Who Is Winning the War in Iran?

What It Covers

NYT correspondent Eric Schmitt analyzes week three of the US-Israel war against Iran, where American forces have struck over 7,800 targets and rendered Iran's navy combat-ineffective, yet Iran continues disrupting global commerce through the Strait of Hormuz using mines, missiles, and speedboats, leaving Trump with no clean exit options.

Key Questions Answered

• •Asymmetric resilience via decentralized command: Iran operates a "mosaic defense" across 30 independent districts, each pre-assigned general attack instructions. Even after losing top leaders — including the intelligence chief and security chief Ali Larijani — local commanders execute operations autonomously. Eliminating central leadership does not halt Iran's capacity to wage sustained, distributed warfare.
• •Strait of Hormuz as economic leverage: Iran has struck nearly 20 tankers using three methods — thousands of pre-positioned sea mines, shore-launched cruise missiles, and IRGC speedboats carrying rocket-propelled grenades. Even a 1–2% residual threat is enough to deter commercial shipping insurers, effectively choking a waterway carrying a significant share of global oil and cargo traffic.
• •US minesweeping capability is critically underprepared: American naval assets for countering Iran's estimated 5,000–6,000 mines are antiquated, with key minesweeping vessels currently stationed in Asia rather than the Persian Gulf. The Pentagon had not pre-positioned international tanker escort coalitions, forcing the administration to play catch-up on a threat that military briefings had flagged well in advance.
• •Karj Island seizure carries compounding risks: One option under consideration involves US Marines conducting an amphibious landing on Iran's primary oil hub, through which 90% of Iranian oil flows. However, the operation requires transiting the contested Strait, offers no strategic surprise, and risks destroying the very infrastructure it aims to leverage — negating the entire economic pressure rationale.
• •Highly enriched uranium extraction is the riskiest endgame option: Isfahan's underground bunkers hold large quantities of enriched uranium in gaseous form. A commando extraction mission would require hundreds of troops to secure the perimeter, while specialists navigate tunnels where a pierced canister could release toxic, radioactive gas or trigger an inadvertent nuclear chain reaction — a scenario Trump has publicly acknowledged as a possibility.