Max’s best-selling biography of Ronald Reagan, Reagan: His Life and Legend, was released in paperback on October 20. It was selected by the New York Times as one of the 10 best books of 2024. It has also made best-of-the-year lists at The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Economist, and Air Mail. You can purchase at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your local bookstore.

Coercing Iran: Why Trump’s Hormuz Blockade Has a Short Fuse

The Trump administration has declared a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, betting that Iran will buckle under economic pressure before the global energy crisis forces the United States to back down. The outcome of this standoff is far from certain.

By MAX BOOT

Council on Foreign Relations
April 14, 2026

President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that negotiations with Iran had failed. This was no surprise. The only successful U.S. accord ever negotiated with the Islamic Republic—the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—took roughly eighteen months to conclude, and that was focused solely on the nuclear issue. There was scant hope that Trump’s inexperienced negotiators, led by Vice President JD Vance, could bridge all of the differences with the Iranian side on issues like Iran’s nuclear program and support of regional militant proxies during one marathon negotiating session in Islamabad, Pakistan.

What was surprising was what Trump did next: He announced a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Beginning at 10 a.m. Eastern Time on Monday, the U.S. Navy would be interdicting all ships that had entered or departed Iranian ports. Ships that called at non-Iranian ports would be free to go their own way—assuming that Iran let them pass.