The realities of mine clearance close to Iran’s shores underline again that getting traffic flowing in the Strait requires a permanent end to the broader military conflict in the region. 6/6

Regular traffic in Strait unlikely to resume until comprehensive mine clearance effort takes place. But US & allies (who still have a lot of mine clearance capability, btw) probably unlikely to undertake such efforts if other Iranian threats to Strait (missiles, drones, boats) persist. 5/6

Even with minefield maps, the 1991 effort took almost 2 months and lots of help from allies—though hard to know how to compare to Iranian campaign without knowing how many mines Iran has laid. Iraqis laid about 1200. 4/6

Alarmingly, according to NYT Iran is now not sure where all the mines are, and some may have drifted. This will make mine clearance much harder as compared to, say, the 1991 effort to clear mines off the Iraqi coast, when the defeated Iraqis provided minefield maps. 3/6

Iran now confirmed to have used small boats to mine the Strait. When the war started I wrote about how Iran might be able to pull off such an operation in @foreignaffairs.com, and how difficult it would be to counter, especially if Iran had disbursed its mines prior to the war. 2/6 t.co/8kiVQWpC8l

It is stunning that the US apparently did not take Iran’s threats to close the Strait seriously, nor does the campaign seem to have recognized the specific military importance of mines as a tool for asymmetric Iranian leverage. Quick thread 1/ www.nytimes.com/2026/04/10/u...

The trope is that the US achieves its military objectives but fails to translate them into strategic success. In this war even the first part isn't true. www.wsj.com/world/middle...

First rule of TACO is don't talk about TACO. The President has found a way to climb down from a disastrously ill-conceived war that was not achieving U.S. objectives. Let him.

I am all in favor of this de-escalation. But if Iran gets even some of what it is asking for in its peace plan, it will clearly end this war in a stronger position than it was in beforehand.

How Trump Took the U.S. to War With Iran

"The war-planning group had been kept so tight that the two key officials who would need to manage the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, were excluded."
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/u...

Yes, a lunatic controlling nuclear weapons would be very scary.

US Deploys Bulk of Stealthy Long-Range Missile for Iran War The next steps in the US military campaign against Iran will commit nearly its entire inventory of stealthy JASSM-ER cruise missiles, drawing them from stockpiles devoted to other regions.

The Iran War has gobbled up a breathtaking amount of U.S. military capability vital for deterring a Chinese attack on Taiwan. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Inside Trump's Search for a Way Out of the Iran War Facing political backlash, global economic shock, and the looming midterms, the President still doesn't want to get out of Iran without declaring victory.

The core issue: "Trump told them he wants to wind down the campaign, wary of a protracted conflict. At the same time, he wants the operation to be a decisive success." We get to pick one, at best. time.com/article/2026...

This is a really important point. I would argue that Hegseth's impact on actual defense strategy and policy is going to be minimal. But his impact on the military as an institution, and on civil-military relations, is already profound and negative.

Control Over Strait of Hormuz Will Determine Who Wins the War Iran is seeking permanent leverage over the Middle East with new rules for the strategic waterway.

The administration does not seem to grasp that the Strait of Hormuz is the center of gravity in this war. www.wsj.com/world/middle...

Hegseth Fires Army Chief Amid Battle With Its Leaders

Firing senior officers for cause is one thing. Firing them repeatedly on this scale and with no explanation is unprecedented in our nation's history.
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/02/u...

Exclusive: US intelligence assesses Iran maintains significant missile launching capability, sources say | CNN Politics Roughly half of Iran’s missile launchers are still intact and thousands of one-way attack drones remain in Iran’s arsenal despite the daily pounding by US and Israeli strikes against military targets ...

This is why the Strait is not open & won't be any time soon. Not only does Iran retain significant ballistic missiles, drones, mines & small boats, but US campaign has not prioritized destroying Iran's anti-ship cruise missiles--a threat well known prior to the war.
www.cnn.com/2026/04/02/p...

European Allies Should Clear the Strait of Hormuz In his ongoing frustration with the war against Iran, US President Donald Trump continues to lash out at America’s European allies. He called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization a “paper tiger,” an...

There is a lot I like in this analysis, but it seems to radically underestimate scale of forces that would be required for effective escort operations during an ongoing war. A handful of destroyers and some patrol aircraft won't do it.
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Iran's islands help, but Iran can also threaten traffic from all along its coast and areas well inland, which is one reason seizing islands in the Strait isn't an especially attractive military option. 2/2

The Islands That Give Iran a Stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz The importance of islands such as Kharg, Qeshm and Abu Musa is becoming increasingly apparent as Iran causes an economic crisis by blocking most oil tankers from the strait.

Useful discussion & imagery of Iranian islands in the Gulf-- but I would push back on the notion that it is these islands that give Iran a stranglehold on the Gulf. 1/2
www.wsj.com/world/middle...

Tehran’s ‘toll booth’ system is now controlling Hormuz traffic Iran’s IRGC has imposed a de facto ‘toll booth’ regime in the Strait of Hormuz, requiring vessels to submit full documentation, obtain clearance codes and accept IRGC-escorted passage through a single controlled corridor

"In total 142 vessels have transited since the start of the month, but 67% of that traffic has a direct affiliation with Iran. This figure rises to 90% when looking at traffic in recent days." www.lloydslist.com/LL1156720/Te...

Saudi Arabia bridles at Donald Trump’s way of waging war Nearly five weeks after US and Israel attacked Iran, Washington’s Gulf ally frets about the damage

"Saudi Arabia at first saw benefits in the Islamic regime being weakened. But Riyadh now fears that Trump will declare victory and withdraw, leaving the Gulf to deal with a wounded but more hawkish, militaristic regime in Tehran able to continue threatening its neighbours" www.ft.com/content/dcbd...

Yes, US legitimation of a number of terrible things Russia has done is going to be one of the long-term negative legacies of this war.

Problem here is that US countervalue targeting will cause Iran to retaliate against similar targets in the Gulf, wreaking further devastation on U.S. allies and spiking oil and gas prices much more massively and permanently. Not an off-ramp. 6/6

Trump also threatens that if Iran doesn’t make a deal “we’re going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously. We have not hit their oil…. But we could hit it and it would be gone.” 5/

Trump does threaten that over next 2-3 weeks “we’re going to bring them back to the stone ages,” suggesting further strikes against countervalue, i.e., non-military, targets. 4/

No threat to send in ground forces to take HEU. Says nuclear sites are under intense surveillance and “if we see them make a move for it we’ll hit them with missiles very hard again.” Nothing new there, US was already watching those sites before war and had strike options. 3/

No threat to militarily re-open Strait of Hormuz—says that is a problem for others to deal with. 2/

Trump speech is implicit recognition that Iran war is not going well & US options for escalating its way out are bad. 1/

Additional objectives achieved in this war:

-Iran running a toll booth in the Strait

-Iran retaining HEU & more motivated to build a bomb

-Iran regularly launching missiles and drones

-Iranian hardliners elevated and empowered