Iran War: The Big Question
How does this end? Or does it end at all?
In my initial reaction to Trump’s decapitation strike against Iran, which I called Days of Infamy, I started by talking about how Franklin Roosevelt built the unity and sense of purpose and rightfulness that allowed the United States to go to war against Japan and Germany in 1941, and prevail less than four years later. I contrasted that to how Trump started his war, which was much more like Japan’s infamous sneak attack than Roosevelt’s efforts to follow constitutional procedures and build a consensus. (Trump even cited Pearl Harbor as inspiration, possibly figuring he was complimenting Japan’s visiting Prime Minister.)
I went on to talk about the twisted logic of deterrence theory: how it seems to work in situations where power is balanced and neither side wants war, but breaks down in cases where power is unbalanced, especially where one side relishes war and wants to use its superior power to cower its foes into submission. This exception is rare — most politicians rightly dread war these days — but Israel has been an exception, possibly as far back as 1967, and an influential clique of US security “experts” has at least since the 1990s seen Israel as a model for an increasingly muscular US foreign policy. While Trump has been critical of the failed wars they have led Bush and Democrats from Clinton to Biden into, his “American First” conceit and his lust for power and plunder have made him extra dangerous.
I then offered some speculation about where the war was likely to head, ranging from the obvious costs and risks to what I called “worser case scenarios.” I published this piece on March 13, two weeks into the war, by which point the Strait of Hormuz was shut down, and gas and fertilizer prices had skyrocketed. I decided to follow that up with a piece that would examine what I called the three big questions of the war:
Why did Netanyahu want to attack Iran?
Why did Trump go along with the attack?
Why didn’t Iran surrender once it was attacked?
I felt a little sheepish about that third question, as I suspect that Trump was the only person on earth who considered immediate surrender even a possibility. Still, that was part of the mindset behind launching the war, and it had to be disposed with. Those were three instantly historical questions. They all had answers, even if it took some background context to make them seem something other than stark raving mad. I had hoped to end that piece with a tentative answer to a fourth, future-oriented question, about if, when, and how the war might end. By the time I had a draft of that, the piece had doubled in size, and was still far from settled, so I decided to split it in half, and run the Three Questions first. The following are my thoughts on Question Four.
I should note that the first draft was written before Trump gave his April Fools’ Day speech, which now seems mostly to have been an attempt at stock market manipulation, inadvertently demonstrating how little grasp he has on what is happening and what his options may be. I’ll try to explore this more realistically below, but this just goes to show how much cognitive dissonance exists among the war planners in Washington and Jerusalem, and how confusing that’s become for everyone else, including the scattered defenders in Iran. This raises the question of whether it’s ever possible to end a war where no side can conceive of its own defeat.
4. And how and when and under what conditions is this war likely to end? Or will it?
While the first three questions are historical, which means they have straightforward historical answers, this one is open-ended, and speculative. All I can really do here is to guess at some parameters, each being a presently undetermined variable. Perhaps the easiest way to do this is to pose each parameter as a question, then assess the range of possible answers. I’ll try to focus on the more obvious ones, but some outliers are too significant to ignore.
I should note that when I say “Iran” I mean Iran’s political leaders, which includes the Ayatollahs, the military (especially the IRGC), and top civilian leaders. The Iranian people have very little say in what they do, especially under the pressures and chaos of war. The same can be said for the US and Israel, although in those cases I can often make the distinction by naming Trump or Netanyahu, who have near-dictatorial powers when it comes to war, and have surrounded themselves by allies and sycophants. Iran’s leadership is less clear, perhaps because the differences matter less, as the successor Ayatollah Khamenei is as much figurehead as leader (as far as we can tell).
After decapitation, how resilient and stable is Iran’s regime? The answer appears to be “very.” After the “12-Day War” Iran expected to be attacked again. They put together a “succession plan,” expecting the next attack would begin as it did, with a decapitation strike. There are reports that Ayatollah Khamenei said he expected “to be martyred.” New leaders have been advanced quickly, from what appears to be a bottomless supply. The command structure has been decentralized, which makes it harder to disrupt. They’ve had months to prepare to hit back after the strike, and they appear to be methodical. This unity could degrade over time, given further pounding, but more often than not bombing draws an embattled people closer together. The bigger risk with decentralized resistance groups is that they make it harder to negotiate an exit from the war. If the US/Israel wanted to negotiate a surrender, they really should preserve credible leadership in Iran. Israel in particular appears to be working to make a clean exit impossible.
