Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Situation Report. We’re now 13 days into the Iran war, and Tehran increasingly appears to be setting the terms and tempo. We’ll be diving into that and more in this week’s edition.
Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: The Iran war shifts to the Strait of Hormuz, initial Pentagon findings suggest U.S. responsibility for a deadly school strike, and U.S. military operations continue in Latin America.
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.”
U.S. President Donald Trump named Erika Kirk to an important advisory board for the United States Air Force Academy. Her late husband, Charlie Kirk, a prominent right-wing activist who was shot and killed in Utah last year, was appointed to the board by Trump and sat on it until his death. The academy’s website says the board “inquires into the morale, discipline, curriculum, instruction, physical equipment, fiscal affairs, academic methods and other matters relating to the Academy which the Board decides to consider.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has barred some press photographers from attending Pentagon briefings after they published photos his staff deemed “unflattering,” the Washington Post reported.
The State Department is also preparing to permanently close its consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan—its closest diplomatic outpost to the volatile Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
What should be high on your radar, if it isn’t already.
U.S. role in Iran school strike. A preliminary Pentagon investigation into the Feb. 28 missile strike on an Iranian elementary school indicates that the U.S. military was responsible, the New York Times reported this week, citing unnamed U.S. officials and others familiar with the preliminary findings. The strike, which Iran has said killed more than 175 people, mostly children, was reportedly carried out on the basis of outdated targeting information.
Hegseth did not directly address the school attack in his most recent press briefing on Tuesday, but he did allege that Iran was firing “missiles from schools and hospitals” and cited intelligence indicating that Iranian forces were “moving rocket launchers into civilian neighborhoods near schools.”
More than 40 Democratic senators sent a letter to Hegseth on Wednesday demanding answers on the school attack, expressing “grave concern” and calling for the public release of any investigation findings.
Meanwhile, in the Western Hemisphere. The United States has continued to conduct lethal strikes on alleged drug boats near Latin America even amid the war with Iran. On Sunday, the U.S. military said it killed six men in the latest such strike, which occurred in the eastern Pacific.
The campaign targeting what the Trump administration has described as “narco-terrorists” began last September and was a precursor to the raid that resulted in the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. But the Trump administration has not totally shifted its attention away from the Western Hemisphere in the time since. On top of these ongoing strikes, the U.S. military also recently launched a joint operation with the Ecuadorian military targeting organized crime groups in the country.
Anthropic sues Pentagon. The U.S. Defense Department now also has a legal battle on its hands, after artificial intelligence company Anthropic filed a lawsuit on Monday against the Pentagon’s decision to declare it a supply chain risk, which would prevent companies working with the military from using Anthropic’s AI models or software. Anthropic slammed the decision as “unprecedented and unlawful” in its court filing.
“Seeking judicial review does not change our long-standing commitment to harnessing AI to protect our national security, but this is a necessary step to protect our business, our customers, and our partners,” a company spokesperson told SitRep. “We will continue to pursue every path toward resolution, including dialogue with the government.”
Several high-profile supporters are already publicly backing Anthropic in its fight against Hegseth and the Trump administration, with tech giant Microsoft filing an amicus brief in support of the lawsuit, as did a group of employees from rival companies Google and OpenAI and a group of former military officials including former CIA Director Michael Hayden.
Smoke rises from a building hit in a bombing in Beirut, Lebanon, as Israel continues its aerial and ground assault against Hezbollah, on March 11.Adri Salido/Getty Images
Monday, March 16: European Union energy ministers are scheduled to meet in Brussels.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer hosts Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney for a bilateral visit.
Wednesday, March 18: The International Maritime Organization convenes an extraordinary session on the situation in the Middle East.
Thursday, March 19: Trump hosts Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi at the White House.
$11.3 billion—the estimated price tag of the first week of the Iran war for the United States, based on what Pentagon officials reportedly told congressional lawmakers.
“We won. The first hour, it was over. … We don’t want to leave early, do we? We’ve got to finish the job.”
—Trump offering conflicting statements on the Iran war during a rally in Hebron, Kentucky, on Wednesday.
FBI agents are set to train with Ultimate Fighting Championship fighters this weekend. FBI Director Kash Patel said it’s a “tremendous opportunity for our FBI agents to learn and train with some of the greatest athletes,” adding that it would enable the law enforcement agency to “be even better prepared to protect the American people.”
