UN Warns of “Catastrophe” as Allies Refuse to Help Reopen Hormuz
The escalation drew alarm and division across the world’s capitals. The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, warned of “catastrophic consequences” for the global economy and the region, and urged an immediate return to talks. Crucially, China and several European members of NATO have rebuffed President Trump’s calls for help to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by force, wary of being drawn into a widening war. The one surviving thread of diplomacy is the Omani channel, where Iran’s foreign minister met his counterpart on Saturday.
The refusal of allies to join a military reopening of the strait is the most consequential diplomatic fact of the day, because it leaves the United States to enforce freedom of navigation largely alone, and signals how little appetite there is — in Beijing, which buys much of Iran’s oil, and in a Europe already stretched by Ukraine — for another Middle Eastern war. Guterres’s warning is not rhetorical: a sustained Hormuz closure would ripple through energy prices, inflation and growth worldwide, hitting import-dependent economies hardest. The Omani track is the thin reed the optimists point to, but it now looks slight against a night of strikes across five countries. The danger is that with diplomacy stalled and allies on the sidelines, the two protagonists are left to test each other’s resolve directly. Watch for any Security Council session, whether China leans on Tehran privately, and whether the Oman channel survives the escalation.