INTREP360 INTELLIGENCE REPORT
03.31.2026
March 31st, 2026
Greetings! It is Day 32 of the war in Iran & chaos—as ever—is running riot in Washington, D.C. as well as between the White House & our NATO allies.
Enough is enough.
Chaos—at times—has value as strategic ambiguity, however now, it is starting to ensnare friend & foe alike.
President Donald Trump desperately needs—as we’ve argued here in the past several editions of the INTREP360 Intelligence Report—a hard messaging reset on Iran. Tomorrow—at 9 PM ET—he has a chance to do just that.
Photo credit: Roberto Schmidt / Getty Images. President Donald Trump.
Earlier this evening, Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s White House press secretary, announced that the president will be giving a formal Address to the Nation to “provide an important update” on the war against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
It is long overdue.
Granted, we live in an age of social media. However, matters of state—especially matters of war—are far too important to simply rely on Truth Social, X or Bluesky. Likewise, press gaggles be they aboard Air Force One or in the Oval Office—no matter how frequent—are not the appropriate forum either this early on in a war.
Instead, one forum—in this case in the form of a presidential address—is needed to bring the country together as one & for the president to make his case as to why it was essential—arguably imperative—to launch a sustained military campaign against Iran.
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Likewise, as citizens—and where germane, as allies—we have a duty to listen & to carefully consider his case for going to war sans partisanship & calculus as to how it will play out electorally come the November midterms.
Longtime readers, viewers & listeners—please forgive us—but this bears repeating. In penning our pieces on U.S. national security, we’ve always tried to take the approach that all of us—Democrats, Republicans & independents—are lost at sea.
The ship has sunk. Our survival depends upon on our ability to get along in the only lifeboat despite our differences. If we fail to row in one direction, we will likely never make it to shore let alone to safety.
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For now—in our opinion, militarily-speaking—we can only safely navigate our way to a strategic safe harbor if the U.S. wins decisively in Iran. Cutting & running now—for example, by leaving the Strait of Hormuz under Iranian control as Trump recklessly threatened to do today—would haunt future generations of Americans for decades to come.
The Iranian regime must not be allowed to survive to fight another day—especially under the hardline leadership of Ahmad Vahidi, the new head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
If Vahidi is left standing—ditto any of his IRGC ilk—in Iran, he will, despite any deal with the U.S., resume in earnest Iran’s nuclear weapons, drones & ballistic missiles programs. Especially if said deal rewards Iran with oil revenue which would give him the means to pay for the rebuilding of Iran’s destroyed military.
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Make no mistake. Iran’s nuclear threat was very real. Remember, there is no need whatsoever to enrich uranium past 5%-8% low enriched uranium (LEU) for fuel rods to power nuclear power reactors or 19.75% LEU required for medical experiments.
Iran has 440.9 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (HEU) to 60%. That is 90% of the way there to achieving the 90% HEU level needed for weapons grade. Pre-June of last year prior to the U.S. strikes on Fordow, Isfahan & Natanz, Iran had the centrifuge capacity—meaning the ability to enrich—to achieve weapons grade for 4 nuclear bombs in a week & between 10 & 11 in one month’s time.
That wasn’t a theoretical threat. It was—and is—a very real threat. Tomorrow—in his presidential address—Trump owes the American people clarity here. He needs to make it clear that last year’s U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities did not “completely and totally” obliterate—as he put it—Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
They did—as was urgently needed at the time—forestall it, however, they did not—repeat not—obliterate it. The task of obliterating it by U.S. & Israeli forces is ongoing and—significantly—it is not near yet complete.
Especially since Iran’s known 440.9 kilograms of 60% uranium remain unsecured. If Iran still has centrifuge capacity in hidden sites—and it is likely that they do, perhaps at Pickaxe Mountain near Natanz—they could still yet achieve nuclear breakout.
Plus, even if they don’t, that is still enough fissile material to produce dirty bombs that could be used to create smaller scale radioactive events. Either way, the risk is very real—a potential nuclear 9/11 in the making, if you will.
