It isn’t hard to see the case for striking a deal with Iran, one that will turn the current shaky cease-fire into a long-term truce.
The global economy needs an end to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz lest energy prices rise even higher. The military option for trying to force the strait open is time-consuming and risky. Iran could retaliate by striking important energy and desalination infrastructure in neighboring states, causing an environmental catastrophe. Negotiation is the only plausible way to get Iran to relinquish its stock of highly enriched uranium, most of which is believed to be buried deep within the nuclear complex in Isfahan. The United States is running low on critical munitions, particularly missile interceptors, which are needed to protect U.S. assets and maintain deterrence against other threats worldwide.
And President Trump promised voters a relatively brief “excursion” in Iran, not another forever war in the Middle East. For him to break that pledge now would also mean breaking faith with millions of MAGA voters who long ago grew tired of presidents who seemed to care more about policing the far-flung corners of the world than about taking care of America itself.
Powerful arguments. But they must be weighed against the risks, three in particular.
First, an agreement that allows the regime to emerge from the war as the perceived victor instantly magnifies our overall geopolitical risks.
China will take note not only of our munitions shortage (which it could have learned of before the current war simply by reading The Times) but also of the fact that the president lost his appetite for war after just 39 days and 13 military fatalities. U.S. allies in the region will take similar note: Why would the Saudis or Pakistanis want to incur the domestic risks of recognizing Israel by joining the Abraham Accords, as Trump is now imploring them to do, if Israel and the United States look like the weak horses against Iran in the struggle for regional hegemony?
Worse: Iran’s new-generation leaders will draw the lesson that closing the Strait of Hormuz is a card they can play at will, knowing they have a greater tolerance than their adversaries for the pain it might impose. That means they’ll use it or threaten it to extract an ever-increasing list of economic and strategic demands. A deal to end the current blockade is merely an enticement for the next blockade and the one after that.
Second, the adage, familiar to this administration, that the Iranian regime has never won a war or lost a negotiation happens to be true. That’s not just because the regime has a genius for bargaining, though it does. It has an equal genius for bending and breaking rules and agreements whenever it suits its needs.
That was true with the much-vaunted Iran nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, some of whose terms — such as Iran’s obligation to be open about its past nuclear-weapons work — the regime was violating long before Trump pulled the United States out of it in his first term. It was true of Iran’s obligations as a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, whose terms Iran was also violating through what the International Atomic Energy Agency described last year as an “insistence on a unique and unilateral approach to its legally binding obligation.”
Why should anyone expect Iran to act any differently now? The risk of a resumption of the war might be an inducement for the regime to negotiate in something like good faith. Yet Trump has already threatened to restart high-intensity fighting on at least seven different occasions since the current cease-fire began — and backed down every time. The closer we get to the midterms, the more political incentive Trump has to avoid conflict.
The Iranians know this, which is why they’ll play for time with a carefully balanced set of tantalizing promises and extraneous demands, whether about Hezbollah or the financial payoffs they’ll insist upon in exchange for easily reversible concessions. Moving along this road guarantees that Trump will find himself agreeing to the same kinds of terms he once denounced when they were made by Barack Obama or Joe Biden.
Finally, Trump will get no political relief in the midterms if his signature presidential act for 2026 is a failed war. Not many like paying more for gas, but many are also willing to swallow the cost for a worthy objective — such as removing a potent and rising menace to America’s security and our vital interests. But economic pain in pursuit of strategic futility is an unforgivable political blunder. Trump is on the cusp of it now.
So what should the administration do? Heed the words of Robert Frost: “The best way out is always through.”
Though it’s easy to miss, given the information blackout that (at least until this week) Iran imposed by shutting down the internet, the regime itself hangs by slender threads: a worthless currency, a mostly bankrupt state, a badly wounded military, all-but-undefended airspace, and a leadership whose final claim to legitimacy is that it has stood up to the Great and Little Satans and, so far, survived.
Trump can still deny them that claim. The United States struck some targets in Iran on Monday. Now Trump can announce that we will destroy a facility of military significance to the regime pending a material Iranian concession, and make good on the threat. The next day, two targets, and so on. If Iran opts to retaliate against our Gulf allies, then it’s past time they start behaving like cooperative allies, by either joining the fight or at least not obstructing it.
Trump need not be defeated in this war, but he’s close. Should he lose it, what remains of his presidency will go down with it.
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