Is there a faction within the Iranian power structure that could stage a coup and sue for peace? Probably not. The war has allowed the IRGC to consolidate its power, subordinating everyone else. And the IRGC are mostly selected for loyalty and militance, all the more so as US/Israel culls their top leadership.
The Iranian people are unhappy with the regime. Can they rise up and overthrow it? It’s very myopic to think that the unhappiness of recent demonstrations will be galvanized into an uprising for surrender to the US and Israel. The bombing is much more likely to rally support for the regime, but it’s also likely to make policing against “traitors” more vigilant. People will only rise up when the state is weak and conflicted. That isn’t now or soon, but could happen eventually.
What about ethnic minorities? Could they rise up and break away from Iran? This strikes me as very unlikely, at least in the short run. After the war ends, if the central state is very weak, perhaps. Israel may regard this as a nice outcome, but even if you shear off all the minorities, the rump Persian state will still be substantial, only now much more nationalist than before. Think of Turkey after the Ottoman Empire collapsed. The British obtained a surrender from the Sultan, and orchestrated an invasion by Greece. None of that worked to plan.
How long before Iran runs out of missiles, drones, etc.? I have no idea, but they’ve had time to stockpile them before the war, and presumably still have some hidden. It’s likely they also planned to move some of their production underground. With satellite imaging and complete air superiority, you’d think the US would be in a good position to degrade whatever capability has survived, but Iran is a big country with rugged terrain. Then there is the question of whether they can be resupplied from outside. Russia could ship arms and other materiel straight across the Caspian Sea. China could move its wares through Pakistan. I doubt that either of those will be so explicit about it as the US was in arming Ukraine or the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s. But if they wanted to give the US a fight — and much US policy already assumes that they do — they could do so quietly, and find that the US has little leverage to discipline them. If so, the answer could be a long time.
How long before the US and Israel run out of missiles, drones, etc.? Probably never, but some sort of slowdown seems likely, and the costs could be steep, especially for missile interceptors (up to $4 million for a Patriot interceptor; Iranian missiles are much cheaper, and drones are around $35k). The US initially reported costs of $1 billion per day (I’ve also seen reports of $2 billion), and these figures don’t include economic harm and other costs. As raising taxes for an unpopular war is difficult, Americans would pay for this with debt and inflation, which could extend long after the war.
How long can Trump sustain this war politically? He has nearly three years left on his term, before US voters get a chance to replace him (if indeed they do get a chance). There is no real chance of removing him early, although elections in November could cost Republicans control of Congress, which could hamper his ability to fight the war, or do much of anything else. Still, the real question isn’t how long can Trump fight, but how much is he willing to sacrifice if/when the war turns even more unpopular than it already is? In other words, how important is this war to him? I suspect the answer is “not very.” He entered the war on a lark, looking for a quick win. He’s got pretty much all he’s going to get in that regard. From here on in, it’s damage control, and the sooner he gets out, without losing too much face, the better. He could even decide to take something far short of optimal, then just talk his way out of it. But to do that, he has to control the story, which he can’t do as long as the war is raging.
How long can Netanyahu sustain this war politically? He’s getting 80% support for his war at the moment (probably only among Jewish Israelis), vs. 40% for Trump, so he should be in a stronger position. But he’s up for reelection in October, for the first time since 2022, and Israel has absorbed a lot of trauma under his leadership. The Labor leadership got a lot of blame after the 1973 war for being unprepared, and lost badly in 1977. No one has really been held accountable for the lapses in 2023, but that’s partly because he’s kept the war going. If it ends, especially if he loses Trump, he’s probably toast, and if it doesn’t those who want out will probably side with whoever else is promising to fight it more competently. His attempts to undermine the courts were very unpopular, especially in view of his corruption indictments. Of course, opposition leaders like Yair Lapid are likely to continue the wars, but less likely to sabotage Trump if/when he wants out.
