Former President Barack Obama said on Saturday that Iran is “in a stronger strategic position now than before the war started,” telling a rally in Detroit that the Trump administration’s war with Iran has left Tehran with “veto power over the Strait of Hormuz” and has pushed up fuel prices.
Obama spoke at Cass Technical High School alongside Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan, and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, the party’s nominee for governor. The event was carried by C-SPAN’s live coverage and by a livestream Obama posted on X, on the first day of early in-person voting in Michigan, 10 days before the Nov. 3 election.
“Seven months later, how’s that war going?” Obama asked the crowd. “Our allies and bases have been attacked. American soldiers have been killed. Hundreds of Americans have been wounded. We’ve run down our stock of missiles dangerously low.”
“And this is the thing. Iran now has veto power over the Strait of Hormuz, where oil goes through to get to the world. So they’re in a stronger strategic position now than before the war started,” he said.
“That was a decision this administration made, and that is the reason that the price of oil is up and the price of diesel is up and the price of just about everything is up,” Obama said. “And by the way, it’s not over. It’s still going on.” He then turned to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The Detroit remarks came hours after Obama made a similar case about the war at a rally in Cleveland earlier on Saturday for Ohio Democratic candidates.
U.S. strikes on Iran began on Feb. 28, nearly eight months before Saturday’s rally. On April 8, the White House said in a release on the ceasefire that Iran had “agreed to a ceasefire and reopening the Strait of Hormuz,” and Hegseth referred to “the decisive military victory we just achieved in Operation Epic Fury.”
Fighting resumed in July. In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson dated July 10, Trump said U.S. forces began “defensive strikes against targets within Iran” on July 7 after Iran “again attacked several neutral-flagged commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.”
The Pentagon on Oct. 9 raised its official count of troops who died during operations against Iran to 21, and its casualty database listed 865 service members wounded, The Washington Post reported. Obama did not cite a source for his statement about missile stockpiles.
The White House has described the situation in the strait differently. “More oil is coming through the Hormuz Strait than it did prior to the conflict,” the White House said in a post on X on Thursday, adding that Iran “must never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.”
El-Sayed faces former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, whom Trump has endorsed, in the race for an open Senate seat. Hours before the rally on Saturday, the National Republican Senatorial Committee focused on El-Sayed’s past comments about Obama, saying in a post on X that El-Sayed “insulted Obama for years.”
Obama’s statements that Iran is in a stronger position and that the war caused higher oil and diesel prices are his assessments; the White House says oil flows through Hormuz now exceed prewar levels, and the Pentagon’s casualty count is a matter of public record. As of Saturday night, neither the White House nor Trump had responded directly to Obama’s remarks on Iran.