The war on Iran is in its fourth week. Here’s what to know
Three full weeks of the war the US and Israel launched against Iran have shocked the world oil market, pierced a sense of safety in parts of the Middle East, and claimed the lives of US service members and civilians in multiple countries.
Most recently, the Trump administration asked for, and then said it didn’t need, outside help securing a key shipping lane threatened by Iran — and then called NATO allies “cowards” for not helping clean up the mess. Israel said it killed more top Iranian leaders, and both Israel and the US started attacking Iran’s oil infrastructure. A top US intelligence official resigned in protest over the war, thousands more US sailors and Marines are headed to the Middle East, but, despite the destruction of most of its military, Iran’s regime remains intact.
Get up to speed on the war as it enters its fourth week:
Trump wants to wrap things up in Iran; the Israelis have other ideas
There are the beginnings of some disagreement between the allies. President Donald Trump has suggested he wants to wrap up the war soon, although he has been noncommittal on a timeline.
“It will soon be over,” Trump told reporters Thursday at the White House.
The Israelis have previously said they want to keep striking thousands of targets in Iran over the course of another three weeks or more, and on Saturday vowed to “increase significantly” the number of strikes in the coming week. Separately, Israel is trying to expel Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters from its northern border with Lebanon. The US has not been dragged into that conflict, but more than a million people in Lebanon have been displaced.
CNN spoke this week with former US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro for his analysis of what the US wants versus what Israel wants from the war. Read that here.
The Middle East’s energy infrastructure is a new front in the war
The US and Israel began striking at Iranian oil and natural gas production facilities in the third week of the air campaign, including Israel’s strike on South Pars, the world’s largest liquefied natural gas field, which Iran shares with Qatar. Iran responded by striking at energy production in other countries in the Middle East, including Qatar. Read more.
On Thursday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that “unsanctioning” some Iranian oil is one of the many ways the US could go about addressing the oil pinch in the coming days.
Things are getting $200 billion more expensive for US taxpayers
While the Pentagon and the White House controversially did not inform Congress before the war, the administration needs Congress to pay for it. The administration is set to request an additional $200 billion in taxpayer money to fund the war, although it did not offer specifics on how the money would be spent. The request came as the US national debt exceeded $39 trillion.
“It takes money to kill bad guys,” Hegseth said at a Pentagon press briefing Thursday.
Related: Why doesn’t Congress declare war any more?
The US and Israel say they have already largely destroyed Iran’s missile capabilities, its air force and its navy
The US and Israel launched the war to destroy Iran’s military capabilities and, for the second time in a year, destroy its nuclear program.
Iran is a massive country — about the size of Alaska — and has more than 90 million residents.
The US claims to have struck more than 7,800 targets, flown more than 6,500 combat flights and damaged or sunk more than 100 ships, including the first sinking of a ship by US torpedo since World War II.
US Central Command has deployed a large portion of the entire alphabet of the American arsenal, including B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers, and F-15, F-16, F-18, F-22 and F-35 fighter jets. It has not one, but two US Navy carrier strike groups in the region. It has employed a “bunker-buster” 5,000-pound bomb and also relied heavily on lower cost drones.
Israel continues to assassinate Iranian leaders
In the opening moments of the war, Israeli strikes killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei. Multiple other ranking officials were killed.
Since then, Israel has continued to target and kill remaining senior Iranian regime leaders, including key defense and intelligence figures such as Ali Larijani, the longtime public face of the regime, and Esmaeil Khatib, the intelligence minister.
And yet Iran’s government continues to survive
A multi-layered matrix rather than a top-down organization, Iran continues to show organization and a willingness to fight, a fact that suggests there will ultimately need to be a political rather than a military solution to this war.
The US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said Wednesday that the regime “appears to be intact but largely degraded.”
The Ayatollah’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, is said to have been appointed by Iran’s 88-member Assembly of Experts to take over the country after the killing of much of his family in airstrikes, though he may have sustained injuries, including a fractured foot, and has not been seen in public since the war began. He still has not appeared in person or on video since the war began, but issued a new statement Friday.
Iran’s war strategy is to threaten the world oil supply
The country sits on a strategic choke point between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Some 20% of the world’s oil travels through this waterway, the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran has attacked some oil tankers and threatened those that would pass without its position. The US either misunderstood or miscalculated Iran’s willingness to threaten the worldwide market.
