War in Iran: does Trump have an endgame?

Why is America at war with Iran? When will the conflict end? Two weeks after the launch of the joint US-Israel campaign, the answers to these questions remain no clearer, said Lee Siegel in The New Statesman.

Donald Trump's declared goals change all the time: it's to liberate Iranians; to eliminate an imminent nuclear threat; to destroy Iran's ballistic missiles; to avenge the US. As for how long the war could last, Trump declared last Friday that the US wouldn't stop until it secured Iran's “unconditional surrender”.

But in response to rising fuel prices and market turmoil, he softened his language on Monday, saying the war was “very complete, pretty much” and would end soon. His words helped calm markets: the price of a barrel of oil, which had soared to nearly $120, dipped back below $90. However, Trump later reverted to tough rhetoric, insisting that the US was set to press on as “we haven't won enough”.

‘Scorched-earth treatment’

Tehran, for its part, shows no sign of capitulating, said Arash Reisinezhad and Arsham Reisinezhad in Foreign Policy. While the tempo of its missile and drone attacks on neighbouring countries has declined since the opening days of the conflict, the strikes haven't stopped. The regime is aiming to prolong and widen the conflict – Azerbaijan and Turkey are the latest countries to be targeted with Iranian drones – to “generate pressure across multiple domains: energy markets, maritime logistics, regional alliances and domestic politics within the US and its partners”.

Wars between asymmetrical adversaries are rarely decided by the opening exchange of blows. More often, they become “contests of endurance”. Iran is now getting the “scorched-earth treatment”, said Patrick Cockburn in The i Paper. More than 1,000 civilians are thought to have been killed in the bombing so far. But air power alone is unlikely to defeat the Iranian regime. Just look at Gaza, where Hamas remained in control even after cities were razed to the ground.

Iran's ace card is its control over the Strait of Hormuz, said David Patrikarakos in the Daily Mail. About a fifth of the global oil supply normally passes through this narrow stretch of water, which is also a vital conduit for commodities such as nitrogen fertiliser and helium.

Tehran has effectively blockaded the strait by threatening to attack passing vessels, and several commercial ships have already been targeted. While Iran's regular navy has been largely put out of action, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is responsible for the strait, has access to many small, fast-moving craft and remote-control suicide drone boats. It also has missile launchers and drone systems deployed all along the coast.

If the strait remains closed for an extended period, the impact will be catastrophic: Qatar's energy minister, Saad al-Kaabi, has warned that it could “bring down the economies of the world”. Trump has talked of providing naval escorts for vessels in the strait, said James Rothwell in The Daily Telegraph, but that would commit American forces to a complex and expensive logistical operation – one with the potential to become “a kind of maritime Vietnam”.

‘Escalation dominance’

Trump is in a trap of his own making, said Edward Luce in the FT. Two “very risky gambles” are available to him. One would be to launch a commando raid to seize what remains of Iran's 400kg stockpile of enriched uranium. “Success would offer Trump a spectacular off-ramp.” The other gambit would be to seize Kharg Island, the outcrop 15 miles off Iran's coast that serves as the nation's principal crude oil export hub. But that would require more boots on the ground, and there's little tolerance in America for more US casualties.

Trump's best option is to call it quits after degrading Iran's military capabilities, said The Economist. Critics will claim that he has left the job half done, and Iran may seek to rebuild its nuclear programme, obliging the US to launch future strikes. But “better for America to declare victory early than limp out of an unpopular war because of exhaustion”.

The markets are expecting Trump to do just that, before “he is overwhelmed by a supply-chain shock to match Covid”, said Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Daily Telegraph. However, the defiance of Iran's regime will make it harder for him. “It is we who will determine the end of the war,” the IRGC declared on Tuesday. Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said Iran would fight on even after a US declaration of victory. The question now is which aspect of Trump's thinking will prevail: “his fear of losing the US midterm elections? Or his injured vanity and his psychological need to command ‘escalation dominance', always and everywhere?”