Two weeks into Operation Epic Fury, the Pentagon is counting targets. The Gulf is counting costs. And the coalition Trump needs to secure the Strait of Hormuz does not yet exist.
Also in this week’s Agenda: Gulf states are publicly aligned with Washington, privately furious at being drawn into a war they were never consulted on. In Baghdad, the political and military crises have converged; the Maliki nomination is dead, and Sudani is moving against Iran-backed militias. And on Capitol Hill, Democrats are lining up three phases of pressure on a war Congress never authorized.
Ghassan Taqi and Sakaina Abdallah contributed reporting to the Agenda this week.
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Iran Watch
Metrics and Reality
The Pentagon is touting progress. CENTCOM’s commander reports 2,000 targets hit, a 90 percent reduction in Iranian missile fire, and an Iranian Navy that is “pretty well underwater.” The metrics look impressive.
But the reality is more complicated.
Hormuz is effectively shut. Every major ally Washington called on to send warships, from Berlin to Tokyo to Canberra, has said no.
Iran’s new supreme leader has vowed to open new fronts. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claims it can sustain six more months of intense warfare.
Inside the White House, the planning horizon is longer than the public framing suggests. “We have to adapt to this situation,” a senior official told MBN. “CENTCOM requested intelligence support through September because we wanted to be ready for how the regime in Iran adapts.” On duration, the same official was direct: “No one wants war, but we have to think about what would happen if we leave suddenly now. It would be disastrous. The regime might think it got stronger.”
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On Capitol Hill, the debate is not over whether to stop the war. It is over who controls it and for how long.
Two war powers votes have already failed. But a congressional staffer on the Republican House Foreign Affairs Committee told MBN the political math could shift. “If anything moves toward ground troops, Republican opposition could start to evolve.”
“Democrats don’t have the votes to stop the Iran war,” the staffer added, “but they do have tools to slow it, spotlight it, and make Republicans own it. They are lining those tools up in three phases: War powers, the supplemental, and hearings.”
War powers votes are about pressure, not outcomes. The purpose, as the staffer described it, is not to win the vote but to force Republicans on the record repeatedly as supporting an undeclared war. That is what Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., meant when he said last week that the Senate would not continue with business as usual.
Supplemental aid is where real leverage begins. The Pentagon’s expected $50 billion funding request is the first opportunity for Congress to attach conditions to the war’s continuation. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he needs to know the goals and endgame before he can be satisfied. In the House, Freedom Caucus member Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said the request would be taken “under advisement,” legislative language for demands.
The gap between the Pentagon’s metrics and the situation on the ground is where Washington’s debate now lives.
Trapped Gulf
Gulf governments moved quickly to condemn Tehran after Iranian drones and missiles began striking targets across the region. The public message has been consistent: condemn the attacks, defend their territory, and call for de-escalation.
Privately, the tone is very different.
The Gulf Cooperation Council called the strikes “treacherous” and invoked Article 51 of the UN Charter. Five Gulf states signed a joint statement with Washington condemning Iran. Oman did not. Its foreign minister said only: “The door to diplomacy remains open.”
A former Kuwaiti diplomat told MBN that the frustration runs across the region. “If the United States wanted the full backing of its partners, the responsible move would have been simple,” he said. “Explain the motives and give allies advance notice before making the call to war. Acting first and informing partners later places them in a deeply dangerous position.”
That danger is no longer theoretical. Drone attacks have reached cities across the Gulf, including states that never opened their airspace or allowed their bases to be used in the initial strikes.
“When Washington now asks for support in securing the Strait of Hormuz, partners need more than a request,” the diplomat said. “They need clarity about the endgame. Strategy is the keyword here.” That strategy, he said, remains invisible. “Over the past two weeks, what we have seen from both sides looks more like tactics than strategy. Iran’s objective is straightforward: survival. What remains less clear is the strategic objective on the U.S. side.”