What is the minimum outcome that Iran can agree to that will allow Trump to save face? Not clear, as Trump wasn’t satisfied with the state of negotiations before the war, which he could have claimed as a win (if Netanyahu had let him), and Iran is in no mood to let him off that easily again. Trump is clearly clueless when it comes to “the art of the deal.” Real negotiators would look for win-win scenarios, where the region gets better security from Iran than it had before the revolution, and Iran gets real autonomy and integration on its own terms into the world economy, as well as iron clad security to make sure no one ever threatens them again. I could sketch out what I think that would entail, but the obvious sticking point is that Israel needs to agree to coexist with the Palestinians (and vice versa, of course, where there is much reason for distrust, but Israel is the problem here). Short of that, all sides need to agree on some deterrence parameters and penalties for aggression. None of that sits well with their “peace through strength” fetish. It will be very hard to admit that that whole line of logic has utterly failed. On the other hand, the one silver lining is that right-wing parties have more room to maneuver, because they have less reason to fear being pilloried by their own press.
Can Trump rein in Netanyahu? Trump is likely to want to end the war quicker than Netanyahu. But to end the war, he is going to have to offer Iran security against Israeli attack, so he needs Netanyahu’s agreement. Netanyahu has always been steady in his aims, but flexible in his tactics, so he is likely to bend to pressure, but snap back as soon as possible. We saw this early on with Wye River. We saw it recently when Netanyahu agreed to Trump’s Gaza plan. So Trump probably can pressure Netanyahu to acquiesce to whatever deal he comes up with Iran, but getting him to stick to it is another story. But if Trump is serious, he could put some guard rails in: limits to aid, no access to Gulf resources, no intelligence on Iran. Trump has yet to show that he has the backbone (let alone the brains) to stand up to Netanyahu, but he holds the institutional clout to do so. And he could just blame the whole misbegotten affair on Netanyahu, which would damage the latter’s standing in Israel.
What will the Gulf states do? They are oil-based oligarchies, and typically they solve their problems by paying people off. They’ve avoided class conflict by building generous welfare states for their own citizens, and by using easily controlled guest workers for more menial tasks. They’ve bought arms from the US, partly for security, but mostly to shore up an alliance they need for commerce and finance. That’s forced them into making allowances for Israel, which remains very unpopular on the street. They’ve kept their radical clergy inside the tent, and in some cases have exported jihad, at least where the US has allowed them. Much of this makes them wary of Iran, and some have played up their antipathy and fears to curry favor with the US (and Israel). On the other hand, do they really want to fight a knock down, drag out war against Iran? They have a lot more to lose than to gain. Nobody has ever lived more conspicuously in glass houses than the rich folk in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Iran could inflict a lot of damage real quick if they align too closely to the US and Israel. My guess is that they should want to mediate. They might even decide that US bases are superfluous if they can negotiate joint control of the Gulf with Iran, as well as commercial ties and non-interference. Moving the US bases out of the region would help reassure Iran. Another possibility no one talks about is that those oligarchies are fragile states that could be overthrown, either by an inside coup or by popular revolt.
What sort of pressures will oil and fertilizer shortages cause, both on the US and on “allies” in Europe and Asia? Due to some peculiar political choices, Trump already seems to be squirming on this count. Other countries in Europe and Asia are likely to be hit even harder. In those cases, the question is how they can turn popular (and business) discontent into pressure against the war. Spain, for instance, started by denying the US use of its base there to supply the war, and wound up with free passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Could NATO crack up? I can imagine all sorts of far-fetched but not impossible scenarios. What is clear is that Trump is paying close attention to the stock market, which seems to be one of the few things he cares about.
Will the war crash the world economy? I doubt it, but recessions occur in several scenarios of how this war will play out, and I don’t have a very good handle on them. But some combination of price spikes and supply disruptions could stress otherwise vulnerable economies, like America’s Trump-addled one. But while, for instance, Ukraine produced some dislocation early in the war, the world adjusted to where you rarely hear about such things any more. Capitalism is pretty robust. But it’s not fair, and not shy about shifting blame and pain.