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Trump must also make his position clear tomorrow on the Strait of Hormuz. If we just wear our national security analyst hats, everything Adm. Brad Cooper, the Commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), is saying—alongside the movement of U.S. military assets, including the deployment of the USS George HW Bush carrier strike group to the Middle East—suggests to us the Strait of Hormuz remains the key terrain of this war.
That means lose it and you lose the war in a Pyrrhic victory sense. Control it—as the U.S. must—and Washington will win the war outright.
Anything less would open the door to the Persian Gulf—and its proven oil reserves of 866 billion barrels of oil or 49% of the world’s proven oil reserves—to Russian & Chinese domination for decades to come.
That would be a colossal national security mistake. It would also run counter to Trump’s current unstated policy of pressuring Moscow & Beijing in oil-rich areas of the world including Venezuela, Nigeria, & now the Persian Gulf.
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Trump also owes the nation clarity over NATO. Lashing out at our NATO partners—justified or not—is self-defeating in the long run.
The U.S. relies heavily on its bases in Europe to project military power into the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Suez Canal and the Middle East—including the strategic Persian Gulf.
Much of our global military power stems from our ability to project force. Lose that capacity in Europe & you diminish the reach of U.S. military power. Given Chinese President Xi Jinping’s focus on building a military capable of projecting force globally, losing U.S. access to Europe would be foolhardy.
Nonetheless, the rift is real. Earlier today, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Fox News that “If now we’ve reached a point where the NATO alliance means that we can’t use those bases to defend America’s interests, then NATO is a one-way street…then why are we NATO? We’re going to have to reexamine that relationship.”
Cooler heads need to prevail on both sides of the Atlantic. If Washington & Brussels keep at this, the only winners will be Russian President Vladimir Putin & Xi. Trump—if he truly wants to be a statesman—needs to walk this back tomorrow evening.
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Tomorrow—our advice (and it’s the same advice we give to each other—is to go into Trump’s speech as fellow Americans. Leave your Ds, Rs, and Is at the door. Give him an objective chance to make his case not because you like or hate him but because U.S. national security is at stake for decades to come.
That said, criticism of Trump is fair game. Just as it was with former President Joe Biden. We do that here all the time.
For example, neither of us believes that Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf—the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament—is a reliable peace partner in Iran. One, he is a hardliner. Two, he is a figurehead. The real power—and the guns—lies with Vahidi.
Trump’s admission that it is Ghalibaf that he’s negotiating with is not reassuring. Largely because Ghalibaf can’t deliver.
Plus, to that end and as an aside, we find it strange that Ghalibaf is connecting to X via a U.S. based app.
What’s up with that?
To the extent you—or we—do criticize Trump after the speech, let’s agree on one thing. Let’s do so recognizing that Iran must lose this war.
Defeatism only helps Putin & Xi and for those of us who care about Ukraine, it also by extension hurts the Ukrainian cause. For now, Ukraine is benefiting by Iran being sidelined as an active part of the Axis of Evil.
Let’s keep it that way.
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Lastly, let’s end tonight on an upbeat note. Adm. Cooper is confident that the U.S. is achieving its military objectives in Iran.
We concur. They are. Let’s not lose sight of that no matter how frustrated we get with the chaos coming out of Washington.
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ICYMI!
From time to time, the Kyiv Post in Ukraine reprints slightly edited versions of our INTREP360 Intelligence Report. For many of our readers, you read it first here on Friday. Below is the Kyiv Post version of it that ran Saturday.
You can read the Kyiv Post version here.
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Thank you for reading! We will see you tomorrow. Please subscribe, comment & share. We truly appreciate it!
Jon & Mark
Follow Jon on X at @JESweet2022 or on Bluesky at @JonSweet.bsky.social. Follow Mark on X at @MCTothSTL or on Bluesky at @MarkToth.bsky.social.
Please President Trump, make the right decision tonight. Don’t turn this opportunity into a disaster. Eliminate the regime and open the straits. This is still the only solution. Also no jokes, they’re starting to age badly.
(BTW - I meant ☝️ in reference to Trump's speech last night, NOT your substack)