Weekly brief

WASHINGTON — Six months into the war with Iran, Washington is facing the question it doesn’t want to answer: What if Tehran can simply outlast us?

Meanwhile, President Trump is trying to restart Ukraine war diplomacy, the Houthis are pushing toward another crucial shipping chokepoint, Gaza’s ceasefire is still bleeding — and every ship and interceptor sent to the Middle East is one that can’t be somewhere else.

Here are the five stories I’ve been watching this week.

1. IS IRAN A “FOREVER WAR?'“

Six months after President Trump launched Operation Epic Fury alongside Israel, the Iran war increasingly looks less like a knockout blow and more like a grinding contest over who can endure longer.

The United States has badly damaged Iran’s military and economy without deploying ground troops — but Tehran hasn’t folded. Instead, it’s demonstrating its ability to wreak havoc on one of Washington’s biggest vulnerabilities: the Strait of Hormuz.

This week’s escalation has been particularly nasty. Iran said it attacked 10 ships near Hormuz after U.S. forces struck Iranian oil tankers, marking the biggest exchange against shipping since the war began. Iran also launched missiles toward a U.S. base in Jordan.

And then there’s the bill.

Oil is back above $100 a barrel, America’s missile inventories have taken a beating and the Navy faces the prospect of sustaining a huge Middle East presence while Washington is supposed to be focused on China.

THE CORRESPONDENT’S TAKE: Forget whether Washington calls this a “forever war.” As discussed on The Correspondent Podcast on Wednesday, attrition warfare — or using time as a weapon — may actually benefit the US.

2. HORMUZ ISN’T THE ONLY CHOKEPOINT TO WORRY ABOUT

As Washington struggles to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, Iran-backed Houthi forces have pushed into Mokha, the strategic Yemeni port sitting near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

You don’t need to be a shipping nerd to understand why that’s bad.

Bab el-Mandeb is the southern gateway to the Red Sea and Suez Canal. Hormuz is the gateway out of the Persian Gulf.

Pressure both, and suddenly a regional war becomes everybody’s problem.

The Houthi advance comes alongside renewed attacks on Saudi Arabia, meaning Riyadh is once again confronting an Iranian proxy on its southern border while the U.S. is fighting Iran directly.

Making matters more interesting, Pakistan and Türkiye have both spoken out since the Houthi attacks, affirming that they will come to Saudi Arabia’s defense if requested — as so pledged in their month-old Mecca security pact

THE CORRESPONDENT’S TAKE: Watch Saudi Arabia. Riyadh spent years trying to extricate itself from Yemen and normalize its relationship with Tehran. Iran’s response in the current war is dragging the kingdom back toward exactly the confrontation it tried to escape. But the shifting power balance in the Middle East as Iran loses its edge opens the way forward for Mecca Pact members — each of which are partners or allies with the US — to take on more authority in the region.

3. UKRAINE BACK ON THE BOARD

After six months in which Iran swallowed much of Washington’s attention, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner tried to revive Trump’s stalled effort to end the Ukraine war.

The two envoys met Vladimir Putin in Moscow before traveling to Kyiv on Sunday for their first official visit to Ukraine (finally,) where they held three rounds of talks with Volodymyr Zelensky.

No breakthrough.

But there is an interesting new idea floating around: perhaps CIA director John Ratcliffe will be taking on a greater role with negotiations after his visit to Moscow. While it would be welcome news to many Ukraine watchers seeking a new approach, the White House has denied this reporting — and frankly, I just don’t see it happening.

But Washington is also exploring whether Russia and Ukraine could agree to limited winter de-escalation measures that might create room for broader negotiations.

Kyiv, meanwhile, wants a winter package of air-defense and energy support.

The fundamental problem remains exactly where it was: Russia continues with its maximalist demands for territory in the Donbas they haven’t been able to win in 12 years of war.

THE CORRESPONDENT’S TAKE: Witkoff and Kushner going to Kyiv matters. But as suspected, little came of it. Trump’s diplomacy has long been vulnerable to the criticism that Witkoff and Kushner spent considerably more time hearing Moscow’s position than Ukraine’s. The bigger question is what they heard in Kyiv — and whether any of it changes what Trump asks of Putin.

🇮🇱 4. GAZA’S CEASEFIRE ISN’T EXACTLY PEACE

An Israeli strike in northern Gaza killed four members of one family Thursday, including two girls, ages 8 and 12, according to hospital officials.

Israel said the strike targeted a militant involved in attacks against Israeli troops.

It is another reminder of the increasingly awkward reality surrounding the U.S.-backed Gaza ceasefire: the ceasefire stopped the full-scale war. It did not stop cease the fire.

The larger Trump peace plan remains unfinished, including some of its hardest components — Hamas’ disarmament and Israel’s eventual withdrawal.

Meanwhile, the State Department refused to either condemn or support the United Kingdom’s decision to sanction the West Bank/Judea and Samaria over the alleged “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians by settlers.

THE CORRESPONDENT’S TAKE: Washington wants to move on to the grander project of remaking the Middle East after the Iran war. But Gaza — and the issue of the Palestinian territories in general — remain the unfinished business underneath almost every conversation about what comes next.

DON’T FORGET CHINA

Here’s the Pentagon problem hiding underneath all of this.

America’s military strategy has spent years reorienting toward China. But America’s military is once again being consumed by the Middle East.

The Navy is preparing for the possibility of sustaining a major presence around the Persian Gulf as the Iran confrontation drags on, including carrier deployments that could reduce America’s ability to maintain the same presence in the Indo-Pacific.

That matters because Beijing doesn’t need Washington to abandon Taiwan.

It merely needs Washington to be distracted, depleted or late.

THE CORRESPONDENT’S TAKE: Don’t just count what the Pentagon is firing at Iran. Count what it has left afterward — and where the ships aren’t while they’re sitting in the Gulf.

WHAT I’M WATCHING

• The Pentagon’s magazine depth. Six months of sustained operations isn’t just a story about Iran. It’s a real-world stress test of how quickly the U.S. burns through precision weapons and missile interceptors in a prolonged fight. (And a reminder not to fire pricy Patriot missiles at cheap-o drones.)

• Saudi Arabia’s next move. Houthi attacks are forcing Riyadh to decide how far it is willing to go militarily — and putting its new defense arrangements with Pakistan and Turkey under pressure.

• What Witkoff and Kushner tell Trump. Their Moscow-to-Kyiv swing was designed to restart diplomacy — but at this point, the idea that their conversations produce an actual proposal Putin would accept feels more and more like a pipe dream.

— Caitlin Doornbos
The Correspondent