Vice President Vance is in Pakistan for direct talks with Iran, but President Trump is still most definitely in charge.

While Vance was engaged in discussions (though Iran’s requirements for peace and the United States’s requirements for peace are astronomical units apart), President Trump announced on Truth Social that the Strait of Hormuz, which is one of the only leverage points that Iran has, would be opening back up as US Navy ships went through the strait and back.

And the Navy didn’t ask Iran’s permission to do it.

Several U.S. Navy ships crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, a U.S. official told Axios.

The move was not coordinated with Iran. It is the first time U.S. warships crossed the strait since the beginning of the war.

The operation was aimed at increasing confidence for commercial ships to cross, sources say. It came as peace talks between the two sides kicked off in Pakistan.

“This was an operation that focused on freedom of navigation through International waters,” the U.S. official said.

The official said the Navy ships crossed the strait from east to west to the Gulf, and then made their way back through the strait to the Arabian Sea.

The travel through the strait had to have been given the green light by President Trump.

“We’re now starting the process of clearing out the Strait of Hormuz as a favor to Countries all over the World, including China, Japan, South Korea, France, Germany, and many others,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

In the same post, he said that Iran was “losing big” and repeated a phrase that appeared to mock Islam.

“[T]heir longtime ‘Leaders’ are no longer with us, praise be to Allah! The only thing they have going is the threat that a ship may ‘bunk’ into one of their sea mines which, by the way, all 28 of their mine dropper boats are also lying at the bottom of the sea,” he wrote.

Reopening the Strait, which Iran has effectively blocked to tanker traffic since the beginning of the war, is a key U.S. demand in negotiations.

The Pentagon said in a statement that U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces “began setting conditions for clearing mines” in the Strait on Saturday. It added two warships, the USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. and USS Michael Murphy, transited the Strait of Hormuz as part of the operation.

“Today, we began the process of establishing a new passage and we will share this safe pathway with the maritime industry soon to encourage the free flow of commerce,” said Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of CENTCOM.

Iran reportedly flipped out and threatened to attack any ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz without their permission.

Tehran justified its threat to target the ships, saying the US was moving a destroyer toward Iran in a “possible cease-fire violation,” according to a report.

The fast-moving developments unfolded as US and Iranian officials met for negotiations Saturday in Pakistan.

Iranian officials reportedly warned Pakistani mediators that “if the vessel continues to move, it will be targeted within 30 minutes, and the Iranian-American negotiations will suffer,” a Foreign Ministry spokesperson told Khabar Network, according to Fars News Agency.

According to the official, Iranian armed forces immediately reacted to the armed destroyer that was moving from the port of Fujairah to the Strait of Hormuz.

No action was ultimately taken, and two US Navy guided-missile destroyers were able to pass through the channel.

“No issues were reported, and the move was described as a freedom-of-navigation mission,” the Wall Street Journal reported, adding the vessels were not escorting commercial ships.

This move by the Navy comes after Iran claimed that they couldn’t find all the mines that they laid in the Strait of Hormuz, so the strait couldn’t be fully and safely reopened. So, CENTCOM announced that they would be clearing the mines themselves, and this jaunt through the strait was part of that mission. Was this a power flex by President Trump in the middle of negotiations? Obviously. Can Iran do anything to stop us? Possibly, but it seems President Trump is willing to take the risk to prove the point. Iran has, or very shortly will, lose control of the Strait of Hormuz. To learn that right as negotiations were beginning in Pakistan has to be a giant blow to their ego, as well as their bargaining position.

This also comes of the heels of confirmation that yes, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, the nepo baby of supreme leaders, is unable to go in front of the cameras right now. Missing a leg and chunks of your face will do that.

Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is badly disfigured and has lost a leg, three people close to his inner circle told Reuters.

Khamenei, 56, was severely wounded in the Feb. 28 airstrike that killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on the first day of the war.

These mark the first detailed accounts to emerge about his condition in the six weeks since.

The younger Khamenei — who’s rumored to be gay and impotent — looks so bad that he’s only taking meetings on the phone, according to sources.

He is also believed to have lost a leg, a source familiar with US intelligence said, while recovering from the devastating attack on his father’s compound in central Tehran that also wiped dozens of top regime military leaders.

There have been no official statements from the regime on the extent of Khamenei’s injuries, but a newsreader on state television recently described him as a “janbaz,” a term used for disabled war veterans.

Mojtaba may have the title of supreme leader, but the IRGC is clearly in control of the country right now, and despite Iran’s rules about hereditary power, the IRGC picked the guy they could control. Whether that is because he was badly injured in the initial strike, or he was always weak and easily controlled, we might not know for a while.

But between the acknowledgment that Mojtaba is badly maimed, and that Trump just sent the Navy through the Strait of Hormuz to make sure the mines are getting cleared, Iran is not negotiating from a position of power. And now they know that we know that, too.

Featured image: official White House photo by Daniel Torok from June 21, 2025, cropped, public domain