Militarily speaking, the United States has a lot to be proud of. The war in Iran, now over a week old, has blown up plenty of buildings, killed a whole crop of senior Iranian officials—most notably the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei—and destroyed a significant chunk of the Islamic Republic’s military capacity. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine have provided several updates at the Pentagon lauding the Trump administration’s brilliance, marveling at the U.S. military’s technological superiority, and bragging about Iran’s inability to control its own airspace. Senior Israeli military officials are just as bombastic; on March 5, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir claimed that 80 percent of Iran’s air defenses were destroyed and 60 percent of its missile launchers were taken out of action.
But the Iranians aren’t going down without a fight. Although Iran is unquestionably the weaker party in this war, the country’s leadership is treating it as an existential conflict that requires a total-war strategy. To date, Tehran has calculated that expanding the conflict into other states, chief among them Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, is not only appropriate as a method of retaliation but also the best way to compel Trump to eventually sue for peace. The idea is to press the Gulf States, all of whom want to get back to business as usual, into lobbying the Trump administration for a ceasefire. Whether or not the gambit works, the Iranians risk ruining the very detente they established with the Gulf over the last several years by sending missiles into hotels, oil fields, gas terminals, and ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
Right now, it’s difficult to envision an off-ramp to the war. Based strictly on public remarks, the Trump administration doesn’t appear all that interested in sitting down with the Iranians, either directly or indirectly, to find a way out. Trump is talking about a full-blown Iranian capitulation, or, in his words, “unconditional surrender,” which could either be a negotiating ploy on his end or a genuine statement of intent. If it’s the latter, then the war will go on for weeks, if not months, because the Iranian regime is not going to simply throw up its hands and give up, no matter how lopsided the military balance is. Nor has the regime, or what’s left of it, decided to grant Trump his wish to pick its next supreme leader, which made about as much sense as giving the Iranians veto power over who wins the 2028 U.S. presidential election.
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