How the War in Iran Is Shifting From Bombardment to a Test of Wills

 

How the War in Iran Is Shifting From Bombardment to a Test of Wills

 

The conflict has morphed into a volatile standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, as the economic costs mount and President Trump faces a political backlash at home.

 

Anton Troianovski

By Anton Troianovski

Reporting from Washington

April 23, 2026

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/23/us/politics/strait-iran-willpower.html

 

On Thursday morning, Washington time, a senior Iranian official wrote on X that the country’s fighters were hiding in sea caves near the Strait of Hormuz, preparing to “devastate the aggressors.”

 

Eighteen minutes later, President Trump posted on Truth Social: “I have ordered the United States Navy to shoot and kill any boat” that is “putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz.”

 

Mr. Trump’s war on Iran, interrupted by a cease-fire that he extended indefinitely this week, has morphed from all-out bombardment to a volatile, costly standoff at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.

 

Neither side appears eager to return to the violence that ensnared much of the Middle East before the April 7 cease-fire, though both insist they are ready for it. And neither side is showing signs of capitulating to the other’s demands. The result is round after round of taunts, threats and maritime incidents, with many of the tensions playing out on social media even as the economic costs mount and Mr. Trump faces a political backlash at home.

 

Suzanne Maloney, an Iran specialist and vice president at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said she had assumed that a diplomatic deal would resolve the standoff quickly, given the economic and strategic costs to the United States of the Strait of Hormuz’s staying closed. But Ms. Maloney said she was now adjusting her expectations amid Iran’s determination to maintain control of the strait as leverage and the strategic quandary that Mr. Trump has found himself in.

 

“He’s stuck with this, for as long as the strait remains closed,” Ms. Maloney said. “The speed with which this became a quagmire for the United States has been, also, quite stunning.”

 

Mr. Trump insisted on Thursday that he had “all the time in the World, but Iran doesn’t,” in the standoff over the strait. He posted a column by a hawkish commentator, Marc A. Thiessen, arguing that Mr. Trump should give Iran 72 hours before he resumes combat and opens the Strait of Hormuz by force.

 

“If they don’t want to make a deal, then I’ll finish it up militarily,” Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday.

 

But in reality, Mr. Trump faces an array of bad options, experts say. The U.S. blockade on Iranian shipping in the strait — combined with Iran’s counter-blockade on other traffic — continues to squeeze global energy and commodity markets, risking more price inflation in the United States as Mr. Trump’s Republican Party already faces a daunting midterm election season.

 

Iran appears determined to extract concessions from Mr. Trump, like sanctions relief and a compromise on its nuclear program, before agreeing to any diplomatic solution over the impasse. Ms. Maloney said that all signs pointed to Iran’s leaders continuing to believe that their tolerance for economic pain remains higher than that of Mr. Trump.

 

Seeking a military solution could be even more painful for the United States. Airstrikes alone are unlikely to do enough damage to Iran’s military to prevent it from being able to fight back, said Seth G. Jones, the defense and security department president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Reopening the strait by force was possible, he said, but would involve the risk of large U.S. warships getting sunk, and of “U.S. Marines or Army soldiers seizing an island or shoreline and getting killed,” he said.

 

Mr. Trump also still faces the quandary of how to deal with Iran’s 970 pounds of highly enriched uranium, which could be enough for a dozen nuclear bombs. Mr. Trump insisted again on Thursday that he was determined to prevent Iran’s capability, warning that the alternative to U.S. success in Iran could be “nuclear holocaust” in European cities within reach of Iranian missiles.

 

Iran faces hard choices, too. Its strikes on U.S. bases and on Arab countries around the Persian Gulf were effective in getting Mr. Trump to declare a cease-fire. But Mr. Jones said that achieving more by force would be difficult for Iran, especially given the blockade and the damage already done to its military.

 

“It’s kind of a game of chicken right now,” Mr. Jones said. Both in Washington and Tehran, he added, military officials were likely telling political leaders that “the military instrument is not likely to be successful in getting to any kind of a permanent solution.”

 

Given the military impasse and the economic pain on both sides, a negotiated resolution appears to be the most logical way out of the crisis, Mr. Jones and other analysts said. But the tensions in the Strait of Hormuz could escalate quickly, as both Iran and the United States try to show their resolve in the narrow waterway while also trying diplomacy.

 

“You have a situation that’s not in equilibrium,” said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, referring to the contrast between the efforts at diplomacy and the “test of wills” at sea.

 

On Wednesday, Iran released a video showing its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps intercepting two cargo ships near the strait, with balaclava-clad forces scaling one of the vessels on a ladder. On Thursday, the U.S. military released a dramatic video of its own, showing Navy forces descending on ropes from helicopters onto a tanker it said was carrying oil from Iran in the Indian Ocean.

 

At the same time, Mr. Trump has said he wants to give diplomacy a chance. Referring to his cease-fire extension this week, he told reporters at the White House on Thursday that Iran was having trouble negotiating because “they are very disorganized right now.”

 

“They want to make a deal,” Mr. Trump said. “We thought we’d give them a little chance to get some of their turmoil resolved.”

 

Responding to a reporter’s question, Mr. Trump said that Americans would still need to wait “a little while” before gas prices come down.

 

The world is eager to know how long that will be. A long-term impasse between the United States and Iran carries enormous risks of its own, given the critical goods — not only oil and natural gas but also fertilizer and helium — that typically pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

 

Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency, told CNBC on Thursday that the crisis was worsening by the day.

 

“The longer it lasts, the longer time we will need to get back where we were before the war,” he said.

 

Cliff Kupchan, chairman emeritus of the Eurasia Group, a political risk assessment firm, said the risk of a monthslong shutdown of the strait was only beginning to “enter the collective mind of the markets.”

 

“It’s actually a scenario that I think political analysts and markets need to get their heads around more,” Mr. Kupchan said. “We’re in uncharted territory.”

 

Adam Rasgon contributed reporting from Paris.

 

Anton Troianovski writes about American foreign policy and national security for The Times from Washington. He was previously a foreign correspondent based in Moscow and Berlin.