Iran…Trump War…Evening…3/31/2026….Trump saying…Out of the Iran War in few weeks….

Mr. Trump could lay out any plans for an endgame to Americans on Wednesday. He is scheduled to deliver a national address at 9 p.m. Eastern time to provide “an important update on Iran,” the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on social media.

Earlier on Tuesday, Mr. Trump had criticized U.S. allies that have not heeded his call for help in securing the Strait of Hormuz, particularly Britain. He said on social media that the United States would not come to their aid in the future.

“You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself,” he wrote, adding, “Go get your own oil!”

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said on Tuesday that his country had neither responded to a 15-point peace proposal from the United States nor made a counteroffer. He denied any formal negotiations were taking place, despite President Trump’s claim that talks were going well.

The war kept grinding ahead on Tuesday. A major airstrike on the city of Isfahan in Iran caused a huge explosion, and a Kuwaiti oil tanker erupted in flames earlier in the day at a Dubai port after a drone attack that the Kuwaiti authorities attributed to Iran.

At a briefing in Washington, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the United States had begun flying B-52 bombers over Iranian territory for the first time since the war started, a sign that Iran’s air defenses had been significantly damaged.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, giving his first briefing with General Caine in nearly two weeks, conceded that Iran retained some ability to retaliate. “They will shoot some missiles,” he said. “We will shoot them down.”

Here’s what else we’re covering:

• American kidnapped: A journalist, Shelly Kittleson, was kidnapped in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, on Tuesday evening, Iraq’s Interior Ministry said. The ministry said that security forces had pursued the kidnappers, arrested one suspect and seized a vehicle used in the abduction. The suspect is a member of the Iranian-allied paramilitary group Kataib Hezbollah, two senior Iraqi security officials said.

• Gas prices: Gasoline in the United States crossed an average of $4 a gallon on Tuesday, a threshold it hadn’t reached since August 2022. The S&P 500 surged nearly 3 percent on hopes that the war will come to an end soon. Oil prices also rose. The average cost of gas has jumped 35 percent since the war began on Feb. 28, according to data from the AAA motor club, becoming a political burden for Mr. Trump.

• Persian Gulf: Gulf countries reported more missile and drone attacks on Tuesday. The authorities in Dubai and Saudi Arabia reported that debris from interceptions had injured several people. In the United Arab Emirates, remote learning will continue at all schools until mid-April, the education ministry said.

• Lebanon: Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, on Tuesday outlined more explicitly plans for the mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of residents in Lebanon and the destruction of Lebanese villages along Israel’s northern border. Israeli forces have taken control of more territory in southern Lebanon as they have battled Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group. He said that the Israeli military would maintain control over all of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, which is about 20 miles from the Israeli border at its farthest point.

• Casualties: The Human Rights Activists News Agency said at least 1,598 civilians had been killed, including 244 children, in Iran since the war began. Lebanon’s health ministry said that more than 1,260 Lebanese had been killed as of Tuesday, with more than 3,750 others wounded, since the latest fighting between Israel and Hezbollah began. In Iran’s attacks across the Middle East, at least 50 people have been killed in Gulf nations. In Israel, at least 17 had been killed as of Friday. The American death toll stands at 13 service members, with hundreds of others wounded….

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ISW…Iran Update Special Report, March 31, 2026

1.  The combined force campaign targeting Iranian commanders is likely impeding their ability to conduct sizable and coordinated attacks. Officials familiar with US and Western intelligence assessments speaking to The New York Times on March 30 said that the deaths of local Iranian commanders have degraded the ability of local Iranian commanders to communicate to launch large and coordinated attacks. The targeted killing of local commanders has immediate practical effects by removing key commanders who give orders. Decapitation also creates a pervasive fear that can cause targeted commanders to take precautions to survive that impede their ability to execute their assigned mission.
2. Iran launched only three missile barrages at Israel since ISW-CTP’s last data cutoff, marking its lowest barrage rate of the war to date. These salvoes also contain only a small number of missiles, which may be a byproduct of Iranian command-and-control challenges highlighted previously. Iran has been firing only a few missiles per salvo at Israel since March 20.
3. The Iranian Parliament National Security Commission passed a bill on March 30 titled the “Strait of Hormuz Management Plan,” which outlines a series of policies that assert that Iran has sovereignty over international waterways in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s parliament has little real power but its decision to pass this bill represents a desire in Tehran to continue to impede international shipping around the Strait after the war. Iran could use these threats to coerce concessions from the United States or its partners or deter them.
4. Iranian-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah almost certainly executed the kidnapping of US freelance journalist Shelly Kittleson in Baghdad City, Iraq, on March 31.
5. Hezbollah conducted four first-person view (FPV) drone strikes against IDF armored vehicles in southern Lebanon on March 31. None of the IDF’s armored vehicles that Hezbollah struck with FPV drones appeared to be equipped with improvised top-mounted slat armor to protect the vehicles against FPV drone attacks or anti-tank munitions.