Beirut —
Eliminate hyperbole and superlatives. Ignore apocalyptic deadlines. The dynamics of President Donald Trump’s war against Iran suggest that it is likely to end with a sob rather than a bang.
President Trump has fallen into the trap that many previous presidents have fallen into: the illusion that military operations can be carried out quickly and bring about lasting political change. However, war and peace are never binary oppositions. And as President Trump gives negotiators more time to make progress, the stage is increasingly set for negotiations to end, dragging this conflict through the vague gray conditions that usually end conflicts.
Wartime leaders tend to speak in absolute terms, and President Trump was keen to make a lot of sense. But his grandest ambitions for Iran are likely out of reach. He cannot guarantee that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, only significantly degrading it and delaying its possibility. Similarly, Iran’s missile program, which was quickly rebuilt after the fallout of Israel’s 12-day war last year, cannot be permanently changed.
Similarly, Iran will not receive the assurances it seeks that all hostilities will end permanently, and any hope of seeking reparations, other than the possibility of sanctions relief, seems remote.
And Israel will not be able to “disarm” Hezbollah. Hezbollah’s verbal goal at the start of the conflict failed to materialize for decades as the group remained a strong political and military force in Lebanon. Indeed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that the goal was to “fundamentally change” the situation in Lebanon, but that goal has likely been scaled back. The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has never truly ceased, and is likely to continue, perhaps to a lesser extent, with the seizure of Lebanese territory as leverage, regardless of President Trump’s Iran war.
As President Trump’s deal deadline approaches this weekend, a volatile stock market closes, and reports of new and outlandish military options by the United States proliferate, the Middle East still faces the same set of problems it faced when the war began.
Iran’s brutal regime maintains a firm grip on Tehran, through its proxies in Iraq, and through Hezbollah in Lebanese society. For some Shiites, Iran, as a kind of sponsor or protector, could be ousted with a little violence.
It’s a role Iran lost not through 2,000-pound bombs or targeted assassinations, but through political and economic changes.
A shift in power relations is occurring in Lebanon, with the Lebanese government now openly sharing Israel’s goal of “disarming” Hezbollah, at least in terminology. But they lack the means, and Iranian-backed militants hold the very “monopoly on force” the government is trying to wrest from them. It is much easier to declare a policy than to enact it.
President Trump’s diplomatic approach is chaotic and relies on fabricating a reality that may or may not actually garner attention based on the facts on the ground. But the current leadership vacuum inside Tehran is helping. Iran does not speak as a special national voice, allowing President Trump to try to speak for Iran.
Iranian state media appeared to reject the reported 15-point US proposal, which the White House later added was not entirely accurate. Given that it is not publicly known what the U.S.’s real red lines and demands are, or what concessions Iran is willing to privately make, Mr. Trump will be able to pull ideas out of the sky and construct his favorite diplomatic victories.
If the violence somehow recedes, energy markets calm down, and the Strait of Hormuz opens enough, Trump can and will claim victory.
Despite Iran’s surprisingly ferocious response across the region, attacking neighboring countries like Oman, which interceded between Tehran and Washington just days ago, and despite weeks of intense airstrikes against cities and troops, it magically remains less than 100 feet tall. We have lost one of our top leaders, some of whom have yet to appear in public, and the upper echelons are in a state of disrepair. As long as some degree of deterrence remains intact, an end to hostilities is highly advantageous.
The United States is also gradually running out of suitable military options. The military has bombed 10,000 targets, but the first 1,000 were likely more valuable than the 10th. The Pentagon sends relatively few Marines and other troops to the region, enough to make small military operations viable, but not comparable to the amount needed for any kind of serious ground invasion, or perhaps even the much-discussed capture of Kharg Island or Iran’s enriched uranium. Both options are prohibitively dangerous, even if they were wired more than a week ago.
President Trump preferred to speak of the war Thursday in the past tense, calling it “not a big war.” He prefers to call it surgery. He has been searching for a way out for a long time, honing his facade of invincibility and military might. But his reality reflects that of the Iranian government, which cannot blink or hide the damage this month’s violence has inflicted on Iran and its allies.
Both sides need to stop this, and the influential role that intelligence plays in war—a propaganda stake that is heavily policed and today as contested as land or concrete itself—helps define the reality in which both sides make deals.
Mr. Trump cares little about the constraints that reality imposes on his declarations. That is unlikely to change in the fog of his first war. In the first war perhaps there was not enough to consider the truth to be the first victim.
Diplomacy need not result in absolute victory or “unconditional surrender”, just enough deceleration to move the voracious news cycle forward.
