No matter what Washington's policy on Iran is, the war continues. The Vice President, JD Vance, was standing at the White House podium on Thursday, and would not for the second time this year describe what is unfolding between the United States and Iran as a war even as missiles and drones had targeted a U.S. military base in Kuwait just two days before, and American forces had conducted approximately 100 strikes on Iranian targets in response.

When asked by reporters if it was a war, Vance did not say as he insists there was no active shooting but admits there were flare-ups in various areas. When he was pressed on the question of when Iranians would cease firing on commercial ships, he answered straight out: "I don't know.

That's more important than the meaning of the term "war. The fighting has now been going on for seven months, when the midterm election season is nearing its end and this week's round of strikes comes after a period of relative calm that lacked a diplomatic channel between Washington and Tehran. Weeks earlier, an Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran had nothing to play for in negotiations once an earlier memorandum's negotiating window had closed, suggesting the discussions were already dead even before this week's incident. Vance's insistence that it's not a "war," but a "conflict" is a less fact and more politics gesture to try to control what the White House is doing, which it hasn't been able to.

The stakes of the wording battle make it clear why this dispute occurs. The war has been a drag on the approval ratings of President Trump and has been driving up gas prices, adding additional strain to Republican candidates seeking to maintain the thin margins they have in Congress in November.

According to AAA data, pump prices in the U.S. rose from about $2.94 a gallon a month ago to $3.59 a gallon this week, and briefly reached over $100 per barrel for the first time since the pandemic, but then pulled back. Polling data indicates the extra expense is chalked up to one of the primary concerns of voters prior to election cycles, while Trump has said the increased cost "is a very small price to pay. As gas prices keep climbing, Senate Majority Leader John Thune has admitted they're a measure everyone cares about and hopes operations against Iran can be completed before shipping lanes remain locked down for an extended period something that was hardly helped by Thursday's renewed strikes.

The Strait of Hormuz is at the heart of this economic worry and there is a reason for this. The strait is used by approximately 18 million to 20 million barrels of crude and refined products each day, in normal times, about 20 percent of the world's seaborne oil trade, most of which goes to Asian markets, according to energy economists. But American consumers are not spared that disruption just because they import relatively little oil from the blockaded route. In fact, higher demand from abroad, particularly by crude importers such as Japan and China, which have no domestic production, has been driving up prices even for domestic buyers and as the tankers repave behind the strait, so have rates. The closure also has repercussions in Europe and Asia's energy markets, where Qatar supplies about one-fifth of the world's liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Vance made an attempt to make this a success story instead of an eyesore. He said Tehran had essentially lost control of the waterway and that the current flow of traffic was a dramatic recovery from the virtual shutdown of three months ago, thanks to America's naval escorts. That will be put to the test in the coming weeks as tanker tracking data trickles in and this week's barrage of missiles and drones indicates Iran still has the capacity and will to target shipping and American objects when they consider the time is right. Investigators also are probing a strike on a wedding ceremony that killed five people in southern Iran, a claim Vance warned everyone should take with a grain of salt as it threatens to muddy the administration's narrative of a surgical, contained operation.

Beneath the podium theatre is a more fundamental question about the structure of the fight: can there be a conflict that doesn't have an agreed endpoint, a negotiating table, or even an agreed name that lasts an election cycle without taking a toll on the party in power? The Pentagon has deployed almost two dozen warships to the area in a blockade posture, mobilized troops from Europe and the Indo-Pacific to make up the shortfall and deployed longer-term, and pushed out personnel whose war visits were otherwise scheduled in Europe and the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. continues to have over 50,000 soldiers stationed in the Middle East, with officials claiming the mission has been limited.

Thursday's briefing leaves one not with clarity, but with a holding pattern, yet it looks like a resolution. The label of a war allows the administration to dodge the political and legal stigma of that word, but it doesn't change anything for shippers, refiners or voters fuel prices are still going up; the whole area is still armed for war; and neither side has shown shippers a viable path back to the table. The world markets, which are observing Tokyo and Beijing racing for sources of other crude supplies while Gulf producers are eyeing the Red Sea as a possible alternative, are treating it as exactly Vance doesn't want to call it. How well Washington is able to navigate that rhetorical tightrope throughout November may be more important than any words he speaks from behind the podium.