A new US-Iran war would end where the last one did

The fundamentals won't change: Iran can threaten Hormuz, the United States can punish Iran, and neither can secure its objectives through force.

Trita Parsi

Jul 13, 2026

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/iran-mou-hormuz

For all practical purposes, the U.S.-Iran Memorandum of (Mis)Understanding is over. The dispute over how to manage the Strait of Hormuz in the interim has pushed the two sides back into open war. But to what end?

There is little reason to believe another round of fighting can alter the fundamentals enough to change the reality from which the two sides must ultimately negotiate. If they are fortunate, the MOU’s collapse may yield another round of talks in which the allure of reshaping facts on the ground through force has finally faded.

As I have written elsewhere, the dispute over the Strait turns, at least on the surface, on Paragraph 5 of the MOU: whether Iran is responsible for safe passage throughout the Strait for the duration of the agreement, or only for the waterway’s northern corridor.

Beneath the surface, however, lies a more fundamental strategic disagreement. Even before the MOU was signed, Tehran believed Washington's objective was to establish a southern shipping corridor through Omani waters that would gradually erode Iran's control over the Strait. Such a corridor would require Oman's cooperation, which may explain why Trump at one point threatened to bomb Oman unless it abandoned its proposal for joint management of the Strait, with administrative fees collected by Muscat and Tehran.

The corridor would remain operational even if war resumed and Iran sought once again to close the Strait. From Tehran's perspective, Washington used the MOU to strengthen this alternative route, and the U.S. military's escort of commercial shipping without coordinating with Iran marked a significant step in that direction. If successful, the strategy would deprive Iran of its most important source of leverage — which is precisely why it appeals to Washington.

This is why Tehran has insisted that all ships transiting the Strait — regardless of the corridor they use — coordinate with Iran, consistent with its reading of Paragraph 5 of the MOU. Washington, by contrast, argues that the MOU merely assigns Iran responsibility for ensuring the safe passage of commercial vessels, without granting it operational control over all maritime traffic.

Before the funeral of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, the two sides explored a compromise under which ships would coordinate their transit with both Iran and a designated Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) state. As I wrote in my Substack, “Under such an arrangement, ships would notify Tehran while also reporting to a GCC maritime authority, balancing Iran's demand for oversight with Washington's desire to avoid granting Tehran exclusive control.” But no agreement was reached before diplomacy was suspended for the duration of the funeral.

Accounts of what transpired in Muscat over the weekend naturally differ, but three proposals emerged. Iran advanced a variation of the earlier compromise: a dual-notification system for all vessels transiting the Strait. Qatar proposed three channels—an Iranian corridor in the north, an Omani corridor in the south, and a neutral corridor in the middle. For Tehran, this was a nonstarter, as it would effectively restore the Strait to its pre-February status.

According to Tehran, the United States and Oman favored separate management of the Iranian and Omani corridors: Iran could require coordination for vessels using its corridor, while Oman's would remain unrestricted.

Tehran saw this as an attempt to formalize what it had long suspected was Washington's strategy: creating a southern corridor through the Strait beyond Iran's influence, leaving Tehran no means of challenging it short of war with Oman. Iran also contends that Muscat advanced the proposal only under intense U.S. pressure, noting that Oman had previously supported a joint management system.

Washington disputes this account. U.S. officials maintain they were open to several arrangements, provided commercial vessels could transit the Strait safely. According to the American version, the talks unraveled only after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi consulted Tehran regarding a joint Iranian-Omani statement declaring the Strait open. From Washington's perspective, negotiations had been progressing until Araghchi was overruled by hardliners in the IRGC, who chose confrontation over compromise.

Whether such a fracture proved decisive in this instance is unclear. What is clear is that the outlook of Iranian strategists has hardened markedly in recent weeks as they have become increasingly convinced that Trump intends to restart the war. Several developments have reinforced that belief. First, Trump's rhetoric shifted dramatically: he called the Iranians "scum," declared the ceasefire over, and said he might resume bombing to "finish the job."

Second, as I argued here, Tehran believes Washington brokered the Lebanese-Israeli agreement — which contradicts the U.S.-Iran MOU by conditioning Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon on Hezbollah's disarmament — to enable Israel to retain key positions that would weaken Hezbollah's ability to support Iran in the next war.

