I'm Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

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Today’s read: 14 minutes.

We're back.

After a week off, we’re recharged and ready to dive back into the news — we hope you had a chance to take a little break from the news cycle, too. Every time we’re away for more than a few days, we like to start our first newsletter back with a rundown of key stories from the break. Here are eight you might have missed over the past week. 

• On Friday, March 20, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who was also the special counsel responsible for investigating alleged links between 2016 Trump campaign officials and Russian operatives, died at 81. President Donald Trump reacted to the news by saying that he was “glad he’s dead.” (The announcement) 
• On Sunday, March 22, an Air Canada passenger jet crashed into a fire truck while landing at LaGuardia Airport, killing both pilots and injuring dozens of others. On Tuesday, March 24, the National Transportation Safety Board held a press conference detailing some preliminary findings. The board noted that the fire truck did not have a transponder, making it difficult for the airport’s early-warning system to track it, and that two air traffic controllers were carrying out the duties of four people, which is standard for the overnight shift though not recommended. (The crash)
• On Monday, March 23, the Senate confirmed former Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) as Secretary of Homeland Security by a 54–45 vote. Mullin was sworn in on Tuesday. (The confirmation) 
• On Monday, March 23, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers began deploying to airports. The Trump administration said officers will help alleviate long security lines amid ongoing staffing shortages at the Transportation Security Administration. (The deployment)
• On Monday, March 23, the Supreme Court appeared likely to overturn a state law allowing late mail-in ballots to be counted as long as they were postmarked by election day. (The arguments) The next day, the Court seemed likely to side with the Trump administration on its policy of turning back asylum seekers before they reach the southern border. (The case)
• On Wednesday, March 25, a jury found Meta (the owner of Facebook and Instagram) and YouTube negligent in operating social media platforms that are detrimental to teens’ mental health. The companies announced they will appeal. (The decision) Separately, on Tuesday, a New Mexico jury found that Meta misled users about the safety of its platforms and enabled sexual exploitation of children. (The finding) 
• On Friday, March 27, the House Ethics Committee announced that its adjudicatory subcommittee found Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) guilty on 25 ethics charges. The committee will meet again in mid-April to determine its recommendation to the full House for her punishment, which could include fines, censure, removal from committees, or expulsion. (The determination)
• On Friday, March 27, the House and Senate passed separate bills to fund the Department of Homeland Security but failed to reconcile them, extending the agency’s shutdown. (The bills)

Quick hits.

1. President Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandum directing the Department of Homeland Security to reallocate funds to pay Transportation Security Administration employees affected by the agency’s ongoing shutdown. (The order)
2. President Trump said he has “no problem” with a Russian vessel delivering oil to Cuba, adding that he would not oppose any country sending aid to the island as it experiences an energy crisis. On Monday, the Russian oil tanker reportedly arrived at the Cuban port of Matanzas with approximately 730,000 barrels of oil. (The comments)
3. Protesters in the United States and Europe demonstrated on Saturday in the latest “No Kings” rallies in opposition to the Trump administration. Organizers estimated that eight million people protested in roughly 3,300 events worldwide. (The protests)
4. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced air defense agreements with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates involving drone combat intelligence and production to counter Iranian attacks in the region. (The agreements)
5. Idaho lawmakers passed a bill barring transgender people from using bathrooms and changing rooms that differ from their biological sex in both publicly and privately owned spaces. Violations of the law will carry criminal penalties. (The law)

Today’s topic.

Potential ground operations in Iran. On Saturday, The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon is planning for weeks of ground operations in Iran. According to defense officials, current plans are focused on targeted raids by Special Operations forces and infantry troops. President Donald Trump has not decided whether to approve ground operations, but reports from the past week indicate that the Pentagon is developing options for a “final blow,” which could combine troop deployments with an escalated bombing campaign. 

Back up: Approximately 50,000 U.S. service members are currently stationed across the Middle East, roughly 10,000 more than normal. In the past week, the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division were deployed to the region. On Thursday, President Trump posted on Truth Social that Iran was “begging” the United States to make a deal to end the war, adding, “They better get serious soon, before it is too late.” On Monday, Trump said that the U.S. will strike Iran’s “Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!)” if Iran does not agree to a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial ships and oil tankers. 

