Trump’s Gulf brinkmanship: Is the United States replaying the Cuban Missile Crisis with Iran? |
When US President Donald Trump announced that a “massive fleet”, an “armada” centered on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and accompanying warships, was heading toward the Persian Gulf, the language evoked memories not of 21st-century diplomacy but of a 20th-century crisis. It was the kind of rhetoric once reserved for the Cuban Missile Crisis when superpowers manoeuvred fleets on opposite sides of a nuclear threshold. Today, as Iran reels from the deadliest wave of domestic protests in its modern history and Washington signals readiness to use force, if necessary, the deployment of US naval power to the region constitutes a stark reminder that the current climate of global politics can easily revert to Cold War-style brinkmanship in response to regional unrest and growing strategic competition. Hence, the Gulf of today depicts the Carribean of 1962, but the question is whether Trump and Khamenei can become Kennedy and Khrushchev for the 21st century, replaying a Cuban Missile Crisis in the Gulf.
The catalyst for this moment lies not in monolithic ideological struggle but in a series of interconnected developments. Nationwide protests erupted in Iran in late December 2025, initially driven by economic hardship and a collapsing currency and quickly evolving into one of the most widespread expressions of public anger since the 1979 revolution. The regime’s violent crackdown has reportedly left more than 5,000 people dead and tens of thousands detained, according to independent human-rights monitoring groups, even as Iranian authorities suppress information. President Trump seized on the protests, warning Tehran against further repression and claiming the US would........