It is now clear the United States is sinking into the quagmire of its war with Iran with no clear idea of how to get out. More than five months of intermittent bombing of Iran have not brought Tehran any closer to surrender.
Recurring threats by US President Donald Trump to launch a massive military campaign against the country aren’t causing Iran to submit to US demands.
Meanwhile, diminished stocks of critical US weapons, plummeting approval ratings heading into the midterms and a looming global economic crisis due to increasing commodity shortages stemming from a closed Strait of Hormuz, are all putting political pressure on the US to end the conflict. Given this situation, what options does President Trump have for ending the war?
From ‘Iran war’ to ‘Hormuz war’
When the Trump administration launched the war on Iran in late February, its stated reasons kept changing, but at least part of the rationale involved the threat of Iran’s nuclear programme. In previous negotiations, the US had insisted on no indigenous uranium enrichment for Iran and the surrender of its 440kg of highly enriched uranium. Iran had refused, and Trump ultimately decided to go to war.
After being attacked by the US and Israel, Iran moved swiftly to close the Strait of Hormuz by threatening maritime traffic passing through it. Although this response was expected – indeed, Iran had repeatedly threatened to do so in the build-up to the war – the US administration was caught off-guard and had no effective response.
Given the strait’s importance as a critical chokepoint for Middle East oil and refined products, the subsequent global economic consequences of a closed strait have been building up these last five months.
As such, the US administration’s priority is no longer getting Iran to capitulate on its nuclear programme but getting the strait open as soon as possible.
However, in trying to do that, it faces a problem. On the one hand, Iran has decided operational control of the strait is essential for its national security and a much-needed strategic deterrence to prevent future US-Israeli attacks. On the other, the US military cannot open the passage and keep it open.
Surprisingly, despite having a military budget more than 100 times the size of Iran’s, the US military is unable to prevent Iran from projecting enough military force to pose an enduring threat to maritime traffic through the strait.
Trump has repeatedly threatened apocalyptic carnage on Iran with the goal of inflicting enough pain on Iranian society to force its leaders to agree to US demands. Most recently, he threatened to expand US targets to include Iranian civilian energy installations. At a July 31 cabinet meeting, he told the media, “Well, we’ll be hitting them very hard and, you know, at some point they’re going to say, we just can’t take it anymore”.
A day later, he backed off, probably because he realised “hitting them hard” will not force Iran to submit.