Will any other nations come to Iran’s aid? Many American security mandarins regard Russia and China as enemies, and design their policies to counteract and, where possible, to degrade their capabilities. Would Russia and/or China try to do the same thing to America? Or, for that matter, to take advantage of the US being tied down in Iran to move against other nations? I doubt it. I think a lot of America’s foreign policy is based on the paranoid fear that other countries want to do to us what we want to do to them. Still, such paranoia can become prophecy, and that is one of the scariest possible scenarios. We’re already seeing pundits oppose the Iran war not because they care a whit about the Middle East but because they see it as a win for Russia. (Indeed, it is, as Trump has largely stopped shipping arms to Ukraine, and has ended sanctions on Russian oil.) Still, concern here shouldn’t stop at so-called enemies. What if anti-American sentiment boils over and brings much more critical governments to power in Muslim states like Egypt, Turkey, and/or Pakistan? What if Pakistan decides to shore up Iran’s deterrent by putting them under their nuclear umbrella? That’s unlikely, but should be a sobering thought.
Will Trump and/or Netanyahu threaten to use nuclear weapons against Iran? Trump’s already made several ultimatums against Iran. If the war is stuck with no face-saving exit, this would be the ultimate one, the one that Iran would finally have to take seriously. Seems unlikely, but lesser officials argued for using nuclear weapons in Korea and Vietnam, and Putin has suggested that he has red lines that could trigger his use. Trump has a bad habit of going for the craziest idea in the room, and he seems to have a perverse fascination with nukes (as in his suggestion of using one against a hurricane). Iran could very well develop deep underground facilities, possibly for uranium enrichment. The US has developed nukes specifically as “bunker busters,” so that could be a way to use them while still denying that you’re a madman hellbent on killing everyone.
Will Iran eventually develop nuclear weapons? The strategic argument against them doing so died with Ayatollah Khamenei. At this point, few in Iran would argue against doing so, given that not doing so failed to deter the present war. They probably have the know how to do so, although nukes are still useless except as a deterrent, and even then only against countries that are willing to settle for peace. One of the more likely scenarios is a Korea-style armistice, where the US/Israel can’t afford to continue fighting, but aren’t willing to settle for peace. That, shrouded in the constant, inescapable threat of further attacks, could very well lead to Iran developing nuclear weapons (not that they would be any more useful than North Korea’s, which deter an attack the US has no desire to launch.)
Reviewing these parameters, we can whittle the list down to three essential questions:
Can Trump and/or Netanyahu admit that attacking Iran was a mistake that should never be repeated?
Can Iran hold out long enough, while inflicting sufficient pain, to get that concession?
Once they have the concession, can Iran back pedal to allay Israel’s existential fears?
The first and third points would be highly uncharacteristic: tough pills for each side to follow. The first would probably be the end of Netanyahu’s political career. Trump’s presidency could be cripled either way. Neither is particularly known for putting the public welfare above their own political careers, so it is quite possible that the states will move only after their leaders are removed, and that could take considerable time.
The second is hard to tell for sure, but it appears to be true, especially in the sense that Iranians are a long ways from ready to surrender. Even if the beating the US and Israel is inflicting on them is as savage as they claim, Iran appears likely to be able to hold out longer than Netanyahu and Trump can afford to wage war.
The third has to do with the risk that if Iran is able to inflict considerable pain on their enemies, their fighters will be reluctant to stop. The longer the war goes on, the more the damage, the more powerful such emotions will become — especially if the quality of Iran’s leadership declines, which sees to be a special goal of the Israelis.
We Americans like our wars to have nice, tidy endings, but it is possible this one doesn’t. While Trump and Netanyahu will sooner or later be replaced, it’s possible that their successors will “stay the course” (as Obama did in Afghanistan), or back off a bit without changing course (as Eisenhower and everyone since did in Korea). It’s possible that Iran will keep fighting on regardless of casualties or material damage (as the Vietnamese and the Taliban did until they won, or would still be fighting today had they not). It’s possible that capitalism will find workarounds for the Persian Gulf closure. It’s possible that neither side will resort to nuclear weapons, even if Iran develops one.
But wars not only breed hate and privation, they also inspire people to work toward peace. It should be a shame if this one didn’t.
One positive sign is that Trump has expressed a lack of concern for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. This is probably because the US military hasn’t offered him a credible brute force plan to open the Strait, so if he can’t bomb his way to victory, he might as well pretend not to care. For that, he’s fallen back on “America First” principles, arguing that the US doesn’t need oil from the Persian Gulf, and that those who do should do their own dirty work. Everyone but the US and Israel understands that the only way to do this is through negotiation, so that’s what will happen, led by intermediaries, initially negotiating their own deals through the toll booth Iran has set up in the Strait of Hormuz. To work, the intermediaries will also have to negotiate with Trump (and through him Israel) to honor some kind of ceasefire. Given how poorly the war is playing politically, Trump can probably spin a ceasefire as some kind of victory.
