Rishi Iyengar & John Haltiwanger
Foreign Policy / March 12, 2026
The Iran war is nearly two weeks old and has entered a period of immense uncertainty. The Trump administration’s conflicting justifications for the war, shifting objectives, and mixed messaging on the potential timeline have only injected more confusion into the situation—and left a lot of people questioning where this could all go. But the answer is that there is no clear answer right now.
Still, there are broader trends that have emerged since the fighting began that offer a window into the challenges the United States and its allies are facing—and help explain why it’s so difficult to predict what happens next.
Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz—the key shipping lane off the coast of Iran that separates the Persian Gulf from the Gulf of Oman—has emerged as the biggest battleground in the conflict’s second week. Iran is using the strait as a pressure point, preventing nearly all commercial ships from passing through and driving up global oil prices. “The lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must undoubtedly continue to be used,” Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, said on Thursday in his first public statement since taking power.
Multiple oil tankers in and near the waterway have reportedly been hit by “projectiles,” and reports from CNN and Reuters citing sources familiar with the matter say Iran has begun laying mines in the strait. Trump and U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have downplayed those concerns, however, with Trump saying on Wednesday that his administration didn’t “think so” when asked if Iran had planted mines and Bessent telling Sky News on Thursday that “we know that they have not mined the straits” because some Iranian-flagged tankers have transited safely.
U.S. Central Command said on Thursday that it has destroyed more than 30 Iranian mine-laying ships, but experts say that countering mines could be a challenge given that the U.S. military decommissioned all its minesweeper vessels in the Middle East last September.
The drone threat
But Iran has a “variety of capabilities” it can use against the strait in addition to mines, Gregory Brew, an Iran expert and senior analyst at Eurasia Group, told SitRep.
For instance, Iran can fire anti-ship ballistic missiles from the coast. While that capability may have been degraded by U.S. and Israeli strikes, Brew underscored that “we don’t fully know how many missiles they have, and they haven’t had need to use their anti-ship ballistic missiles yet because they’ve been firing ballistic missiles at onshore targets rather than against ships.”
But the “bigger risk is drones,” Brew said, which Iran has “in abundance” and are “easy to launch.” The current U.S. military assessment is that the strait still isn’t secure and “that there need to be more strikes against Iranian positions on the coast to improve security before escorts and convoys can be assembled to move the shipping through the strait,” Brew said, which means the strategically vital waterway is “going to be closed probably through the rest of this month if we don’t see rapid de-escalation.”
Missile math
The Trump administration’s ability to complete its objectives (such as they are) hinges largely on so-called missile math—whether the United States can end the war before running short of weapons and air defenses.
The U.S. military may already be compromising its posture in other parts of the world to keep the war effort going, with multiple reports this week indicating that the United States may be moving parts of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system out of South Korea to the Middle East. South Korea hosts one of eight U.S. THAAD batteries deployed around the globe, with another in Guam and five in Texas. Iranian missiles reportedly destroyed a THAAD battery in Jordan last week.
South Korean President Lee Jae-myung said on Tuesday that his government has “expressed opposition” to the THAAD removal, but he noted that the “undeniable reality” is that they can’t do anything about it. However, he denied that it will impact deterrence against North Korea—a message echoed by the Pentagon. Asked for comment on the THAAD movement, a Defense Department official said, “For operations security reasons we do not comment on the movement of specific military capabilities or assets,” but they added that “United States Forces Korea remains focused on maintaining a combat-credible force posture on the Korean Peninsula.”
Rishi Iyengar is a staff writer at Foreign Policy.
John Haltiwanger is a staff writer at Foreign Policy
