The three options facing Trump in Iran

As Trump contemplates a ground operation in Iran, he will be reckoning with the ghosts of previous western “excursions” in the region, as he recently labeled this war.

First, a hasty deal on terms that aggrandize and empower Iran, creating an American equivalent to Britain’s Suez Crisis.

Second, a protracted struggle which becomes structurally reminiscent of the Iraq War.

Third, a dramatic escalation which achieves Iranian surrender quickly and cleanly.

The bad news for Trump is that the outcome he seeks, number three, is the one without real precedent.

In the first scenario, Trump makes a deal on terms that flatter Iran. Rather than compel Tehran to restrict its nuclear, proxy and missile programs – his initial war aims – the President would be forced to acknowledge Iranian authority in the Persian Gulf. This would either be explicit, via a new legal regime for the waterway, or implicit, via failure to break the blockade. But the upshot would be clear: in the Gulf, Tehran rules the waves.

For all the operational successes of the joint US-Israeli aerial campaign, this would be tantamount to strategic defeat. America’s brand of “security diplomacy” – the regional influence lent by acting as defender of last resort for Washington’s partners – would be badly discredited. Iran, meanwhile, would emerge with proof of concept of its capacity to bully both its neighborhood and the world by simply threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz.

In other words, this would be America’s “Suez moment.” Like Britain in 1956, a superpower will have lost out to a weaker adversary in the battle to control a strategic waterway. Like Anthony Eden, who was threatened with economic oblivion by Dwight Eisenhower unless he withdrew, Trump’s military gains would be vitiated by a harsh market response. Suez improved Gamal Abdel Nasser’s domestic position and enabled him to project greater influence across the region by forming the anti-western United Arab Republic and inspiring a military coup in Iraq and political crisis in Lebanon, both instigated by Nasserist forces. Today, an emboldened Iran will possess considerable leverage over its Gulf neighbors. This would confer the ability to exact levies in the Strait permanently, rebuild its proxy network and isolate Israel.

The second scenario sees the US escalate against a regime that refuses to fold. The sequence of events might look something like this. US Marines seize Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf involved in exporting oil and policing tankers. Simultaneously, US Special Forces deploy along Iran’s southern coast in a mission to degrade the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s (IRGC) mine depots, anti-ship cruise missiles and speedboat fleets.

Faced with the prospect of the US busting open the Strait while holding Iranian oil exports hostage – thus flipping the current strategic equation on its head – the Iranian regime could choose to double down rather than sue for peace. Iran could deploy elite IRGC forces – perhaps the Saberin Unit and Nohed airborne Brigade – to impose maximum political costs on Trump by killing American troops. American forces must fend off the assault, possibly supported by reinforcements, until either the regime’s will or economy breaks. Either could take months.

This “quagmire” would be Trump’s Iraq. While plainly incomparable in terms of the duration or scale or military deployment, the similarity is structural: unyielding strategic aims exert a ratchet effect on political and military commitment, resulting in an irreversible escalation ladder until one side cracks.

The opening gambits of both the George W. Bush and Trump administrations possess a similar logic. Both believed that overwhelming initial force would blow the adversary away. Thus, on February 28, the US and Israel launched massive strikes on Iran’s leadership, command-and-control centers and offensive capabilities (drone and ballistic missile launchers facilities). Between March 20 and May 1, 2003, the US-led coalition attempted to assassinate Saddam Hussein at Dora Farms, seized Iraqi oil fields, bombed the Ministry of Defense and Republican Guard headquarters and demolished key military production sites.

When unexpected consequences arise – Iran’s ferocious horizontal escalation, the scale and tenacity of the Iraqi insurgency in 2003 – maximalist yet ill-defined strategic objectives assume an inertia of their own. As the White House supposedly considers a “final blow” against Iran, likely a military ground component with accompanying surge of air power, it is impossible to ignore the traces of the “big push” advocated by Bush’s national security advisor, Stephen J. Hadley, that later materialized as “the surge.”

The final scenario is the one the President is surely hoping for. Here, a successful US operation against Iran’s naval capabilities, combined with the seizure of Kharg Island, which accounts for 90 percent of Iranian outflows, forces the regime to capitulate before it implodes.

There are grounds to think it might. The Iranian economy cannot limp on without crude oil exports. Although oil revenue only constitutes 30 to 40 percent of the state budget, the yuan earned from these sales prop up the rial given the sanctions on Iran’s foreign reserves. Without this hard currency, inflation would swiftly become hyperinflation. Goods that Iran cannot import via barter trade with surrounding states would fast become unaffordable. The most credible estimates suggest that, under such a siege, the economy could hold out for two months.

More importantly, the salaries and pensions that sustain the undying loyalty of the military rank and file will become worthless. The favorable exchange rates enjoyed by regime acolytes would disappear. No longer able to enjoy superior living standards to their fellow citizens, one might expect the security forces to be less willing to mow down unarmed protesters again.

One might doubt the existence of a political system that would reject a negotiated settlement in favor of such pain, or to be precise, deflecting such pain on to its people. But the Islamic Republic is capable. It has chosen to be bombed not once, but twice, in nine months rather than relinquish uranium enrichment.

The regime did capitulate to survive on one occasion – the anomaly that proves the rule. In July 1988, Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini accepted a ceasefire after an eight-year war with Iraq he had couched as existential. Yet the immediate conditions that led to this decision are not apparent today. After eight years of exhausting war, Saddam Hussein’s army escalated dramatically between April and July that year as it conducted five lightning offensives. Simultaneously, Iraq signaled an appetite to widen the war further through its sponsorship of an incursion into Iran by the Mojahedin-e Khalq.

Also in the spring of 1988, the US destroyed Iran’s naval capacity to disrupt the Strait in Operation Praying Mantis. At that time, key figures in the regime such as Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani began to argue that peace alone could ensure regime survival. Even the fanatical commander of the IRGC, Mohsen Rezai – currently the supreme leader’s military adviser – confessed to Khomeini that summer that victory was likely unattainable.

The regime is neither so beleaguered nor receptive to compromise today. A hardline faction spanning the IRGC, clergy, and shadowy security elite has coopted the instruments of power, many of whom hail from the same few provinces and fought together during the Iran-Iraq war. Each views this war as a golden opportunity to re-establish much needed deterrence after a string of losses since 2023. One can safely wager that nobody of any stature is playing today’s Rafsanjani.

History, then, is against Trump. This is not to say that failure is inevitable, but that the mistakes of the past must be avoided. Blinking now turns Trump into Eden and Iran into Nasser on steroids. Escalation without a coherent theory of victory risks another quagmire. The challenge is that Tehran will only contemplate backing down if America projects unwavering resolve. Put differently, the President’s only path to victory is through escalation, even if the stakes are immense.

Trump has succeeded by defying all the usual boxes. A final scenario could be turning the government upside down, putting the president and Army in the drivers seat and the mullahs in the back seat. Would not require radical ‘regime change.’

Dealing with a non-fanatic leader who actually does not want national martyrdom, and can live without wet dreams of nuking Israel, could be doable. It requires the neutralization and destruction of the IRGC, which is who we really are at war with. They are the mullahs’ power base. Maybe bring in the Shah as a symbol of national identity, a figurehead monarch like European kings.

Here’s the uncertainty and challenge now as I see it...

The bottom line is this — there is no denying that the war in Iran is bigger and more extreme than President Trump and his advisors planned for. It is now clear that Iran has been planning for this conflict for a long time. If things are going so well according to Trump, why is the Strait of Hormuz still closed? Why haven’t the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas and other proxy forces supported by Iran been smashed? Because the IRGC has an effective guerilla marine warfare strategy.

Thousands of small, one-way attack drones (Shahed-series and newer variants) are launched from mobile trucks hidden in the rugged Zagros Mountains along the coast. You can’t sink a truck hidden in a cave as easily as a ship at sea.

That is the core of the decapitation paradox currently haunting the Pentagon. While Operation Epic Fury succeeded in its tactical goal of severing the head of the regime, the political vacuum has been filled by the most uncompromising elements of the security state. By eliminating the old guard clerics and traditionalists, the United States effectively removed the only voices in Tehran who viewed survival through the lens of cautious diplomacy.

In their place, a military junta has emerged, led by the Habib Circle, a group of IRGC hardliners who have spent decades preparing for exactly this kind of holy war. Hence, the United States, Israel and their newly aligned allies have to bring in the assets to eliminate the IRGC hierarchy and splinter their forces to liberate the country. Anything short of this objective is only going to foment a resurgence of fanatical theocracy in the future.

I like option three but there are more ways to reduce Iran’s oil economy. Trump has talked about attacks on the power infrastructure, that will cause pain to the non-combatants and IRGC alike but has the advantage that we do not need to get into a land battle for the oil depot. Another is to selectively target oil field infrastructure. This will slowly degrade the oil production (think of taking out pipelines Etc.) and these can be brought back online when Iran surenders.

Finally, we can use our navy to block the Hormuz Strait with a double block. Iran cannot get ships out and neither can the rest of the gulf. This stops Iran’s economy but also stops the rest of the world’s oil and fertilizer. This shoud be used very carefully because it has the worst political risk. But this is Trump’s play and he is done with political risk. He shoud take the action that has the best outcome for the USA and also the smallest injury to our nation’s troops.

The point is to seek that unconditional surrender and this leads to disarming and surrendering the Uranium. This should be the goal and try to reduce the special forces interaction unless some target they can persue seems very desirable.

The people wanting their freedom are not the ones with guns. The IRGC are well armed and accustomed to violence. Why do you think over 32,000 people were just murdered by the regime? Apparently some rapid fire small arms are getting out there as there have been reports of people firing and Basij check points, but I believe there are at least 1/2 million IRGC and their bad boys, the Basij. They have years of experience being violent and cruel. Millions of ordinary Iranians have the same years of experience being oppressed and harassed. And they are mostly unarmed. Unfortunately, the one group with some experience and arms, the Kurds, has been rendered inoperative by Erdogan talking to Trump. The other main group with some experience is the Baluchi semi nomadic tribes on the east side of the country, with some access to Afghanistan and other places with rampant arms.

I still have not heard any serious or reliable information about what the Artesh (regular, pre Mullah army) are doing and planning. There are close to 1/2 million of them too.

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