Before the war, I couldn’t have seen granting Iran a concession over the entrance to the Persian Gulf as a good thing, but right now it has considerable appeal:
It transforms what has until now been seen as a zero-sum power game between Iran and Israel/US into a non-zero-sum cost-benefit analysis. While power can be seen as a cause for war — in a contest for leverage, which is most of what the US and Israel have been obsessed with for decades, one side’s gain can only be at the expense of the other, and vice versa — money is negotiable, and can increase in mutually-beneficial deals. Besides, once you look at war through the lens of cost-benefit analysis, war will always cost more than you could possibly gain.
This will finally prove that Iran has a viable deterrent against foreign attack, and therefore offers them security that has been sadly lacking ever since 1979. This also means that they can dispense with other efforts at deterrence, like developing nukes, missiles that can reach Israel and beyond, and support for anti-Israel resistance groups (not that Israel will be free of resistance, as they create that themselves). Those are items that can be negotiated away for things like lifting sanctions, which will add to the security of all sides.
During a ceasefire period, pending further peace treaties, Iran can focus on fortifying their grip over the Strait of Hormuz without causing further alarm, as their tolls are already maximizing their returns. The fortifications just make future military attempts to “open” the Strait even more pointless, but that’s a point the US has already largely conceded.
The tolls should satisfy Iran’s demands for reparations, without imposing any direct costs on the US and Israel (a demand which would be a complete non-starter).
In addition to negotiating tolls and a ceasefire, the intermediaries will be tempted to sweeten the pot by normalizing relations with Iran, opening up trade and commerce, and aiding in reconstruction. In doing this, they will become increasingly independent of the US, which will shift the balance of world power, not just geographically but from military power to commerce. There is a lot of upside potential here, including a renewed focus on international law, which has taken a beating not just from Trump and Netanyahu but from decades of US and Israeli unilateralism. Trump could ease this transition by crawling back into his isolationist “America First” hole, but he’s already done plenty in demonstrating the moral and political bankruptcy of American-led globalism. When Trump is gone and Democrats want to rejoin the world, they’re likely to find that the world has moved on, and the terms of relationship have changed.
Given that most Persian Gulf shipping is in petrochemicals, the tolls will act as a global carbon tax, accelerating transition to alternative energy sources. I consider that a plus, although Iran’s own oil surplus could drive prices back down.
There is a lot more one can speculate on, but there is plenty of time for that: little of this is likely to happen real soon. That’s partly because the roots of the mental and moral rot that launched this war run deep, and the people responsible are still in power, regardless of how hapless and foolish they seem. Many of the nominal leaders of the world have yet to condemn the genocide in Gaza, which is as surely the start of this war as Kristallnacht announced the coming of WWII and the Holocaust. Only this time there will be no armies to liberate Auschwitz and try war crimes at Nuremberg. The people who initially went along with this mad show of force have to reform and redeem themselves. That’s not going to come easy, but has to start with recognizing the crimes and shaming those responsible.
As for Iran, sure, they’re far from innocent, although I can’t stand it when opponents of the war start by feeling the need to repeat all the usual propaganda complaints: about how evil the mullahs are, how they hate America and oppress their own people. My point isn’t that they haven’t done those things, but that it’s not our role to punish them, and since it isn’t, why dwell on it, except to excuse our own evil, our own hatred and oppression? But we should recognize that 47 years of “maximum pressure sanctions” and worse hasn’t helped the Iranian people, and may have made their situation worse, not least by selecting for their harshest fighters.
A more realistic approach is to lay off, and let the people lobby their own government for more democracy and freedom, without having foreign threats (and capitalist corruptions) hanging over their heads. It’s a truism that nations that trade and exchange don’t fight, and eventually develop the mutual respect of peace and prosperity. Outsiders can encourage this, not least by setting a good example, but cannot dictate, and should steer away from underhanded subversion. We should at least take this war as an object lesson, of how we’ve let leaders like Trump lead us astray.