Middle East and North Africa

We’ve lifted the paywall. Foreign Policy’s coverage of the Iran war is free to read for a limited time.

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.

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........

© Foreign Policy