Thomas Wright: “The window for Donald Trump to end the Iran war by simply declaring victory and walking away is rapidly closing. Soon he will face a stark choice: He can take greater risks in pursuit of a decisive tactical success, prepare the country for a prolonged conflict that could last for many months, or seek a negotiated settlement that involves a real compromise with Tehran.
“Initially, Trump saw his Venezuela operation as the template for Iran. He imagined that he would make a deal with someone inside the regime who would work pragmatically with him and maybe cut the United States in on the oil. But the Islamic Republic proved more aggressive and more resilient than he had anticipated. By his own admission, no one in his administration had expected Iran to strike out against American allies in the region—’they weren’t supposed to go after all these other countries in the Middle East’—although it had repeatedly threatened to do exactly that. As the war grew more difficult, declaring victory anyway and unilaterally ending it without a deal became his most obvious off-ramp.
“Trump has set the stage for this outcome. He has repeatedly insisted that the war is ‘already won’ and ‘very complete.’ He told Fox News that he would choose to end the conflict when ‘I feel it in my bones.’ Senator Josh Hawley urged him to declare victory immediately and end the war. But the longer the war continues, the harder sustaining the claim that the United States is winning will become.
“Trump can point to some military successes. The United States and Israel have destroyed much of Iran’s navy and air force, as well as many of its missile systems. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been killed. Yet the costs of the conflict are mounting. Iran effectively controls the Strait of Hormuz and is denying access to allied tankers. The price of oil has jumped to nearly $100 a barrel. Khamenei’s son Mojtaba Khamenei is now the supreme leader. And Iran continues to strike targets across the Gulf …
“The enemy, of course, also gets a vote. Some analysts argue that Iran will continue to fight until the United States and Israel agree to a negotiated settlement ensuring that they will not restart the war in the future. In other words, Iran wants to restore deterrence. In this scenario, it will keep the Strait of Hormuz closed and attack U.S. targets even if Trump announces a unilateral end to the war.”
Im quite skeptical as to how this plays out, but as far as I can tell the people pushing the narrative that the off-ramp is closing are (largely) the same people who have been claiming Khamenei is still alive, Iran is winning militarily, Tel Aviv is in ashes, Iran has a stockpile of super secret advanced missiles it just hasn’t used yet, and now Netanyahu is actually dead and all the videos of him are AI.
Elegant-Fisherman555 on
Okay, let’s entertain for a second he declares victory and walks away.
Why would Iran believe that America won’t be back in a year to mow the lawn and do it all again?
How is Israel going to react if he suddenly stopped today? Israel is all in on this and will they let America walk away from this and leave them holding the bag as they move in on Lebanon.
There is an off ramp, concessions to the regime. That’s politically untenable and unacceptable for many and won’t happen either.
The only outcome I see is a gradual sort of return to normal, all sides exhausted, best outcome is it doesn’t escalate any further.
Pseudanonymius on
Weird things happen when there is an assymmetry between offensive capabilities and defensive capabilities. The endless horrors of the first World War were (partially, ofcourse there are 20 million other factors) caused by defense being so much stronger than offense. It made it impossible to gain an inch.
Atomic weapons have created such a massive gap that nobody causes a war between nuclear powers to happen, even though we’ve come close too often.
What we’re seeing right now is very interesting though. In Ukraine, there has been a stalemate for years, in some ways remeniscent of WWI, which would suggest defense is critical again.
This war in Iran, however, displays the opposite. US and Israel can send whole boatloads of rockets and demolish cities to rubble. However, that will never be enough to actually subjugate Iran. With extremely cheap and outdated weapons they can still inflict massive damage to the entire world economy. The only defensive option available is using massively expensive rockets to shoot them down, which is completely unviable in the long run.
Offense has become so strong that you simply have no way of defending yourself realistically, against a decent opponent (not even talking about _equal_ opponents). Israel probably has been telling themselves their genocide in Gaza was a war, but they’re truly finding out what war is now, and will find out a lot more when their Iron Dome starts to rust.
I am scared for what happens if this conflict escalates, with offensive weaponry being invulnerable worldwide.
youngdub774 on
The enemy gets a vote, you literally cannot just walk away from a war the other side wants to keep fighting. Iran can keep launching missiles and drones at US bases and assets for the foreseeable future which will then require a response. Iran can also keep
The straight of Hormuz effectively closed as well.