Kharg Island is a potential target for a U.S. ground operation. Iran processes 90% of its crude oil exports through facilities on the Persian Gulf island, and seizing it could increase pressure on Iran to allow safe passage through the strait. However, military experts have warned that such an operation would pose a significant threat to U.S. troops and may not deter Iran from its current posture in the Strait. Other targets could include Larak Island and Abu Musa, both of which factor into control of the Strait. Separate ground operations could also target Iran’s nuclear facilities to seize their enriched uranium stores. 

As preparations for potential ground operations continue, Iran has carried out significant strikes on U.S. forces and bases in the region. On Friday, a missile attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia wounded at least 10 service members and damaged several planes. An E-3 Sentry — an airborne warning and control system aircraft — appears to have been destroyed, potentially limiting the U.S. military’s reconnaissance capabilities. Iran has also continued to strike targets in neighboring Middle Eastern countries and Israel, even as U.S. officials claim to have degraded most of Iran’s ballistic missile and drone capabilities.

Democratic lawmakers mostly oppose any kind of U.S. ground operation, while Republicans are split on the prospect. Reps. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) and Nancy Mace (R-SC) have publicly stated their opposition to sending troops to Iran, while Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has called for the Marines to seize Kharg Island. On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that President Trump is “prepared to unleash hell” on Iran but has not made a decision on whether to escalate the war. 

Today, we’ll share views from the right and left on a potential ground operation in Iran, followed by Executive Editor Isaac Saul’s take.

What the right is saying.

• The right is wary of ground operations, but many say they may be necessary.
• Some warn that Trump risks repeating mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan. 
• Others argue Trump needs to better communicate the merits of a ground operation. 

In The Wall Street Journal, Matthew Continetti wrote “finish the job in Iran.”

“The worst thing President Trump could do now is stop America and Israel’s joint military campaign prematurely. Iran’s command and control, air defenses, navy, missiles, drones, nuclear program and defense industrial base may be severely damaged, if not destroyed. But plenty of targets remain,” Continetti said. “Critics of Operation Epic Fury draw analogies with Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in 2001 and Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003… But they should also study Operation Desert Storm from 1991. It was a remarkable campaign that left its central problem — what to do about Saddam once the guns fell silent — unresolved.”

“Mr. Trump could avoid this fate. Even as the White House pursues negotiations to end war with Iran, U.S. ground forces are moving into position near the Persian Gulf. Marines, special forces and paratroopers will give the president options. They can be used to secure Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, open the Strait, guarantee freedom of navigation and fulfill his objective of ending the threat from the Islamic Republic,” Continetti wrote. “The president must see Operation Epic Fury through to a successful conclusion — and finish what he started.”

In The American Spectator, Jed Babbin explored “the missing definition of victory in Iran.”

“We haven’t won the war against Iran yet, as is demonstrated by their ability to launch missiles and drones against Israel, against ships around the Strait of Hormuz and against neighboring nations… President Trump has said we have destroyed military facilities on Kharg Island but the port, which sends out most of Iran’s oil exports, hasn’t been closed,” Babbin said. “So where do we go from here? It is pretty clear that we will have to deploy ground troops to really end the ayatollahs’ regime. About 5,000 more Marines and sailors are on the way to Iran. If the Marines are landed their small force will not be capable of removing the regime without help from the Iranian people.”

“If we are to truly end the regime there will be a need to deploy many more troops there, perhaps thousands. Mr. Trump wanted to end our ‘endless wars’ but his action in Iran may take many months — even years — to do so,” Babbin wrote. “But stop right there. We know, from our experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, that we cannot engage in nation-building in Iran. Not in any form. When and if the regime falls, we should get the hell out. If we need to bomb the snot out of them again, so be it.”

In National Review, Noah Rothman suggested “Trump’s ‘Nixon to China’ moment is ‘boots on the ground.’”

“Trump did not ready the nation for the commitments he was making to the Middle East, nor did he solicit their support for the sacrifices that would be expected of them. If the war is destined to include a ground component, it would serve the president well to be honest about what that next phase could entail,” Rothman said. “The president’s allies are correct insofar as Trump himself has not been shy about deploying U.S. ground forces to hostile engagements, albeit with small footprints. But he’s also spent the better part of a decade arguing that most (all?) of his predecessors were reckless when sending U.S. forces off to fight ‘dumb’ wars.”

