Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Situation Report, where John is still recovering from the earth-shattering news that Mohamed Salah, aka the Egyptian king, is leaving Liverpool FC at the end of the season. That said, we’ve got even bigger global developments to tackle in this week’s edition.
Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: Trump mulls options for escalating the Iran war, Israel pushes the war to the Caspian Sea, and Trump reschedules his visit to China.
Nearly a month into the U.S.-Israel-Iran war, U.S. President Donald Trump appears to be seeking an off-ramp as he continues to face economic and political fallout over Tehran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz. Though Trump has claimed the war is already won, he’s pushing for a deal to end the fighting, and on Thursday he postponed U.S. strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure until April 6 to allow time for negotiations. But he’s still maintaining military pressure on Iran with continued strikes on other targets and the deployment of thousands of additional troops to the region.
A number of congressional lawmakers, including Republicans, have emerged from war briefings over the past few days and intimated that U.S. ground troops could soon be involved in the fight. They’ve also lamented that they’re not getting enough information from the Trump administration on its plans.
Here’s what we know about the troops being sent, the operations they could potentially be involved in, and why the deployments are tied to Iran’s apparent skepticism over U.S. diplomatic outreach.
Thousands of troops en route. Roughly 7,000 additional U.S. troops have been ordered to the region in recent days, including around 2,000 soldiers from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and nearly 5,000 Marines.
Roughly 2,200 Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit—along with the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli and the amphibious landing dock USS New Orleans—are expected to arrive in the region on Friday as part of this new deployment.
Overall, around 50,000 U.S. troops are already taking part in Operation Epic Fury—the Trump administration’s nickname for the war.
Menu of possible targets. Kharg Island, through which 90 percent of Iran’s crude oil exports flow, is widely considered to be at the top of the list of prospective targets for a U.S. ground operation. Iran has reportedly been building up defenses in and around Kharg as it braces for a possible U.S. ground assault.
Following the strikes that Trump ordered on the tiny but strategically vital island on March 13, there’s a “real possibility” that Trump will authorize further action against Kharg, Neil Quilliam, an expert on energy policy and geopolitics at Chatham House, told SitRep. “Given that Iran will not capitulate and is in regime-survival mode, Trump may now feel compelled to seize the island, but that comes with major risks to not only U.S. forces stationed within striking range of missiles, drones, and mines, but also energy markets,” Quilliam said.
U.S. officials reportedly see seizing or blockading Kharg as one of several options to deliver a “final blow” to Iran if diplomacy fails. But Quilliam doubts that Kharg is “the right pressure point for the U.S. to find an off-ramp” in the war. “The Iranian leadership knows that Hormuz is one of its strongest leverage points over Trump and so will offer no concessions over it. Iran would rather lose Kharg Island and retain the ability to keep the strait effectively closed than enter negotiations over it,” Quilliam said.
A U.S. assault on Kharg might also lead the Houthis, Iran’s powerful ally in Yemen, to enter the war and strike vessels passing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea, another key shipping lane. The group this week signaled that it’s ready to join the war if needed.
Fred Fleitz, who served as chief of staff on the National Security Council during the first Trump administration, told SitRep that it would be a “really bad idea for the Houthis to get involved in this war, given the huge armada we have in the Arabian Sea.”
Trump could also use ground troops to try to secure Iran’s highly enriched uranium, though such an operation would also carry major risks for any troops involved. Other possible targets for a ground operation include Qeshm Island, where Iran reportedly has a stockpile of missiles underground, among other military assets. The Trump administration has also reportedly discussed invading and seizing other strategically important islands to Iran, including Larak and Abu Musa.
Diplomacy or deception? Washington was engaged in talks with Tehran both at the onset of last June’s 12-day war and when Operation Epic Fury began. For that reason, Iranian officials are reportedly concerned that Washington’s push for peace talks is a trick, particularly as more U.S. troops and military assets flow into the Middle East.
Fleitz said that Trump “always prefers diplomacy” but is “keeping his options open.”
“The president has indicated if the stress to the strait continues, that there will be devastating blows against Iran’s energy infrastructure,” Fleitz said, but “those are steps that Trump would prefer not to take.”
Trump named several tech executives and Silicon Valley bigwigs to his President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, AMD CEO Lisa Su, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. Also on the council is South Africa-born billionaire investor David Friedberg, who co-hosts the All-In podcast with Trump’s outgoing AI czar, David Sacks. Sacks and Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, will co-chair the council.
What should be high on your radar, if it isn’t already.
Caspian Sea strikes. Russia has warned against an Israeli expansion of the Iran war into the Caspian Sea, with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov saying on Tuesday that Moscow would view any spillover of the Iran conflict into the world’s largest inland water body “extremely negatively.” Peskov’s remarks come about a week after the Israeli military said it had struck several Iranian targets in the Caspian Sea, including missile ships and a port command center.
Iran and Russia are located on either side of the Caspian Sea and have long used it to transport weapons and other resources between them. Russian cooperation with Iran has been a two-way street, with Iranian Shahed drones serving as a key weapon in Russia’s war against Ukraine, and Russia reportedly assisting Iran with drone shipments of its own in addition to intelligence and technological support.
New Trump China dates. Trump announced in a Truth Social post on Wednesday that his planned trip to Beijing to visit Chinese President Xi Jinping—originally scheduled for this weekend but postponed due to the Iran war—will now take place on May 14 and 15. Trump also plans to host Xi in Washington later this year, he added.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian did not confirm those dates when asked on Thursday, only saying that the two countries “are in communication” about the visit.
“I think it will be hard to postpone the visit again,” Kurt Campbell, a former U.S. deputy secretary of state in the Biden administration who now heads The Asia Group think tank in Washington, D.C., told reporters including SitRep on Thursday. “At the same time, I think this betrays a reality that the president believes he’s going to be able to wrap things up in the conflict in Iran relatively quickly,” he added.
U.S. first lady Melania Trump walks with a humanoid robot as she arrives for the Fostering the Future Together Global Coalition Summit in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 25. Oliver Contreras/AFP via Getty Images
