President Donald Trump has imperiously waffled about on his reasons for aggressively attacking the sovereign country of Iran: for example, to support local protestors; for regime change; to knock out an Iranian nuclear program that he claimed he “obliterated” last year; to weaken Iran’s military, and especially its ballistic missile program. But in war, the enemy has a vote.

And the Iranians have voted by militarily threatening oil tankers and other maritime traffic moving through the narrow Strait of Hormuz and firing missiles and drones at Israel and Gulf Arab countries, including at their oil infrastructure. The president and his immediate advisers were apparently oblivious to these probable Iranian countermoves, but they were maybe the only people in the world who were. Also, the Yemeni Houthis, who attacked shipping around the entrance to the Red Sea in support of Hamas during the recent Israel-Gaza War, have now jumped into Trump’s war with Iran. If the Houthis make the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, which leads to the Red Sea and Suez Canal, dangerous for seaborne commercial traffic to traverse, Iran and its proxies will have debilitated two major maritime choke points.

After neglecting the notification of and consultation with U.S. allies about his pending attack on........

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