clear under the memorandum of understanding, and any intervention or any unilateral action will result in exacerbating the situation.”
The Journal’s Critique of Vance’s Diplomacy
The editorial directly criticized Vice President JD Vance’s earlier characterization of Iran’s negotiating posture. The board wrote that Vance had been “touting Iran’s ‘transformed’ Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders ready to ‘turn over a new leaf’ with the U.S.,” and had described reaching “gentlemen’s agreements” with Iranian officials outside the formal memorandum. “Well, these are no gentlemen,” the board wrote. “It’s the same terrorist regime, and this is the Battle of Hormuz that Mr. Trump thought he had ducked.”
Why Iran Resorted to Force, According to the Editorial
The Journal argued that Iran’s military actions stemmed from its failure to control shipping through purely administrative means. According to the editorial, vessels had largely ignored Tehran’s demands that ships transit only through Iran’s designated lane, request access two days in advance, and purchase special Iranian “insurance,” instead sailing through the Strait’s southern, Omani-administered lane. “In short, the Strait wasn’t going Iran’s way,” the board wrote. “It was becoming free again — hence the regime’s resort to force.”
The Editorial’s Policy Recommendation
Rather than calling explicitly for military reescalation in the same terms Pence used, the Journal’s editorial proposed an economic lever as an initial step: amending the Treasury Department’s sanctions-relief license to require that all proceeds from Iranian oil sales be placed in escrow, rather than allowing Iran to freely repatriate that revenue. The license in question is Iran General License X, issued by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control on June 22, 2026, which authorizes “the Production, Delivery and Sale of Crude Oil, Petrochemical Products, and Petroleum Products of Iranian-Origin” through August 21, 2026, the same date the underlying 60-day negotiating window is set to expire. “The question is why Iran still gets the cash, selling its oil free of sanctions and repatriating the revenue to fund its Revolutionary Guard,” the board wrote, arguing that the U.S. “needs the leverage for nuclear negotiations, and it was never wise to give Iran a blank check.”
Trump’s Own Comments
The editorial cited Trump’s own assessment of Iran’s behavior, made the same weekend. “It is very possible that they will never learn,” Trump wrote of Iran’s regime on Saturday night, according to the Journal. The editorial board turned that statement back on the administration itself, asking, “Or is it U.S. decision makers who never learn?”
The remark fit a broader pattern in which Trump has alternated between conciliatory statements about the prospects for a final deal with Iran and sharper condemnations of specific Iranian attacks, a duality the Journal’s editorial argued has left Tehran uncertain whether to take U.S. warnings seriously.
The Editorial’s Argument About Deterrence
The Journal argued that the pattern of limited U.S. retaliatory strikes had failed to reestablish meaningful deterrence. “More U.S. ‘love taps’ against Iranian targets won’t impress the hard men in Tehran,” the board wrote. “They behave as if they have escalation dominance because they think Mr. Trump won’t return to war before the midterm elections. They don’t believe Mr. Trump’s social-media bluster because they see his reluctance to enforce the cease-fire terms.”
Pence has long been associated with a more hawkish foreign policy posture than some other figures in Trump’s orbit, and his decision to amplify the Journal’s editorial, rather than simply comment on the underlying events himself, aligned his public position closely with the editorial board’s explicit argument that stronger military action, not further diplomatic outreach, was the appropriate response to Iran’s continued attacks on shipping.
What Comes Next
As of Pence’s post, the cycle of strikes and counter-strikes between the U.S. and Iran had continued for multiple consecutive days, and Araghchi’s public assertion of Iranian control over the strait for a further 30-day period suggested no near-term resolution to the underlying dispute over who governs passage through the waterway. Neither the White House nor the State Department had directly responded to either the Journal’s editorial or Pence’s characterization of the choice facing Trump as of publication.
Pence himself left office as vice president alongside Trump in January 2021 and has not held a position in Trump’s second administration, making his commentary on the Iran conflict that of an outside political figure rather than a current administration official.