Pinpoint Intel, 3.21.26: Iran war bungled, not lost

Plus, don't look at your 401(k) for awhile, meme of the week, and green-energy shines (really!)

Seven things that matter right now:

Trump’s war fails. As the fourth week of President Trump’s war on Iran begins, several things have become clear:

• Trump banked on a short war and obviously miscalculated.

• Trump and his civilian advisers, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, did not understand the consequences of Iran blocking most energy shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

• There’s no way Trump would have knowingly sent gasoline prices toward $4 per gallon, which is where they’ll be any minute now.

• Trump did nothing to prepare Americans for any cost or consequence of the war he chose to start.

Still, the United States and Israel are likely to reopen the Strait of Hormuz at some point. Oil prices will come back down. The withering US and Israeli bombing campaign will take a massive toll on Iran’s barbaric and extremist regime. It may not crack now, but it will be under severe strain for a long time and Israel seems determined to keep tightening the stranglehold. You wouldn’t want to be those guys.

The main question for markets is when oil and other commodities will start moving through the strait again. This can happen in three ways: