Strait-Jacket (April 16, 2026)Richard HaassApr 16, 20264127ShareWelcome to Home & Away. A focus this week continues to be Iran, but it is not the focus, which is progress. Another good sign is that this is a regularly scheduled edition of the newsletter, not a special edition. I don’t know about you, but these days I take good news wherever I can find it.
I want to start with the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, something you will recall I have advocated for first here and then elsewhere for a month now. I am pleased to see that it has gone into effect in the Gulf of Oman and appears to be working.
The blockade is not without its shortcomings. I wish it had been undertaken a month ago, as Iran was allowed to earn billions of dollars from selling oil while denying others the ability to do the same. I also wish the blockade had been put into place following consultations with and the participation of U.S. allies and partners in the Gulf. Even better would have been to pair it with a diplomatic initiative along the lines of the governing authority that Niall Ferguson, Phil Zelikow, and I suggested. But this is all “spilled oil,” or “oil under the bridge,” or “oil over the dam,” or whatever the expression is.
It is interesting that the reaction from Iran thus far has been relatively muted (aside from predictable warnings of “dangerous consequences” should the blockade continue). This suggests to me that the economy is the dominant weakness of the Iranian regime. It certainly was before the war. The war and now the blockade have only made a bad situation worse for the Iranian regime. All of this reinforces my view that it would have been much wiser to tighten the screws economically rather than attack Iran militarily, but that is a topic for another day.
The principal reality now is that neither the United States nor Iran would benefit from a resumption of fighting. We have all but run out of targets, and the Trump administration should have learned by now that bombing will not lead Iran to capitulate. Nor will it produce regime change.
As for Iran, it has already shown it is both willing and able to disrupt shipping and threaten the energy infrastructure of its neighbors. But carrying out such a threat at this stage would lead to the destruction of its own energy infrastructure, making economic recovery all but impossible. Closing the Bab el-Mandeb through Houthi military action is another possibility for the regime, but it would not help the Iranian economy.
There is also reason to believe that China, which is heavily dependent on not just Iranian but also the broader region’s oil and gas, has no interest in a widening of the war at this time. And when it comes to the blockade, China complains but is highly unlikely to challenge it directly. Indeed, there are reports that China’s veteran foreign minister Wang Yi has weighed in with his Iranian counterpart, urging that the Strait be an open waterway.
Ripeness is All
All of which is to suggest that an extension of the current two-week ceasefire is likely, as is the resumption of direct negotiations. The U.S. priority for the talks should be to reopen the Strait of Hormuz (and keep the Bab el-Mandeb open) on acceptable terms. These waterways cannot remain closed to the world given the impact on the regional and global economy. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is a means to an end, not an end in itself. If reopening the Strait to all can be achieved more easily by allowing local countries to charge a modest fee for passage, one that could be justified by the need to deal with security and oil spills, so be it.
The nuclear issue can wait, not because it is not important, as it most surely is, but because it is long-standing and does not present an urgent global problem the way the Straits do (unless, of course, Iran were to move to do something with its existing enriched uranium or to move in the direction of restarting enrichment). Such action by Iran could be discouraged by signaling that it would be seen as a violation of the ceasefire and would be dealt with accordingly, i.e., militarily.
It is, of course, possible that there is a pact to be made on the nuclear issue. To be successful, it would have to deal with Iran’s existing stockpile of enriched uranium and with future nuclear-related activities.
The stockpile could be handled in one of two ways: it would have to be shipped out of the country or diluted to a lower level of enrichment. Either would have to be carried out under international supervision.
As for future activities, there are reports that Iran is willing to sign up to a five-year freeze on enrichment. The United States reportedly wants a twenty-year moratorium or even a permanent one. I doubt a permanent ban would be acceptable to Iran, and one of five or ten or however many years raises the problem of what would happen when the agreed time period ended.
An alternative formula would be to agree that Iran could enrich a specified amount of uranium to an extremely low level. This would acknowledge Iran’s “right” to enrich without bringing it close to a weapon in exchange for the ceilings being permanent and supervised. An added incentive for Iran to go along with a nuclear accord would be to offer a reasonable level of sanctions relief.
As the above makes clear, any agreement will require some compromise from the United States. The war did not leave us in a position to dictate terms. A potential agreement must be weighed not just against some imagined perfect outcome, but against the reality of what would come to pass if no agreement is reached.
Consistent with the above, it is unrealistic to think that a negotiated agreement can deal with all aspects of Iran’s conventional (non-nuclear) forces, including drones, ballistic missiles, aircraft, and naval vessels. It will also be difficult, if not impossible, to structure an agreement limiting or precluding Iranian support for proxies. A challenge will be arriving at a policy that Israel can live with, one that will not lead it to take actions that would threaten a larger ceasefire and agreements on the Strait and nuclear issues. A ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon is one thing; a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah would be something very different.
