Tel Aviv, Israel
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After a week of violence that has reshaped the Middle East, some of America’s goals seem achievable, while others are likely utopian. But the question of where it all ends resonates the loudest.
US President Donald Trump’s request to help choose Iran’s new supreme leader provides perhaps the clearest insight yet into how close the conclusion is. On the surface, it seems so fanciful, almost absurd, to think that the 88 Iranian senior clerics indicted to replace the theocrats at the head of the Islamic Republic, founded to resist American influence, would take direction from or follow the White House. But President Trump’s request and rejection of the late Ayatollah Khamenei’s son Mojtaba as his successor reveal two important points.
First, President Trump believes that the Venezuelan model of military action to force regime change, rather than forcing regime change, will work here. But Iran is a hardline, aggressive and heavily armed dictatorship that has wreaked havoc across the Gulf over the past week, killing thousands of its own citizens just weeks ago. It’s not as simple as ousting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s oil-theft politics. But President Trump’s aspirations betray where the United States thinks the war is heading.
Second, this statement suggests political compromise. Iran’s moderate President Massoud Pezeshkian hinted at mediation efforts Friday morning. On Wednesday, Iran’s foreign minister called Qatar and France. Hours later, more Iranian missiles landed in Doha, suggesting a different approach, at least within Tehran. President Trump said Thursday that Iran wants dialogue, but the United States wants more than a fight. His call for “unconditional surrender” on Friday likely reinforces the idea that President Trump is seeking a solution to the military-imposed regime in Tehran rather than its collapse.
Iran’s new leadership may present a golden opportunity to strike a deal. Some kind of political compromise remains the most likely possibility. President Trump’s astonishing bravado, amplified by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, appears designed to create maximum impact. President Trump again evoked the idea of an Iranian insurgency on Thursday, but it has not yet become part of a series of concrete US goals that CENTCOM seems to be getting closer to by the day. Thursday’s CENTCOM statement said Iran’s missile and drone launches have fallen by nearly 90% and more than 30 Iranian naval vessels have been sunk, suggesting two of the U.S. military targets are nearby.
The week-long delay in appointing Ayatollah Khamenei’s successor is noticeable. His succession plan had been widely publicized before his death, but internal conflict and concerns about how long his successor would survive if Israel kept its promise to kill him may have delayed its announcement.
But the failure to fill this leadership vacuum was perhaps the first unintended consequence of the war. The United States may be okay with not knowing who is in charge when it starts a war, and may not be so worried about wondering how long it will last. As the week progresses, the void brings both confusion and opportunity. Iran continues to strive to project its strength. Although missile and drone launches are less effective and less frequent than in the past, they continue to send out signals that they are not stopping.
President Trump spoke Thursday about bringing forward military operations and the need for a new supreme leader aligned enough that the U.S. won’t have to attack again in a decade. It’s an approach more in line with his instincts for deals and quick, unexpected military action. But in a war of this scale, plans and aspirations deteriorate quickly. There are already two obvious wildcards.
Israel has continued its offensive against the much-reduced Lebanese militant group Hezbollah at an alarmingly aggressive pace, ordering mass evacuations within about 72 hours of announcing the start of the operation. Israel’s ambition to “disarm” its longtime adversary could lead to a months-long ground war, or a quick return to what it has been doing over the past year, with planes hitting targets every day. Israel’s northern expedition appears not to have been part of America’s original public strategy. Perhaps this should be seen as separate from the US-Iranian conflict, but it is a competing dynamic and means Israel may be less keen on a regional ceasefire.
Iran’s ferocious and persistent attack on Gulf states, which lasted the entire first week, indicates that Iranian military hardliners may insist that the United States and its allies blink first. This is an existential war for the Iranian regime, and the weakness of its people will fatally exacerbate the very real weaknesses imposed by Israeli and US bombing. Without a respected and established Iranian leadership to rein in the drone force, such attacks could ruin its chances for attack, even if they are frequently intercepted. Although Iran may soon run out of drones, there are also other asymmetric options that could provoke the United States and disrupt the peace, such as closing the Strait of Hormuz or planning terrorism abroad. It is only natural that it will eventually be forced to stop.
The pace of this operation is unprecedented and upends most norms of warfare and old schedules. AI-powered target lists and U.S. brutal technological air superiority achieved in a week what might have taken months 23 years ago. But the entropy remains the same. Weeks before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said the war “could last six days, it could last six weeks. I don’t think it would last six months.” The first phase of the US occupation began with the belief that the Iraqi people would rise up and reject their oppressors. Instead, most of Iraq rose up to eliminate US ground forces, and the war lasted eight years.
This is another war in an era when the moral high ground is less urgently occupied and gamer-themed bravado on social media pushes aside fears of war’s barbarity. There is little to bet on anything other than the pressure that economic turmoil will put on President Trump as the war drags on.
This week, new speed records for conflict and destruction were set. As the situation draws to a close, the long-standing need for a diplomatic solution persists. By next Friday, it may be out of their reach.