“Whatever else the public knows about Trump, they know that his instincts are to use ground forces sparingly and with discrete objectives, if at all. Even if most voters are immune to the president’s powers of persuasion, such as they are, Republicans are listening. That’s a base from which Trump can build a case for the American project in Iran,” Rothman wrote. “Trump may prefer to stay his current course: Strike first and ask for the public’s buy-in later. Of all the many risks associated with deploying combat forces to Iran, that might be the riskiest of all.”

What the left is saying.

• The left opposes boots on the ground, but many expect Trump to pursue that strategy. 
• Some argue Trump is digging himself a deeper hole in the conflict. 
• Others say any ground operation carries significant risk and limited upside. 

In The Atlantic, Thomas Wright explored “the countdown to a ground war.”

“The war has not moderated the Iranian regime. It has hardened it. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps now dominates Iran’s internal deliberations to a degree unprecedented even under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran effectively controls the strait, and it knows that this control affords Tehran real leverage. Iran appears to have concluded that it is better positioned for a war of endurance than for a negotiated capitulation,” Wright said. “Trump could still choose to declare victory, or even accept terms closer to Iran’s position, if he concludes that the alternative is a longer and more uncertain war.”

“The deeper problem is that military operations, however successful tactically, cannot substitute for what the war is trying to achieve strategically. Trump launched this conflict believing that Iran was weak, and that a short, sharp campaign would force a new leader to terms. The regime has proved more resilient and more capable of inflicting sustained damage on the region than the president expected,” Wright wrote. “Trump has a long history of claiming victory in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. This may be the rare moment when that instinct serves the country — because the alternative appears to be doubling down on a losing strategy by launching a ground war.”

In Jacobin, Branko Marcetic called potential ground operations “an idiotic idea for an idiotic war.”

“[Ground operations are] such a bad idea that it has united both card-carrying members of Trump’s hated ‘deep state,’ such as former Defense Intelligence Agency official and former NATO supreme allied commander James Stavridis, and some of Trump’s closest political allies, such as Nancy Mace and Matt Gaetz in opposition,” Marcetic said. “It gets even more questionable when the mission turns to extracting Iran’s enriched uranium, all 440 kilograms (roughly 970 pounds) of it. Not only is this a massive quantity of material that is enormously difficult to access in the first place, given that it is stored in tunnels deep underground. But moving nuclear material around is an enormously logistically complicated process.”

“Now think about every other aim this administration had when it first started the war and how miserably it has failed to achieve them: collapsing the Iranian state, doing Venezuela-like regime change, or encouraging a grassroots Iranian uprising. Even what progress they’ve made on destroying Iran’s missile-launching capability has stalled,” Marcetic wrote. “If the president is finding it hard to find a face-saving way out of this mess now, he will find it magnitudes harder if and when Iranian forces kill an even bigger number of American troops.”

In The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof wrote about “the old man dreaming up wars for young men to fight.”

“I’m in favor of the diplomatic path, but let’s be honest: Any deal would be a pretty bad one and would strengthen a brutal regime that oppresses its people and menaces the region. Because the diplomatic option is so unappealing, Trump seems poised to seize an even worse one: dispatching ground troops to invade Iran,” Kristof said. “The United States has been unable to fully protect its own hardened military bases in the region at much greater distances from Iran, forcing soldiers to evacuate to hotels… If we can’t protect our bases, how will we protect Marines dropped off on an Iranian island?”

“The truth is that any seizure of Iranian-controlled land would most likely lead Iran to retaliate by attacking energy infrastructure around the region — and, more terrifying, desalination plants that provide the water on which some Gulf cities depend. With refineries out of commission, we could face oil and gas shortages for years to come,” Kristof wrote. “For all the uncertainties, one truth I feel deeply from having seen war up close: Old men should not fix their messes by dispatching young people to die in unnecessary wars.”

My take.

Reminder: “My take” is a section where we give ourselves space to share a personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment.

• Trump says he is pursuing a short military engagement, while at the same time laying the foundation for a longer war.
• Getting accurate information and building an accurate understanding of this war is incredibly difficult.
• I fear, based on our knowledge, that a ground invasion is inevitable.

Executive Editor Isaac Saul: While scrolling through X last night to get a sense of the latest commentary on the war in Iran, I came across a video that stopped me in my tracks.

