American forces struck Iran again on Tuesday, destroying air defence sites, radar systems, maritime assets, mine-laying facilities and communications infrastructure across multiple locations. It was not a one-off. Donald Trump made the logic explicit almost immediately. His forces had watched Iran rebuild a radar installation nearly to completion — and then hit it.

"We waited until it was almost built, and then we hit it," Trump said, in a phrase that doubles as a strategic doctrine. Washington is now weighing what an Axios report describes as a plan for "limited strikes at regular intervals" — timed to prevent Iran from reconstituting its military presence in the Strait of Hormuz. A US government official reached for a term borrowed from Israeli security thinking to name the approach: mowing the grass. The metaphor is deliberately modest.

It does not promise final victory. It promises only that the threat will be kept at a manageable level — and that whenever the grass grows back, the mower returns. The strategy has a hard ceiling, however. US forces have already degraded Iranian capabilities significantly in the strait and have begun clearing sea mines laid by Tehran.