The economic damage is already visible. The UAE halted stock trading. QatarEnergy suspended LNG production. The Saudis’ Ras Tanura refinery has shut down. Hormuz has effectively stopped moving.
“Gulf states are not parties to this war,” the diplomat said. “Yet they are being drawn into it from both directions.”
For decades, hosting American bases was the price of security. That bargain is now being questioned by every Gulf capital.
Listen and Watch
New podcast: MBN Iran Briefing with Andres Ilves. Last week, he was joined by Editor in Chief Leila Bazzi and Editorial Chair Matthew Kaminski to unpack what is actually happening inside Iran: the economic collapse, the leadership vacuum after Khamenei’s killing, and how ordinary Iranians are living through a war they did not choose.
Watch it here
Quote of the Day
“It is not our war. We did not want this conflict, yet we are paying the price in our security and our economy.”
— Ebtesam al‑Ketbi, President of the Emirates Policy Center, Reuters, March 11, 2026
Diplomatic Signals
Photo: Reuters
President Trump said Sunday he expects many countries to send warships to help secure the Strait of Hormuz and that his administration is in contact with seven countries about assistance. “I’m demanding that these countries come in and protect their own territory,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One.
The response so far: No.
Germany, Spain, and Italy have ruled out participation. “What does Donald Trump expect a handful of European frigates to do in the Strait of Hormuz that the powerful U.S. Navy cannot do?” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said. His government’s spokesman went further, noting that Washington explicitly said at the start of the war that European help was unnecessary and unwanted. Britain and Denmark said they would study options but ruled out being drawn into the war. Japan and Australia said Monday they would not send warships.
The Gulf states, the primary victims of the closure, have said nothing publicly. A former Bahraini ambassador told MBN their position is deliberate. “We want Hormuz open, but any more intensified military action could be damaging to us and our security and economy,” he said. “We are trying to find a shield to this situation.”
The military reality compounds the diplomatic one. A former Royal Navy commander told Reuters that escorting three or four ships a day through the strait is feasible short-term using seven or eight destroyers, but sustaining that for months would require far more resources. Iran can produce roughly 10,000 drones a month. The Houthis, with a fraction of that capability, stopped Red Sea traffic for more than two years despite U.S. and European naval efforts.
The shipping lanes in the Strait are two miles wide. Iran controls one shore. The coalition Trump needs does not yet exist.
Baghdad Signals
Iraq’s Great Purge
Iraq’s political crisis and its military crisis have converged, and Baghdad is moving on both fronts simultaneously.
On the political side, the Shia Coordination Framework has decided to withdraw Nouri al-Maliki’s nomination for prime minister, clearing the path toward a government that Washington can work with.
On the security side, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s office has launched what sources describe as “Operation Strike the Factions,” targeting Iran-backed militias that have been attacking diplomatic missions and U.S. interests since the war began. The stated objective is direct: Weapons must be monopolized by the state.
A U.S. defense official told MBN that American forces have conducted strikes in Iraq since Operation Epic Fury began on Feb. 28, targeting armed groups loyal to Tehran that attacked U.S. bases. The strikes hit sites in Jurf al-Sakhr, al-Qaim, and Mosul. CENTCOM has not confirmed specific dates or locations.
The legal dimension is unprecedented. Iraq’s judiciary is initiating procedures to classify these factions under the country’s anti-terrorism law, the first time such a step has been taken against groups that have operated with political protection for years.
The economic pressure is also acute. MBN reporting shows that a sustained Hormuz closure would cause direct damage to Iraq’s food security, a vulnerability that gives Baghdad its own urgent reasons to want this war contained.
Iraq did not start this war. It may end up reshaping itself because of it.
Joe Kawly
Joe Kawly is Washington Bureau Chief for MBN and a global affairs journalist with more than twenty years covering U.S. foreign policy and Middle East politics.
A CNN Journalism Fellow and Georgetown University graduate, he reports from Washington at the intersection of power and diplomacy, explaining how decisions made in the U.S. capital shape events across the Arab world.