Vice President JD Vance is discussing the war with right-wing commentator Benny Johnson. Vance concedes to Johnson that gas prices have gone up because of what has happened in the Middle East, then insists that “we’re not interested in being in Iran a year down the road, two years down the road. We’re taking care of business, we’re going to be out of there soon, and gas prices are going to come back down.” 

A year down the road. When these strikes began, President Trump said they would take “four weeks or less.” Now we’re at the four-week mark, and the vice president is suggesting we’ll be in Iran for less than a year. The president, in a Sunday night interview with The Financial Times, suggested that we may have to capture Iran’s oil depots. “Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t. We have a lot of options,” Trump said, adding that we could “take the oil in Iran.”

The president, as if adding a meaningless afterthought, said seizing Kharg Island would “also mean we had to be there for a while.”

So this is where we are: President Trump is pursuing a kind of two-track war. On the first track, he claims to be making progress with negotiations to swiftly end the conflict (though Iran denies any negotiations are happening, and it’s not even clear whom he is negotiating with). On the second track, a massive troop deployment is underway, and all signs point to the commander-in-chief putting boots on the ground to attempt to take Kharg Island, or reopen the Strait of Hormuz, or seize Iran’s enriched uranium, or some combination of the three. 

We can see this duality in Trump’s messaging. In a Truth Social post at the end of last week, he instructed his followers to watch Mark Levin’s show on Saturday night, where Levin made the case that we need boots on the ground in Iran to win a decisive war. But just this morning, Trump posted that the U.S. will “probably” reach a deal with Iran shortly.

A month ago, columnists like John Podhoretz suggested we’d achieve our military aims in Iran “commandingly” over “a period of days” and it’d be quick work for Iranians to “kick the mullahs to the curb.” This was a common refrain from people supporting a military operation — not a war, remember? — in Iran. The Wall Street Journal editorial board promised the U.S. “has options” to mitigate economic risk and keep the price of oil down and argued toppling the regime would give Iranians confidence to take back their country. 

Four weeks later, as oil prices continue to surge without a clear mechanism to slow them, the same editorial board insists ending the war now would create an “incomplete victory,” and “additional weeks can further degrade Iran’s capabilities and set back the regime’s threat to the region for years even if it survives.” That rhetoric sounds a lot like Israel’s just weeks after October 7. Two and half years later, the Gaza War seems complete in name only. Why would we believe that the U.S. would be out of Iran in a matter of weeks or months?

Many commentators (including me) doubted President Trump would take the political and strategic risk of putting boots on the ground, but that outcome seems more likely with each day. Even though the president ran on “no new wars,” he doesn’t seem to be shedding support from his base, either — almost every single poll shows something like 90% of MAGA Republicans supporting the war. Of course, ground operations could change that, and some Trump-aligned figures are starting to sour on the conflict, so the political dynamics remain in flux even as a ground war starts to feel inevitable.

Even more, the fog of war is real — the U.S. has already bombed a school, had allies shoot down our own F-15s, and very obviously killed more of Iran’s leadership tree than it initially thought. One high-ranking soldier I spoke to said he wasn’t actually sure about what mission he had been deployed to the Middle East to carry out. For the general population, wading through that uncertainty with an added layer of online misinformation is extremely messy. Anyone like me who believed this war would go badly can find plenty of evidence to confirm those priors.

On the other hand, I was struck by a piece in The Washington Post by Jennifer Murtazashvili, a professor at my alma mater, the University of Pittsburgh, who described her experience living in Tel Aviv: It’s a mostly normal life, she says, interrupted by occasional rushes to the bomb shelter and text messages from friends back home who believe Tel Aviv has been decimated and the U.S. and Israel are losing.

“What worries me more than the fake videos are the people who cannot fathom that this war is going well for the United States, for Israel and maybe even for the long-suffering people of Iran,” she wrote. “The strategic picture is more favorable than the online narrative suggests.”

Maybe she’s right. I don’t have a crystal ball, and I don’t want to overconfidently predict the future because I got a few things right. Yet living through a war firsthand produces its own set of biases.

Further complicating our ability to evaluate the war is a lot of confusion about our actual goals in Iran. President Trump launched the war while offering multiple explanations for its purpose, yet none of those goals has been accomplished. We were supposed to destroy nuclear facilities that had already been obliterated, but now we might deploy ground troops to those facilities to smash and grab uranium. We were supposed to help the Iranian people topple the regime, but now we’ve killed most of Iran’s leadership, only for similarly minded ideologues to replace them. We were supposed to protect our allies in the Middle East from a deadly regime, but now that regime is wreaking havoc across the region, upending countries that had lived in relative peace for the last couple of decades.