PausedForVolatility on
When you open negotiations with the other side by saying you want regime change, you create a situation where the people in charge over there consider that an existential crisis and you can’t back down without looking weak. The positions of “I want to regime change” and “I want to remain in power” are too far apart to bridge with any sort of reasonable negotiation. You basically need a diktat. And while that will work, diktats are only generally viable as long as they can be upheld. And as soon as they aren’t, it’s already poisoned the well and the off-ramp looks awfully messy (see: the Unequal Treaties and how they’re probably responsible for China’s aggressively transactional foreign policy).
This is pretty much a string of unforced errors that are going to be very hard to walk away from because of political factors on both sides.
SnailWithHorns on
I tend to disagree. Despite allyhe talk, USA can continue like this for months while iran can’t. Unlike the stalemate in Ukraine which is maintained by a constant flow of arms and materials as support for Ukraine, iran gets nothing. Every factory that isbhit cannot be repaired, any launcher lost cannot be repaired, any police headquarters ruined cannot be repaired etc.
And yes, iran can cause oil prices to rise, and it would affect the economy, but eventually the market and supply chains will adjust. We already see some flaw via lateral agreements via the straights, Saudi Arabia is using their pipe to the red see and uae is using their pipe to bypass the straight. And other countries can increase production. Eventually, the main sides that would suffer from this would be Europe and Ukraine.
I think there is a real asymmetry in the amount of demage that is reported on either side. We get instant coverage for every missile on Israel, every drone on USA base or on gulf country factory. We don’t get the same coverage in iran. I’ve seen how much demage a single missile from iran can cause and I can only imagine what 15000 of them have done already.
And them there is the Iranian people. The basig are still strong but they are being targeted day in day out. They no longer have a freedom to do whatever they want without fearing drone attacks.not all of them are loyale enough to the irgc to risk their life, especially when irgc financial situation is getting worse by the minute and they will no longer be able to pay them.
My guess is that USA had two plans – hope for a quick colllaps enad if it does not work, go for a slow but constant war in which everyday is a small win that adds up. It is just that we all really want things too happen quickly but sometimes they just take time
7 Comments
Thomas Wright: “The window for Donald Trump to end the Iran war by simply declaring victory and walking away is rapidly closing. Soon he will face a stark choice: He can take greater risks in pursuit of a decisive tactical success, prepare the country for a prolonged conflict that could last for many months, or seek a negotiated settlement that involves a real compromise with Tehran.
“Initially, Trump saw his Venezuela operation as the template for Iran. He imagined that he would make a deal with someone inside the regime who would work pragmatically with him and maybe cut the United States in on the oil. But the Islamic Republic proved more aggressive and more resilient than he had anticipated. By his own admission, no one in his administration had expected Iran to strike out against American allies in the region—’they weren’t supposed to go after all these other countries in the Middle East’—although it had repeatedly threatened to do exactly that. As the war grew more difficult, declaring victory anyway and unilaterally ending it without a deal became his most obvious off-ramp.
“Trump has set the stage for this outcome. He has repeatedly insisted that the war is ‘already won’ and ‘very complete.’ He told Fox News that he would choose to end the conflict when ‘I feel it in my bones.’ Senator Josh Hawley urged him to declare victory immediately and end the war. But the longer the war continues, the harder sustaining the claim that the United States is winning will become.
“Trump can point to some military successes. The United States and Israel have destroyed much of Iran’s navy and air force, as well as many of its missile systems. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been killed. Yet the costs of the conflict are mounting. Iran effectively controls the Strait of Hormuz and is denying access to allied tankers. The price of oil has jumped to nearly $100 a barrel. Khamenei’s son Mojtaba Khamenei is now the supreme leader. And Iran continues to strike targets across the Gulf …
“The enemy, of course, also gets a vote. Some analysts argue that Iran will continue to fight until the United States and Israel agree to a negotiated settlement ensuring that they will not restart the war in the future. In other words, Iran wants to restore deterrence. In this scenario, it will keep the Strait of Hormuz closed and attack U.S. targets even if Trump announces a unilateral end to the war.”
