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,........

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