And fresh problems to address have arisen, requiring new goals: The Strait of Hormuz is being choked off, so we need to reopen it. Oil prices are rising, so we need to lower them. Helium reserves are drying up, so we need to find more. Fresh threats to our Gulf State partners manifest every day, so we have to protect them. All the while, Iran is making a mint off the war, charging more for oil and enjoying sanction relief from… the United States. 

All signs point to more military commitment, not less. Three separate sources of varying ranks in the military have suggested to me that a ground invasion is likely, even if the administration’s internal divisions seem to be slowing down the decision-making process. Any potential ground mission would be incredibly dangerous. Extracting Iran’s uranium would require sending American troops into areas riddled with Iranian troops and landmines, and then buying our troops enough time to dig deep into the earth to get to the nuclear facilities. Taking Kharg Island means planting U.S. forces directly next to mainland Iran, well within the reach of their firepower. Enforcing an open Strait of Hormuz would be the worst of all these operations: U.S. troops on the Iranian mainland and battling all manner of Iranian attacks to buy time for ships to pass through safely. 

It’s also worth remembering that Americans haven’t really felt the pain yet. Gas prices are up, yes, and the U.S. has faced some casualties (13 confirmed U.S. casualties, as of Monday), but both of those realities could get a lot worse in the coming weeks. A ground invasion would of course invite more danger on U.S. soldiers. Meanwhile, all across Asia, a fuel crisis is triggering national emergencies, forcing employers to shorten work weeks and universities to close for impromptu holidays. On Friday, crude oil hit $112 a barrel, a 56% increase from when the war began. Average gas prices are now $3.99 for a gallon of regular and $5.41 for diesel, up from $2.98 and $3.75 a month ago, respectively. What happens if crude prices hit $200 a barrel, as the administration is reportedly preparing for? What happens if this lasts for 24 weeks instead of four?

In our globally intertwined economy, it’s hard to imagine these kinds of disruptions not impacting our day-to-day lives.

So, I don’t know where we go now, but I don’t feel any more confident than I did a month ago. The opposite, really. 

I realized over the weekend that when I was wrong about President Trump during his first term, it was mostly because I bought into media hyperventilation about big, bad actions that never ended up coming to fruition. When I’ve been wrong during this second term, it’s been mostly because I thought he wouldn’t do some dangerous, scary thing that he has ended up doing. 

Six weeks ago, I thought Trump would never deploy ground troops to Iran. Now, that outcome feels not only plausible, but likely.

Take the survey: Do you think the U.S. will deploy troops to Iran? Let us know.

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Under the radar.

On Friday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) acknowledged that Iran-linked hackers gained access to FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email and published photos of him on the internet. The agency said the hacker material was “historical in nature and involves no government information” and that it had taken steps to “mitigate ​potential risks” from the breach. The hacker group, Handala, is believed to be one of several personas operating under Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security. It also claimed responsibility for a cyber attack on medical devices and services provider Stryker earlier this month, as well as a data breach involving dozens of employees at defense company Lockheed Martin last week. Reuters has the story.

The extras.

• One year ago today we had just published a special edition about our feature on This American Life.
• The most clicked link in our last newsletter was the ad in our free version for Finance Buzz.
• Nothing to do with politics: The Guinness World Record holder for most teeth.
• Our most recent survey: 4,662 readers responded to our survey on the SAVE America Act with 63% saying they might support different election-security legislation. “When election security is proven to be a threat then we may need a different approach, but till then we don’t need to fix something that isn’t broken,” one respondent said. “I have no issue with election-security laws as long as they take every possible precaution to ensure that no one is deprived of their ability to vote,” said another.

Have a nice day.

Since its original run from 1968 to 2001, the Public Broadcasting Service television program “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” has nurtured generations of American children, teaching them about caring for themselves and others. Now, Fred Rogers Productions is partnering with Little Dot Studios to make the program archives available for free on YouTube. “The timeless messages of Fred Rogers are important to parents,” co-executive producer Kristin DiQuollo said, “and we want to find ways to bring that forward to new fans.” The series is expected to come to YouTube sometime this summer. Axios has the story.