On balance, though, there is a not insignificant chance to avoid renewed fighting and reach an acceptable agreement. If all this sounds uncharacteristically upbeat for me, it is because it is. There is a logic for both the United States and Iran to avoid a new round of fighting and to reach agreements. But logic and history do not always go hand-in-hand. Making it all the more uncertain is an erratic American president, an Israeli prime minister who seems intent on continuing the war, and an Iranian leadership that appears to be more hardline and still in the process of sorting out who is in charge. Agreements become ripe for resolution only when there is leadership willing and able to compromise. We will know soon enough whether this conflict is ripe for resolution.
Hungary for Change
For more than a decade, Hungary and its leader Viktor Orban represented a role model for many on the American political right. His illiberal democracy was very much what they wanted to see replicated in this country. For figures like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, what Orban did in Hungary looked to be the playbook for Trump’s America.
And under the first and even more under the second Trump presidency, those of this mindset were achieving progress. Echoes of Orban’s playbook can easily be identified in Trump’s America: the packing of government with loyalists, intimidating the media, electoral reform that favored the president’s party, anti-immigrant moves, promotion of Christian nationalism, weaponizing the government against political opponents, a weakening of checks and balances, and, in foreign policy, a cozying up to Putin’s Russia.
This Sunday, though, the voters of Hungary overwhelmingly defeated Orban’s party. After more than a decade and a half, fatigue had set in, a result of too much corruption, too much economic mismanagement, and too much of an embrace of Putin.
So, if Hungary was a playbook for the American right, the question arises as to whether Orban’s fall offers up a playbook for the American left. It very well could. Voters here are growing weary of Trump, worn out by the excesses, unhappy with the economic mismanagement, and potentially alienated by the evidence that the president, his family, and many others in the administration are growing far wealthier by the day. Stay tuned.
The Papal Wars
Trump may have met his match in Pope Leo, who is clearly unhappy with the president’s approach to immigration and the Iran war. Leo may be a man of peace, but he is not afraid to throw a punch. “Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!” It’s not all that hard to figure out the intended target.
Trump went after the Holy Father, employing much the same language he uses to denounce Democratic lawmakers in calling him “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy.” “Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician.”
I expect much of this was not well received by this country’s seventy million Catholics. Trump didn’t help himself by posting an image on social media depicting himself as Jesus Christ. Trump’s blasphemy was matched by his vice president’s effrontery, who said that “it’s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”
Much of this aforementioned exchange seemed to be triggered by the Pope’s criticism of the Iran war and whether it was consistent with the Church’s teachings on “just war.” For the record, and here I quote from a book (Intervention) I published more than twenty-five years ago, just war theory requires that a war “be fought for a worthy cause, likely to achieve it, sponsored by a legitimate authority, undertaken as a last resort, and conducted in a way that uses no more force than is necessary or proportionate and that respects the welfare of non-combatants.” With all due respect to the vice president, it is hard to make the case that the Iran war qualifies as just. History will have to decide whether it was smart.
Master of Two
The Masters is now in the rearview mirror, and Rory McIlroy put on the green jacket for a second time, becoming only the fourth player to win it two years in a row. Last year also made McIlroy the sixth golfer to have won all four major championships – known as the career Grand Slam. It also put Rory just one major behind Arnold Palmer and Sam Snead and two behind Tom Watson… in short, putting him among the game’s elite, which is where he deserves to be.
He didn’t dominate this year so much as outlast the competition. Cam Young’s putter went cold, and I will resist the temptation to suggest that Justin Rose wilted. Scottie Scheffler didn’t fade but started his comeback from too far back to catch up.
My sense is that at the level of the top golfers, the physical distinctions matter less than the mental and emotional ones. That is where McIlroy may have an advantage. He seems to have conquered his demons. Most of the others have yet to reach that point. Until they do, McIlroy and Scheffler are likely to dominate the tour.
Letting LIV Die
Speaking of tours, the other big sports news also involves golf, in this case LIV, the alternative golf tour created in 2022 by the Saudis. LIV never managed to catch on, had difficulty garnering a major television contract, and recently lost some of its best players, including Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed.
Now it seems to be a victim of the war and years of excessive public spending, as the Saudis announced a scaling back of their Public Investment Fund, which had put billions of dollars into LIV in order to lure some of the best players and had little to show for their investment, as it wasn’t boosting the Saudi image abroad or exciting young people at home. It didn’t help that the LIV stars were not holding their own when they played against the best players in the major tournaments.
Full disclosure: I was skeptical at the time that the PGA was right to go to war with LIV. I thought it would be smarter to reach an accommodation with a rival that had deep pockets. It turns out that even deep pockets have their bottom. So, when I do an update of the winners and losers of the Iran war, I will now have to list the PGA as a winner and Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, and Cameron Smith as losers.
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Richard Haass in the newsFriday, April 10: Bloomberg on Iran.
Saturday, April 11: The Hill on U.S.-Vatican Tensions.
Sunday, April 12: The Rest Is Politics on Iran Blockade.
Monday, April 13: The New York Times on Iran Blockade.
Monday, April 13: The Rest Is Politics on Hungary Election.
Wednesday, April 15: Anderson Cooper 360 on Iran Blockade.
Thursday, April 16: The Julie Mason Show on Iran, Hormuz.
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