Read more: [https://theatln.tc/KlDpSvy1](https://theatln.tc/KlDpSvy1)
Im quite skeptical as to how this plays out, but as far as I can tell the people pushing the narrative that the off-ramp is closing are (largely) the same people who have been claiming Khamenei is still alive, Iran is winning militarily, Tel Aviv is in ashes, Iran has a stockpile of super secret advanced missiles it just hasn’t used yet, and now Netanyahu is actually dead and all the videos of him are AI.
Okay, let’s entertain for a second he declares victory and walks away.
Why would Iran believe that America won’t be back in a year to mow the lawn and do it all again?
How is Israel going to react if he suddenly stopped today? Israel is all in on this and will they let America walk away from this and leave them holding the bag as they move in on Lebanon.
There is an off ramp, concessions to the regime. That’s politically untenable and unacceptable for many and won’t happen either.
The only outcome I see is a gradual sort of return to normal, all sides exhausted, best outcome is it doesn’t escalate any further.
Weird things happen when there is an assymmetry between offensive capabilities and defensive capabilities. The endless horrors of the first World War were (partially, ofcourse there are 20 million other factors) caused by defense being so much stronger than offense. It made it impossible to gain an inch.
Atomic weapons have created such a massive gap that nobody causes a war between nuclear powers to happen, even though we’ve come close too often.
What we’re seeing right now is very interesting though. In Ukraine, there has been a stalemate for years, in some ways remeniscent of WWI, which would suggest defense is critical again.
This war in Iran, however, displays the opposite. US and Israel can send whole boatloads of rockets and demolish cities to rubble. However, that will never be enough to actually subjugate Iran. With extremely cheap and outdated weapons they can still inflict massive damage to the entire world economy. The only defensive option available is using massively expensive rockets to shoot them down, which is completely unviable in the long run.
Offense has become so strong that you simply have no way of defending yourself realistically, against a decent opponent (not even talking about _equal_ opponents). Israel probably has been telling themselves their genocide in Gaza was a war, but they’re truly finding out what war is now, and will find out a lot more when their Iron Dome starts to rust.
I am scared for what happens if this conflict escalates, with offensive weaponry being invulnerable worldwide.
The enemy gets a vote, you literally cannot just walk away from a war the other side wants to keep fighting. Iran can keep launching missiles and drones at US bases and assets for the foreseeable future which will then require a response. Iran can also keep
The straight of Hormuz effectively closed as well.
When you open negotiations with the other side by saying you want regime change, you create a situation where the people in charge over there consider that an existential crisis and you can’t back down without looking weak. The positions of “I want to regime change” and “I want to remain in power” are too far apart to bridge with any sort of reasonable negotiation. You basically need a diktat. And while that will work, diktats are only generally viable as long as they can be upheld. And as soon as they aren’t, it’s already poisoned the well and the off-ramp looks awfully messy (see: the Unequal Treaties and how they’re probably responsible for China’s aggressively transactional foreign policy).
This is pretty much a string of unforced errors that are going to be very hard to walk away from because of political factors on both sides.
I tend to disagree. Despite allyhe talk, USA can continue like this for months while iran can’t. Unlike the stalemate in Ukraine which is maintained by a constant flow of arms and materials as support for Ukraine, iran gets nothing. Every factory that isbhit cannot be repaired, any launcher lost cannot be repaired, any police headquarters ruined cannot be repaired etc.
And yes, iran can cause oil prices to rise, and it would affect the economy, but eventually the market and supply chains will adjust. We already see some flaw via lateral agreements via the straights, Saudi Arabia is using their pipe to the red see and uae is using their pipe to bypass the straight. And other countries can increase production. Eventually, the main sides that would suffer from this would be Europe and Ukraine.
I think there is a real asymmetry in the amount of demage that is reported on either side. We get instant coverage for every missile on Israel, every drone on USA base or on gulf country factory. We don’t get the same coverage in iran. I’ve seen how much demage a single missile from iran can cause and I can only imagine what 15000 of them have done already.
And them there is the Iranian people. The basig are still strong but they are being targeted day in day out. They no longer have a freedom to do whatever they want without fearing drone attacks.not all of them are loyale enough to the irgc to risk their life, especially when irgc financial situation is getting worse by the minute and they will no longer be able to pay them.
My guess is that USA had two plans – hope for a quick colllaps enad if it does not work, go for a slow but constant war in which everyday is a small win that adds up. It is just that we all really want things too happen quickly but sometimes they just take time