Republican Senator Blames Biden for Strait of Hormuz Closure

Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) offered a bold new spin on Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

He says former President Joe Biden is at least partly to blame.

Iran effectively closed the strait by firing on ships in the passageway after the U.S. and Israel began bombing the country on Feb. 28. That’s a problem for the global oil supply, as 20% of the world’s crude oil flows out of it. Oil prices have predictably surged after President Donald Trump’s aides reportedly informed him that Iran might close the strait if the U.S. attacked.

In recent days, Trump has asked U.S. allies to help open the strait or escort oil tankers through it, but so far he has no takers. Additionally, Iran has bombed oil facilities and several U.S. bases in the region, while Israel has again invaded Lebanon. The Trump administration has offered different justifications for the war, and the president himself has given vague assessments of when the war may end, or what the war even is.

On Monday, Husted appeared on Fox Business, where he placed the blame at Biden’s feet and another Democratic president, whom Husted did not name, but is presumably former President Barack Obama. The senator said previous Democratic presidents failed to ensure that Iran could not close the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran never did until this war began, and so Trump acted to ensure that Iran does not have that ability, which Iran is now demonstrating that it has by closing the strait:

[E]ssentially, Joe Biden and his entire team with the Green New Deal helped really put groups like Iran and their ability to finance wars and not stand up to them as they crossed red lines time after time. And now President Trump is having to fix the problems of the past. It was the failures of two Democrat presidents that put us in a position today where Iran had the capacity to make a nuclear weapon. They had the ability to send ballistic missiles into their neighbors, and they had the drones and the capacity to cut off the Strait of Hormuz. And now President Trump is having to remedy those problems.

Iran has never possessed weapons-grade uranium. During the Obama administration, the U.S. and other world powers signed an agreement with Iran, which agreed to regular inspections of its nuclear facilities, which Iran has long maintained are for civilian purposes. Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018.

More than 1,300 civilians have been killed by U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran so far, according to Iranian officials.

Watch above via Fox News.

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