The confrontation between Donald Trump and Iran has dragged on much longer than he’d hoped. The initial brief military offensive is now 10 weeks old with no end in sight. Two self-imposed traps – Iran’s leverage and the growing number of domestic constraints on Trump’s authority – have prevented him from achieving a military victory or a lasting peace.
Geopolitical Trap
Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz has proved an unexpected tool in the game of geopolitics. As the crucial channel through which oil and gas from the Middle East flow to world markets, it has been a useful threat in the conflict over international sanctions. By refusing to cede control, Tehran has put an unbearable price tag on ending the war. Even after repeated bombing of key facilities and the assassination of top Iranian commanders, Tehran has shown an incredible capacity for resistance. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the primary source of Iran’s military strength, is largely unified, and the current leadership in Tehran sees the war itself as a victory to be maintained indefinitely.
Domestic Trap
As a result of the long war, Trump has also faced rising costs at home and in international oil markets. His domestic popularity has fallen into the 30s, while gas prices have been as high as $4.50. Because of this public backlash against an extended war, Trump has very little room to escalate the conflict further militarily, and is left with dwindling political room to end it on his terms. It is this constraint that seems to explain his increasingly dramatic announcements of imminent peace agreements and sudden, unprompted changes in strategy-perhaps as a means of testing the waters to gauge public and congressional sentiment, or perhaps an attempt to find a new narrative before a significant event that will make the war’s conclusion unavoidable, rather than voluntary.
The Elusive Peace Memo
The current approach is to have a memo brokered by the Pakistani government that could bring an official end to hostilities. The draft document includes 30 days of a deadline to conclude negotiations over a number of outstanding issues. While the memo’s brevity and simplicity would likely appeal to Trump, it is widely believed that the memorandum will not adequately address issues that have plagued U.S. Iran policy for decades. Iran’s demands remain clear: sanctions must be lifted and economic sanctions reversed so that its economy can flourish and benefit from tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. These details and any possible response from Tehran were expected by Wednesday evening; while reports suggest that negotiations were closer to an agreement than ever before, similar declarations have previously fallen through, indicating that it may be premature to assume anything.
Strategic Confusion
The war effort has been marked by apparent inconsistency in strategy and execution. Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared that “Operation Epic Fury” was officially over only to announce less than 12 hours later that “Project Freedom” would be taking its place. That operation intended to remove the blockade and reopen the Strait of Hormuz by providing security for a handful of ships, but was scrapped within a day of its inception after failing to successfully move any substantial tonnage. Trump framed this as an effort to increase pressure on Iran in order to persuade its leaders to engage in meaningful negotiations, but a number of analysts have argued that it instead revealed Trump’s willingness to use silver bullet attacks as a means of manipulating the regime, without any real commitment or a coherent long-term plan to break its power.
Trump’s Rhetoric
Furthermore, Trump has undermined his own message by repeatedly downplaying the conflict while simultaneously escalating it through military means. In a statement to military families, he described the fight as a “skirmish,” comparing it to the quick operation in Venezuela that saw Nicolás Maduro removed from power, even though his Iran war has now stretched nearly 70 days, and involves tens of thousands of American troops. His casual attitude toward what is, in reality, a protracted war and an expensive military endeavor has added a layer of doubt about his intentions and his ability to find a peaceful resolution. This indecisiveness in public and strategic approaches has given the enemies of the U.S. uncertainty and thus opportunities to exploit U.S. Weakness.
Lessons in Asymmetric Warfare
This war shows how easily a smaller, less advanced nation can gain leverage over a far more powerful one through clever asymmetric tactics. Iran’s command of the Strait of Hormuz, for example, has inflicted global economic pain and translated into political pressure on Trump to desist in escalating the conflict, and thus gave it more power to bargain at the negotiating table. Analysts agree that there is an “enormous gap between what the U.S. Is capable of doing operationally, and what it has been able to accomplish strategically.” Military gains do not necessarily lead to the achievement of policy objectives.
Costs and Consequences
With each passing week of the protracted war, the human toll of conflict mounts, and its economic effects ripple across global markets. Soaring fuel prices impact household budgets and businesses across the planet, but it is the U.S. That faces increasingly steep political costs. The political capital Trump can spend on foreign policy is dwindling, and the number of viable options on the table are reducing each day, compounding his public image of indecision. Allies and rivals are both uncertain as to the future of U.S. Iran policy, and its implications are not confined to these two nations, but can have broad ramifications across the Middle East.
The Road Ahead
It is believed that a deal mediated by Pakistan would bring an official end to the conflict. However, for any of that to occur, Iran’s demands will need to be met, which includes sanctions relief to kickstart the economy and a favorable outcome in the negotiations regarding control over the Strait of Hormuz tanker traffic. These issues are difficult and have been contested for decades; a brief agreement, even if made at the last moment, would be unlikely to address them adequately and may turn into a temporary truce that is quickly violated. It remains to be seen whether these talks, if they come to fruition, will provide Trump with an exit strategy from the Iran war that doesn’t result in a humiliating political or military defeat.
The Iran war under Donald Trump has been defined by a lack of any clear military exit strategy, and by Iran’s adept manipulation of its geopolitical position, coupled with the declining amount of political power Trump possesses domestically. His habit of “silver bullet” attacks as a means to influence Iran has proved consistently ineffective and further demonstrated how vulnerable he is to the country’s ability to continue to make its own situation worse than that of the U.S.
