\tPresident Donald Trump at a news conference in the White House briefing room on April 6, 2026. | Tom Williams\/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images\t<\/p>\n
This story appeared in\u00a0Today, Explained,\u00a0a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day.\u00a0Subscribe here.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been just over eight weeks since the US and Israel started a war with Iran for contradictory and incoherent reasons. Virtually nothing about the conflict \u2014 except maybe its stakes \u2014 has gotten clearer since then, and there\u2019s still no end in sight: US-Iran talks, set to take place in Pakistan over the weekend, fell apart on Saturday. In a social media post, President Donald Trump said of Iran that \u201cNobody knows who is in charge, including them. Also, we have all the cards, they have none!\u201d<\/p>\n
I figured some of you might have questions, so Vox\u2019s senior foreign policy correspondent, Joshua Keating, is stopping by to field a few reader-submitted questions about the Iran conflict.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what you wanted to know, and what Josh had to say: <\/p>\n
I continue to hear people on the right defend the decision to attack Iran as a necessary measure to prevent the regime from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Is there any truth to that?<\/p>\n
Iran has a stockpile of around 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, which in theory could provide enough material to make 10\u201311 nuclear weapons. Iran had denied that it wanted to build a bomb, and the last Ayatollah Ali Khamenei famously issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons, but there\u2019s no credible civilian use for the level of enrichment it carried out.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the same time, it\u2019s also possible that rather than building a bomb, Iran believed that staying as a \u201cthreshold\u201d nuclear state gave it leverage in negotiations with the West and a form of deterrence. This proved to be a serious miscalculation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As far as we know, Iran still has this material \u2014 the \u201cnuclear dust\u201d Trump keeps talking about \u2014 buried underground at one or more of its main enrichment sites. Whether the Iranians could actually excavate the material and make it into a usable weapon before this activity was detected and attacked by the US or Israel is an open question. But having now been bombed in the midst of nuclear negotiations twice in the past year, Iran probably has even more incentive to build a nuke than it did before.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
How likely is it that the Strait of Hormuz remains closed\/mostly closed indefinitely?<\/p>\n
Depends what you mean by \u201cclosed\u201d and by \u201cindefinitely.\u201d Trump\u2019s extension of the ceasefire last week might suggest he has little interest in launching military action to open the strait, or just that he\u2019s waiting for more military assets to arrive in the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Either way, both sides clearly have an economic incentive to reopen the strait \u2014 though Iran may have a greater incentive to inflict enough of a disruption on its adversaries that they won\u2019t consider attacking again in a few months. Experts believe Iran has planned for months of economic pressure and is calculating that the US has a lower pain tolerance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s equally hard to imagine a world in which other countries, particularly Iran\u2019s neighbors across the Gulf, tolerate it continuing to charge tolls for use of an international waterway. But we\u2019re in unprecedented territory here. It\u2019s hard to say anything for certain.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Aren\u2019t there any options for bypassing the Strait of Hormuz? Why can\u2019t Saudi Arabia or someone come up with a solution?<\/p>\n
In fact there is. The East-West pipeline, built in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq War with exactly this kind of scenario in mind, runs from Saudi Arabia\u2019s eastern oil fields to the port of Yanbu on its western Red Sea coast. It has quickly become arguably the most important piece of energy infrastructure on the planet and was targeted several times by Iranian missiles and drones.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The pipeline is now operating at its full capacity of 7 million barrels a day, which has been an important relief valve for the global economy, but isn\u2019t enough to replace the 20 million barrels that normally flow through Hormuz.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gulf countries are now considering a number of other pipeline projects, but probably not on a timeframe that will do much to help with this crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Hormuz isn\u2019t like other \u201cchokepoints\u201d in the global economy. The geography of the region\u2019s oil fields and the Persian Gulf means there\u2019s really not an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I understand that the war in Iran has depleted America\u2019s stockpiles of key ammunition. How long will it take to rebuild those stockpiles, and how much of a problem is that? (Put differently: Don\u2019t we plan for stockpiles to be used and rebuilt?)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a serious problem. The New York Times reported last week that the US has used more than 1,000 Tomahawk missiles in this war, and it produces only about 100 per year. We\u2019ve burned through about 50 percent of our THAAD missile interceptors \u2014 around 200 \u2014 and we only buy about 11 per year. This has led to diversions of these very in-demand systems from Europe and East Asia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This would not be a great moment for the US to get into another major war, particularly with a peer adversary like China. But how serious a problem it is depends on how much longer this war lasts and how many targets the US still wants to hit. It is, certainly, a good time to be in the missile business. The Pentagon wants to invest another $30 billion into critical munitions, including interceptors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019m concerned about how Iran might retaliate against the US by means of cyberwarfare. Is there any evidence that their ability to do so has been affected by the US\/Israel attacks?<\/p>\n
Iran doesn\u2019t appear able to launch the kind of major cyberattacks that would seriously disrupt Americans\u2019 daily lives, but attacks by pro-Iranian \u201chacktivist\u201d groups have been increasing, with targets including the medical device maker Stryker, the social network Bluesky, and the Los Angeles Metro. These attacks are a concern, but not on the level of the kind of damage that is feared from ongoing Chinese hacking campaigns like Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Donald Trump at a news conference in the White House briefing room on April 6, 2026. | Tom Williams\/CQ-Roll … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[31],"class_list":["post-24870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"\n