Nearing a Fork in the Road on Iran (April 2, 2026)

Welcome to Home & Away. I know I promised I would do my best not to produce a newsletter during the holidays, but events intervened (as they tend to do). I will do my best to keep it short.

The president gave a primetime address last night. Normally, when presidents do such a thing, they intend to make a major announcement. I thought it was 70% likely that Trump would declare victory (in the process, misrepresenting or exaggerating what had been accomplished) and lay out an exit strategy. I gave it around a 30% chance that he would escalate, either by undertaking a mission to pressure Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz (perhaps by seizing one or more islands) or by attempting to take possession of and extract Iran’s known enriched uranium. Both, inevitably, involve boots on the ground.

What I didn’t foresee was that he would do neither. I posted on X that I found it totally mystifying that Trump would ask for twenty minutes in primetime to deliver a nothingburger (it being the first night of Passover, served up on matzah rather than a bun), a speech that changed little if anything. All I can surmise is that he doesn’t like either escalating (and being attacked for getting the country bogged down in a costly quagmire) or withdrawing (and being attacked for not finishing the job). So, he punted. Or, as Yogi might have said, the president reached a fork in the road and took it.

It is unclear what Trump and those around him thought the speech would accomplish. A version of it should have accompanied the initial decision to go to war. But the speech that was delivered after a month of conflict is unlikely to persuade Americans, steady markets, reassure allies, or pressure Iran.

All of which is to say, the president will have to circle back sometime this month on his policy choices, as there is scant reason to believe that a few more weeks of attacking a dwindling number of Iranian military targets will accomplish much.

I continue to think the least bad option for dealing with the nuclear issue is through negotiations of the sort that we have had with Iran over the years. Such a negotiation would produce an open-ended agreement arranging for the enriched uranium to leave Iran, setting a ceiling on permissible nuclear activities, and establishing an intrusive inspection regime, all in exchange for Iran not being attacked and an easing of U.S. sanctions. Failing that, we are looking at a situation in which the United States and Israel communicate red lines to Iran and attack nuclear-related sites in Iran if those red lines are crossed.

Strait Talk

As for the Strait, last night’s speech was consistent with recent messaging, namely what I have described as the Trump Doctrine of “We broke it, you own it.” Here is how the president put it:

“The United States imports almost no oil through the Hormuz Strait and won’t be taking any in the future. We don’t need it. We haven’t needed it, and we don’t need it…the countries of the world that do receive oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage. They must cherish it. They must grab it and cherish it. They could do it easily. We will be helpful, but they should take the lead in protecting the oil that they so desperately depend on…Go to the Strait and just take it, protect it, use it for yourselves. Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is done, so it should be easy.”

Curiously, Trump went on to say, “When this conflict is over, the Strait will open up naturally.” That can hardly be taken for granted. Reopening the Strait to all could well require military pressure on Iran (I have suggested a blockade in the Gulf of Oman), pressure from China and other friends of Iran dependent on its oil, and/or the creation of a new Strait of Hormuz governing authority. Under such an arrangement, Iran, regional states, and major importers would agree to an oversight mechanism and a fee structure for transit. Allies in Europe and Asia would be well-advised not only to support such efforts, but to take part in them.

Unswayed

It was a rough week for NATO. The president didn’t have much to say about allies last night, but he said a great deal in an interview with The Telegraph. Trump, angry that Europeans have not sided with, much less joined, his effort against Iran, declared that he was “never swayed by NATO,” described NATO as a “paper tiger,” and stated that removing the United States from the alliance was “beyond reconsideration.”

Just to be clear, the war with Iran falls well outside the NATO Treaty area. It didn’t help that the United States went to war with little or no consultation with its allies. All that said, no president can unilaterally pull the United States out of NATO, as only Congress can undo something passed into law by Congress. But Trump can do a great deal short of that, and he already has. The result is that the most successful alliance in history, one in no small part responsible for keeping the Cold War cold, has been reduced to a shell of its former self.

A strong case can be made that Europe needs to take on a larger role in its own defense, but the transition from a U.S.-dominated NATO to a European-dominated NATO is the sort of shift that should have taken place in a cooperative manner over a decade or even longer. The danger today is that Europe isn’t ready to assume a much larger security role in the short term. The best thing going for NATO is that Russia is tied down in Ukraine, and that Russian forces have been shown to be less than capable. But that is a slender reed on which to base European stability.

Cuba Not So Libre

I want to say something about Cuba. The Trump administration has Cuba in its sights, seeing an opportunity to help undo the revolutionary regime that has run the country (and run it into the ground) over the past nearly seventy years. So, what does it do? The Trump administration allowed a Russian tanker filled with oil to reach Cuba, providing it with much-needed energy at a moment when its economy was near collapse.

This is all baffling. Why relieve pressure and not get something for it? It echoes allowing Iran to sell $14 billion of oil condition-free last month… Not to mention easing Russian sanctions without getting Moscow to back off helping Iran or attacking Ukraine. Where is the art of the deal when we need it?

Birthright and Wrong

Oral arguments were held yesterday on the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict birthright citizenship at the Supreme Court. Even Donald Trump showed up to listen, or at least to be seen to highlight his support for diluting the Fourteenth Amendment.

I won’t get into the details of the case (here is a link to SCOTUS blog if you are interested), but I do want to highlight one exchange between Solicitor General John Sauer and Chief Justice John Roberts. Sauer tried to argue that birth tourism was a big threat, that we are in a new world, and that the provision in the Constitution protecting birthright citizenship was obsolete. The Chief Justice put him in his place. “Well, it’s a new world. It’s the same Constitution.” Score one for true conservatism.

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Richard Haass in the news

Monday, March 30: Squawk on the Street on Energy Prices, Iran.

Thursday, April 2: MS NOW on Trump Iran Speech.