In the shadow of one of the world's most consequential waterways, the United States and Iran are engaged in a contest not merely over oil and sanctions, but over who history has wronged more deeply. Donald Trump, invoking the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, has countered Iran's demand for American compensation and sanctions relief with a demand of his own — that Tehran pay for decades of alleged attacks on American lives. With Oman quietly mediating and roughly a third of the world's seaborne oil hanging in the balance, what unfolds in the Strait of Hormuz may be less a negotiation than a reckon