Foreign Policy > Iran War

Although President Trump is doing his best to avoid a “boots on the ground” war, it may be inevitable—but it’s also eminently winnable.

Allan J. Feifer | April 24, 2026

We’ve now had some time to see the early results of President Trump’s order imposing a U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports as a reaction to Iran’s restricting free passage through the Strait of Hormuz. By disrupting a vital chokepoint in global energy flows, the move imposes near-term economic pain on Tehran and forces third-party states and commercial shippers to decide how to respond.

Strategically, that is classic jujitsu—turning an opponent’s refusal to negotiate into a pressure point that can be used to extract concessions or reshape bargaining positions—while simultaneously creating a new set of bargaining chips (insurance costs, rerouted supply chains, and diplomatic alignments) that can be traded in follow-on talks.

Blockading the Strait is both a gamble and a strategic move. Iran is attempting to regain the leverage it lost. However, Trump is a quick study and unlikely to repeat the same mistake. My guess is that, despite Trump’s current statements to the contrary, what’s next is a return to kinetic action. In the final analysis, the parable about the scorpion and the turtle (Persian version) is highly relevant. Here’s how to understand what’s transpiring:

Trying to reform a bully by reasoning with them rarely works; a punch in the nose is often more decisive! The Hard Math of war is brutally simple and impossible to overcome with the latest wizbang tactic or promises of victory from above. In the final analysis, five tenets dominate my thinking:

Religiously dedicated foes like the Iranians believe they have Allah on their side as much as we think we have God on ours. Best estimates are that only 20% of Iranians back the Mullahs, but that’s still a lot of believers.

Iranian tactics and will can, at least temporarily, overcome superior (American/Israeli) forces where the good guys value life over everything, and the bad guys don’t mind martyring themselves.

Historically, major conflicts have not been won without putting boots on the ground. Air warfare can’t hold ground or accomplish essential tactical or strategic objectives.

America today requires wars to be bloodless, on a schedule, and not to inconvenience the average man. Iran presses that pressure point hard.

Wars require the support of the American people. However, the American people are circumspect and jaded today, and continually restrained by feckless politicians who run away from hard decisions.

Every one of these bullets above is known to both sides.

In the 40 days between the war’s beginning—a fight that, amazingly, compressed years of kinetic warfare into just a few weeks—and the current ceasefire. So far, although America and Israel have not reacted, Iran was lying when it accepted the ceasefire terms and, clearly, based on subsequent behavior, had no intention of opening the Strait to free passage. What’s next?

Hard Math is my euphemism for the likely necessity of putting boots on the ground to accomplish one of two major objectives (opening the straits) that cannot be achieved through other means. Waging war successfully requires setting aside normal civilian thinking:

Civilians think that destroying infrastructure (roads and bridges, electrical grids, water projects, etc.) is always morally wrong.

Civilians believe (helped by Hollywood movies) that special forces can substitute for holding ground with grunts and guts.

Civilians believe that modern wars can and should be fought without the “good guys” causing civilian deaths. If the “good guys” kill civilians, they’re no longer good.

Civilians believe that it’s wrong to use violent means to shorten the war, such as mines, napalm, cluster munitions, and any other tactic or weapon that breaks the enemy’s will to continue in the shortest time frame.

All these ideas are wrong.

Notably, the Iranians almost exclusively attack infrastructure and noncombatants. When one side fights dirty and the other fights according to Marcus of Queensberry Rules, we lose. War is hell; it can’t be civilized, it can only be shortened. Moreover, when it comes to destroying infrastructure, modern warfare accepts that it can be destroyed if the destruction serves a military objective.

To ensure a regular world economic order, we can’t leave this fight without opening the Strait of Hormuz and putting the nuclear genie back in the bottle. Iran has obstructed shipping in the Strait some 8-10 times over the last 45 years, demanding we recognize their sovereignty over the same. This needs to stop, not just because of Iran, but for global reasons.

There are more than ten other chokepoints around the world. If the world allowed Iran to claim the international waters of the Strait of Hormuz as theirs, other countries would feel emboldened to do the same, destroying the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and other international norms that have stood for centuries.

For Iran, though, as Trump understands, the Strait is a double-edged sword. Iran’s economy is wholly dependent on its ability to ship oil. Unknown to most Americans, Iran has, until recently, been allowed to continue shipping oil (about 1 million barrels a day) to China. China is rushing to resupply Iran with air defense weapons and is providing targeting information on our military disposition and ship locations to Iran. Blockading Iran is doing the unexpected, breaking norms and conventions, thereby throwing Iran off balance.

To regain safe passage in the Strait, it may not be enough just to impose a counter-blockade. Instead, the Hard Math says that it would be necessary to push the Iranians back fifty miles from the immediate coastal belt around the Strait to ensure Freedom of Navigation. Here’s how we could do it:

Combine overwhelming control of the air and maritime domains with persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance denying Iran the ability to mass or resupply forward units; precision strikes and long-range fires to degrade coastal missile, radar, and command nodes; maritime interdiction and convoy protection to reopen and secure shipping lanes; cyber and electronic operations to disrupt Iranian command-and-control and logistics; and coordinated land and littoral forces to seize and hold key islands, ports, and staging areas.

Assuming the mission is expeditionary in nature, a plausible planning estimate would be ~10,000–30,000 ground combat troops (primarily Marine/light infantry and SOF units), with a full deployed footprint of roughly 25,000–50,000 personnel. This is well within our capabilities to muster quickly, if not already in place.

The Hard Math of our national interests requires that the Strait of Hormuz be open to all countries; a classic Freedom of Navigation tenet. Iran put the world in this bind, no one else. Unfortunately, it’s been left primarily to the U.S. to step in and open the Strait to a world thirsty for oil, a world that China and Russia are presently testing.

That’s the predicament we are in. We can do it, but more lives will be lost, as all wars unfortunately require. I ask that we act with our eyes wide open and do what we must with the vigor, strength, tenacity, and will required, returning to a more peaceful time, at least until the next clarion call to face down evil again. That’s how we save the greatest number of American lives while supporting a stable world order.

Every negotiation requires good faith by all parties. We have been sitting alone at that table for 47 years with Iran. Have we learned our lesson yet?

Image created using AI.

Author, Businessman, Thinker, and Strategist. Read more about Allan, his background, and his ideas to create a better tomorrow. Read additional great writers here.

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