Rob Hersov, a businessman and investor who generally supports Donald Trump, argues that the president’s Iran and Gaza diplomacy is beginning to look less like peace through strength than strength claimed through messaging. The stakes are not only Trump’s credibility, but the leverage of the United States in two strategic theatres. When the rhetoric outruns the leverage Hersov’s argument is powerful because it comes from a supporter rather than a habitual opponent. He says he backed Trump’s early threats against Iran, but now sees a pattern in which dramatic declarations are followed by negotiations, concessions or deals whose results remain uncertain. His concern is that allies and adversaries are learning to distinguish the language of power from the willingness to use it. That is a judgement, not an established fact. But the policy record gives it a concrete test. In June, the White House described a US-Iran memorandum of understanding as a breakthrough that would prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. In July, the White House again presented the United States as controlling the waterway while keeping the door open to a deal. The unresolved issue is not whether Washington can issue threats or move naval forces. It is whether those actions produce durable compliance without creating a larger war, a market shock or a new crisis of credibility. A superpower can choose restraint, but restraint works as strategy only when the other side believes escalation remains possible. Hormuz is not a talking point Hersov is right that the Strait of Hormuz is not a minor bargaining chip. The US Energy Information Administration says an average of 20.9 million barrels a day moved through the strait in the first half of 2025, equivalent to about one-fifth of global petroleum liquids consumption. The agency also warns that existing pipelines can bypass only part of that volume. This is why a dispute over the strait quickly becomes an economic question. Disrupted shipping raises insurance costs, changes refinery planning and adds a risk premium to prices well beyond the Gulf. The immediate beneficiary of a blockade may appear to be the actor holding the waterway, but prolonged disruption can also damage that actor’s customers, neighbours and trading partners, making the crisis harder to control. The security calculation is equally complicated. Clearing a maritime route by force may demonstrate capability, but it can expose ships, bases and civilian infrastructure across the region to retaliation. A president who chooses talks is not automatically weak. The weakness Hersov describes would be the inability to make diplomacy credible because threats are repeatedly issued without a clear, achievable end state. Gaza makes the test harder The Gaza roadmap exposes the same gap between headline and implementation. Donald Trump announced an agreement for Hamas to disarm and for Israel to withdraw. The published roadmap is more conditional: governance and security functions would pass to a new Palestinian administration, weapons would be decommissioned gradually and sequentially, and an international verification mechanism would assess whether commitments had been met before the next phase began. That distinction matters. Peace agreements are not judged by the ambition of their announcement but by who controls armed groups, who verifies compliance and what happens after a violation. A truce can reduce violence without resolving the political dispute. A roadmap can establish an intended sequence without proving that the parties accept the same destination. Recent reporting has underlined the problem. Hamas told the Associated Press it had agreed to the roadmap, while Israel had not yet commented when the document was published. In August, Israel rejected the US-backed plan as presented, with Benjamin Netanyahu saying Israeli forces would not withdraw before Hamas was fully disarmed. The disagreement is not a footnote. It is the central mechanism the agreement needs to solve. The cost of a declared victory Hersov’s historical language invokes Pax Romana and Pax Americana, but the analogy has limits. Rome could impose order through occupation and force; the United States operates in a world of nuclear deterrence, global markets, domestic political constraints and partners with their own objectives. American power is therefore not only the ability to destroy a target. It is the ability to organise a coalition, protect trade, preserve legitimacy and secure a settlement that survives the news cycle. The strongest challenge to Hersov’s position is that diplomacy may be the practical expression of strength after military pressure has changed the bargaining environment. A ceasefire, a reopened waterway or a phased disarmament mechanism can be a strategic gain even when it looks untidy. The sceptical case is that demanding unconditional surrender from every adversary can produce a war with no off-ramp and n