It’s a larger shock to the world energy system than the 1973 oil embargo, when oil producing countries stopped selling to the United States over US military support for Israel after the Arab-Israeli war.
Today the US has become the world’s largest oil producer and its economy is less dependent on foreign sources, but the oil market is a worldwide thing.
The US began targeting Iranian oil production facilities with military strikes in the third week of the war.
The price of oil has skyrocketed
Oil has shot past $100 per barrel and is frequently above $115 per barrel. Skyrocketing gas prices, which Trump used to brag about lowering, have made Americans feel the pinch. Somewhat surprisingly given the shock oil prices have placed on the economy, Trump said Thursday he was surprised oil prices haven’t gone up more.
Iran has also attacked most of its neighbors
Rather than simply strike at US assets and Israel, Iran has responded by attacking more than a dozen of its neighbors with drones and missiles, threatening the perception of relative safety in Gulf neighbors like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other countries that have relationships with the US and Israel.
A few US ground troops are on the way, but…
While the US has consistently said it plans this to be an air war, it has not ruled out the use of ground forces. A Marine Expeditionary Unit is en route to the region, according to CNN’s reporting. It could be used to facilitate special operations commandos, secure oil fields, or do other tasks in Iran. A second MEU has had a planned deployment rerouted to the Middle East region, but it’s not clear where or when it could move. It is unlikely such a small force to be the tip of the spear of a ground invasion. The US has not mustered its Army for deployment, for instance.
On Thursday, Trump said he has no intention of putting troops on the ground in Iran, but he added he wouldn’t say if he did have such plans.
US service members have died in an attack and an accident
Multiple Americans have died so far in the war, primarily in two incidents. A makeshift operations center was struck by a suspected Iranian done strike in Kuwait, killing six. A refueling aircraft crashed over Iraq, killing another six American service members.
The economic impacts are far-reaching
The price of diesel and energy costs in general could drive up costs for consumer goods, airline tickets and food, which would be unwelcome news for Americans who still aren’t used to prices following pandemic-era price hikes.
Trump has tried to bully the Federal Reserve into lowering interest rates to unlock capital and potentially lower home and car borrowing costs. But with prices rising, Fed cuts are less likely.
And the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 are all down, to varying degrees, since the war started.
The US is feeling more alone
Trump called on European and some Asian countries to help the US patrol the Strait of Hormuz. But those countries, who feel burned by Trump on tariffs and who weren’t warned that the US would attack Iran in the first place, and who are worried that the war violated international law, have so far declined. Trump now says he doesn’t need the help, but he’s clearly angry he hasn’t gotten any.
NATO chief Mark Rutte, who often speaks highly of Trump, said Thursday the allies are all talking about ways to secure the route.
“I’m confident that allies as always will do everything in support of our shared interest as we always do — so we will find a way forward,” he said in Brussels, according to Politico.
Russia is emboldened and Trump’s meeting with China is delayed
To get oil into the world market, the Trump administration has eased sanctions against Russian oil in place due to its invasion of Ukraine. Russia is also reported to be giving Iran intelligence for drone strikes.
Trump perhaps wanted to enter his planned April meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping from a position of strength on the world stage, but now he is more isolated on the world stage and has had to delay the meeting to focus on Iran.
The US intelligence on Iran discussed publicly is unclear
Trump has said Iran was close to restarting a nuclear program he previously said the US destroyed last June. He has said he had a feeling Iran would soon attack the US, but has not pointed to evidence. Other administration officials have said the war was necessary to destroy Iran’s conventional weapons capabilities.
But the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, a former Special Forces commando, resigned in protest last week, declaring that the intelligence did not support the idea that Iran posed an imminent threat, and questioning the US alliance with Israel. Gabbard said the president gets to decide when a threat is imminent.
Civilian sites, including a school, have also been destroyed
A military investigation continues, but a CNN analysis found at least one strike missed the mark when, apparently using old intelligence, it took out a girls’ school near an Iranian military base. Iran says more than 150 girls were killed. Trump has tried to point the finger at Iran for the strike, but the evidence suggests it was a US-made Tomahawk that took out the school.
The US has been hit by four attacks that are being investigated as terrorism
Federal authorities are investigating four incidents — shootings in Virginia and Austin, a car attack on a Michigan synagogue and an attempted bombing in New York City — as acts of domestic terrorism.
Misinformation is rampant online
Americans increasingly get information from their social media feeds, but those are plagued with false and misleading information.
Related: Fact check: Trump’s barrage of false and unproven claims about the Iran war
