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How Does the Iran War End?
The Council on Foreign Relations published How Does the Iran War End? on July 24, 2026. Michael Froman, the council's president, wrote it. An American family should care because he treats American troops on Iranian land as one choice still in front of the president, months into the war.
Evidence rating: MODERATE. The president of the Council on Foreign Relations, writing under his own name, lists putting American boots on the ground, seizing Kharg Island and a strip of coast by the Strait of Hormuz, as one of the President's live options in late July 2026, at a risk to "thousands of U.S. warfighters."
What the article says
Froman writes that President Donald Trump faces three unattractive paths. One is a sharp escalation. One is a conciliatory pullback. One is to keep what Froman calls today's messy stalemate. The ground-force idea sits inside the first path. He calls that path shooting a way out.
He writes that Trump could restart heavy strikes. He also writes that the United States could hit Iranian oil and gas sites, power plants, transport, and desalination plants, the plants that turn seawater into drinking water. He says strikes of that kind could cause a humanitarian crisis in Iran, stain the United States' moral standing, and still fail to make the regime give up. He presents those results as reasons this step has been avoided.
He then describes a narrower use of ground troops. He writes that Trump could put boots on the ground. The tasks he names are seizing Kharg Island and securing a strip of Iranian territory next to the Strait of Hormuz. Kharg Island is an Iranian oil terminal in the Persian Gulf. Froman writes that it handles most of Iran's oil exports. The Strait of Hormuz is the narrow sea passage ships use to leave the Persian Gulf. In his account, the coastal strip would be held so those ships can pass safely.
But such operations would put thousands of U.S. warfighters and prized naval assets at risk.
Michael Froman, Council on Foreign Relations, July 24, 2026.
He does not give a tighter number than thousands. The ground idea, as he writes it, is those two seizures: the oil island, and a strip of coast by the strait.
He writes that the war's costs are already high, which is why a further ground step matters. Citing a Stars and Stripes report, he writes that an Iranian attack on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Azraq, Jordan, killed three American service members and brought the toll to eighteen killed and nearly 450 wounded. This page did not open that casualty report. The figures are his citation. He uses the costs to argue that both a big escalation and a big pullback are unattractive, and that fighting around the strait may simply go on. He calls the stalemate five months old.
What other reporting and posts add
The ground option was being discussed in the White House that month. The World Socialist Web Site, summarizing the Wall Street Journal the week before Froman wrote, said Trump convened a Situation Room meeting "to discuss the potential seizure of Kharg Island and other territory along the Strait of Hormuz using U.S. troops," and quoted Trump on Fox: "Sometimes you need a ground campaign, but we have other people that will do the ground campaign for us." That is WSWS's rendering of other outlets. WSWS, 16 July 2026. (capture: twitter/t56__v668.md) See also Trump says others will do the ground campaign and US strikes on Iran strengthen Trump's options.
Who the latest dead were. Froman cites three Americans killed in Jordan. A New York Post report of 23 July, pasted on X, named 1st Lt. Tyler J. Feehan, Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, and Army Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, killed by an Iranian ballistic missile at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base on 17 July, and Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, killed in Iraq. The same paste quotes Trump telling Israel's Channel 12: "I am considering a massive attack." @P_F_Lherisson_, 23 July 2026. (captures: twitter/t49__v580.md, twitter/t53__v625.md) In the House on 22 July, a member said: "There are 18 Americans dead in a war that Congress never voted to authorize." Congressional Record, 22 July 2026. (capture: twitter/t52__v622.md)
What it shows
Five months into a war sold as an air campaign, the head of America's best-known foreign-policy establishment listed a ground landing as one of three paths left, and priced it: "thousands of U.S. warfighters" at risk to take an oil island and hold a strip of Iranian coast. The same month the Situation Room discussed seizing Kharg and other territory "using U.S. troops," the President said "we have other people that will do the ground campaign for us," and three more American soldiers were killed in Jordan. No other country had offered those people; Israel's press had said its infantry would stay home. The warfighters Froman counts are American (see Kharg Island and the Uranium Raid and Air War Is Not Enough).
Check it yourself
Read the column: How Does the Iran War End?. This page uses that column only. I did not open a second source.
Who is writing, for a newcomer: the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is New York's best-known foreign-policy membership organization; Michael Froman, its president, was US Trade Representative under President Obama. By late July 2026, five months after the US-Israeli bombing of Iran began on 28 February, a spring ceasefire had collapsed and fighting had resumed. This essay lays out the president's choices at that moment. Seizing Kharg Island, the small island where most of Iran's oil is loaded, is the ground option he describes.
Research captures: twitter/t56__v668.md, twitter/t49__v580.md, twitter/t53__v625.md, twitter/t52__v622.md
Last Updated: 2026-09-26