Iran isn't "bypassing" anyone in a way that matters. They're talking to Oman about coordinates for a temporary shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz — inbound traffic more through Iranian waters, outbound involving Omani ones — and those talks are in the final stages. That's real. What isn't real is the fantasy that this somehow renders the United States irrelevant or proves "no countries will ever trust Trump's USA". Iran itself keeps saying the Oman deal does not reopen the strait. Full reopening is explicitly conditioned on the U.S. lifting the naval blockade, ending sanctions, releasing frozen assets, paying compensation for war damage, stopping threats, and more. Iranian officials (Araqchi, Zolqadr, Baghaei) have repeated this for days. Messages are still being exchanged with Washington through intermediaries; Tehran just refuses direct talks while claiming the U.S. breached the June MoU. That's not bold independence. That's a country that shut the world's most important oil chokepoint and now needs the other side to blink on the conditions that actually matter. The idea that Iran will casually roll this out to the rest of the GCC and the EU as some post-American order is cope. GCC states live next to the same waterway and have their own oil exports and security concerns. Europe needs the energy flows. None of them are lining up to underwrite Iranian control of Hormuz while Tehran holds the strait closed as leverage. The actual leverage still runs through Washington because the U.S. is the one enforcing the blockade and sanctions that Iran wants lifted. "No countries will ever trust Trump's USA" is pure cope. Countries deal with the United States under whatever administration is in power because the alternative is worse for their own interests. Iran talking to Oman about lane coordinates while demanding a long list of American concessions is not proof of American isolation. It's proof that even after months of conflict, Tehran still has to negotiate the terms of reopening the waterway it closed.
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