Vice President JD Vance, President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio
As our war on Iran moves past the official 60-day mark at the end of the week, it is essential to base our actions going forward on hard reality–not wishful thinking.
To state it plainly, barring an all-out ground invasion, which would bring its own set of difficulties, the Trump administration is not going to achieve its overarching objectives. As Richard Haas, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations and top George H.W. Bush foreign policy advisor, put it in his Substack column, “There is no getting around the obvious. This was a war that did not need to happen – a war of choice – and, on balance, it has left the United States worse off.”
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It is the case that we have significantly degraded Iran’s military capability. But it still retains roughly half its missile launchers and thousands of missiles, according to a U.S. intelligence assessment. As a result, any resumption of military conflict risks more damage to the oil infrastructure of our Gulf allies and is likely to result in more American casualties.
More importantly, a resumption of air attacks is not likely to get us any closer to our strategic goals. The initial optimism about regime change has not come to fruition. Instead, the targeted killing of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top leaders has resulted in the more hardline Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) consolidating its power under the titular leadership of Khamenei’s son. In other words, to borrow a line from The Who, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss,”-or in this case. even worse. At least for the short-term, the attacks by our nation and Israel did not pave the way for the overthrow of the government. If anything, as is often the case in nations under attack, it has led to an uptick in nationalism and a solidifying of support for the regime.
The leverage Iran has gained by its demonstrated staying power is amplified by its shutting down of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil exports flow, along with other essential exports. The blockade the United States has imposed in response ensures that Iran will share the economic pain. It does little or nothing, however, to relieve the rise in oil prices, fertilizer and other essential goods that is fueling inflation at home and harming the global economy.
On the nuclear front, the attacks have further incentivized Iran to pursue a nuclear weapon as the ultimate deterrent. On top of this, the operational difficulty of removing the existing enriched uranium by force, as well as the fact that no operation will take away the knowledge that Iranian scientists have in the nuclear area, means that this war is unlikely to produce a permanent solution.
Preventing Iran from securing a nuclear weapon is a problem that will continue to need to be managed. The path forward is through negotiations that will likely require some sanctions relief and a return of some frozen Iranian assets to achieve anything close to as good as the nuclear agreement (JCPOA), successfully negotiated by the Obama Administration, with Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China as signatories.
In 2018, President Trump unwisely pulled out of this agreement, of which international inspectors confirmed Iran was complying, against the advice of his first-term national security team. It didn’t take long for Iran to resume accelerating its nuclear program. On the nuclear front, Mr. Trump is faced with a dilemma that, in large measure, his own poor decision-making created or at least made more difficult.
The political situation on the home front also limits Mr. Trump’s use of further military action. As a series of national polls continues to show, the war is unpopular, with less than 1-in-5 Americans supporting the use of ground troops. Its economic impacts are turning what were already difficult midterm elections for the Republicans into a potential disaster. At the 60-day mark, provisions of the War Powers Act kick in with the real possibility that Congress will vote to end American involvement. The president has ways around this, including exercising an option for a 30- day extension. Still, a resumption of stepped-up military action is likely to become increasingly untenable- and the Iranians know it.
Taken together, this means the Trump administration must scale back its ambitious–and now, clearly unachievable original objectives. The Iranian proposal now on the table to begin by a mutual opening of the Strait of Hormuz seems a sensible way to start. By returning us to the pre-war status quo, this will begin to undo the economic damage the war has caused. The next order of business is to negotiate a new nuclear agreement. This will not be easy, nor will we get everything we want. It is possible, however. As Iran knows, if an agreement is not achieved, the option of further attacks on its nuclear sites is always available to us. Perhaps more importantly, the nation will need to rebuild economically. The United States can help or stand in the way.
The war was a mistake. With the appropriate course corrections, however, there is still a way for the Trump administration to limit the damage and come away with new limitations on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. (Admittedly, there are limitations that were possible to achieve without this war.)
Course corrections begin with a reckoning with reality. Let’s hope President Trump and his advisers start that reckoning today.