The Problem with Isolationism

The Iran War has served as a platform for isolationists to criticize U.S. interventions. But the criticism is off base.

Ruel Domi | June 26, 2026

Since its beginning, the Iran War has served as a platform for isolationists to criticize U.S. interventions and their attempts at state-building abroad.  What many isolationists miss is that projection of American might abroad, in places like Venezuela and Iran, is necessary to guarantee the stability of global commerce, deter belligerent actors, and enforce a rules-based order that is in the interest of the United States and its people.

Firstly, American prosperity is highly contingent on the stability of the global economy.  Such stability is directly dependent on the free passage of goods and services through chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz.  When such chokepoints are controlled by state sponsors of terrorism like Iran, American economic security is directly jeopardized.

Economic security means national security, which is why the Strait of Hormuz cannot be controlled by Iran, which on its end has friendly relations with America’s chief adversary in the world, the Chinese Communist Party.  An Iran-dominated Strait of Hormuz would significantly increase Chinese leverage over one of the world’s most important energy chokepoints.

A chokepoint of similar importance is the Bab el-Mandab Strait, in between Yemen and Eritrea.  An Iran-backed Islamist militia called the Houthis has disrupted shipping through the strait as a means of punishing the United States for the support of their adversary, Saudi Arabia.

That is why the United States has had to repeatedly conduct strikes against Houthi positions in Yemen, joined by Saudi Arabia, who has been fighting the Houthis for over a decade now, like how Israel has been fighting the terrorists of Hamas in Gaza.

Secondly, American power in the........

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