Third, White House officials leaked the U.S. demand that Tehran declare the Strait open and, at least implicitly, accept responsibility for attacks on shipping. Rather than seeing the leak as political posturing to make Trump appear tough, Tehran increasingly viewed it as a deliberate attempt to derail the talks and steer the crisis back toward military confrontation.

Taken together, these developments convinced Tehran that Washington was preparing to resume the war. From that perspective, Iran's best option was to close the Strait immediately. Rather than an attempt to extract additional concessions or an instance of overplaying its hand, Tehran's decision appears to have been driven by the fear of losing its most important source of leverage before the next round of fighting.

In the view of Iranian decision-makers, closing the Strait would not trigger war because war was already coming. (If their assessment was incorrect, however, Tehran’s own actions have likely created a self-fulfilling prophecy by taking actions that made a military response from Washington next to inevitable).

Still, much indicates that another round of war will not fundamentally change realities on the ground or the balance between the US and Iran. Trump, in particular, does not have time on his side when taking into account both economic and political realities, and even some military factors.

By almost every meaningful measure, the global oil inventory position is materially weaker today than it was before the February war. Since the end of February, observed global oil inventories have fallen by roughly 360–370 million barrels, with only about 21 million barrels rebuilt after the U.S.–Iran MOU — recovering just 5% of the wartime draw.

More importantly, the apparent recovery reflects oil in transit rather than replenished storage: oil on water increased by 117 million barrels, while onshore inventories fell by 96 million barrels. OECD inventories declined by another 62 million barrels in June alone, including roughly 44 million barrels released from government emergency stocks.

The United States also enters any renewed conflict with a substantially smaller strategic cushion. It has fallen from about 415 million barrels before the war to roughly 337 million barrels, while commercial crude, gasoline and distillate inventories all remain below their five-year seasonal averages. Consequently, Washington has significantly less capacity than in February to absorb another major disruption to global oil flows.

In addition, the United States is now only four months away from the midterm elections, dramatically shortening Trump's economic and political pain threshold. In February, the administration could plausibly argue that the oil shock was temporary and that prices would normalize before voters went to the polls. A renewed conflict today would push its most visible economic consequences directly into the campaign: higher gasoline prices, inflation, interest rates, and rising food, airline, freight, and utility costs.

As a Pentagon source told me last year, Iran builds missiles faster than the United States produces missile interceptors. And while Washington must divide its attention and resources among multiple theaters — from Ukraine to Taiwan — Iran has only one.

Thus, although the United States could, given enough time, degrade Iran's ability to threaten shipping in the Persian Gulf, there is little reason to believe it could do so before the economic and political costs became prohibitive for Trump. It is essentially the same strategic reality he confronted in February. The difference is that he lacked the benefit of hindsight then. Now he has it — though it does not appear to have mattered.

AIPAC 'blacklists' dozens of US lawmakers that backed cutting military aid to no Israel

The punitive move comes as US public opinion of Israel hits historic lows

News Desk

JUL 18, 2026

https://thecradle.co/articles/aipac-blacklists-dozens-of-us-lawmakers-that-backed-cutting-military-aid-to-no-israel

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) cut off online donations to more than two dozen House Democrats on 17 July, only days after they voted against a $3.3 billion military aid package to Israel.

AIPAC's donation portal shows “pro-Israel” incumbents with contribution buttons, which were removed for Democrats who backed the amendment, while links stayed active for those who opposed the vote this week.

"AIPAC members are deeply appreciative of their representatives who stand on principle and are disappointed by those who don't," AIPAC spokesperson Deryn Sousa said in a statement.

On 15 July, Republican Representative Thomas Massie introduced the amendment to the National Security and Department of State Appropriations Act (NSDSA) 2027, aiming to cut about $3.3 billion annually in US military aid to Israel. 

If approved, the measure would have eliminated Israel's share of Foreign Military Financing (FMF), the program through which Washington funds foreign governments' purchases of US weaponry, and would also have prohibited any funds in the fiscal 2027 State Department bill from being used to support Israel.

While the proposed amendment was defeated in a 314-to-104 vote, it marked a significant political shift, with nearly half of House Democrats voting in its favor. 

Ties to the pro-Israel lobby have become an ideological litmus test for US voters.

Candidates critical of Israel have seen a sharp rise in support, with progressive challengers in New York defeating pro-Israel incumbents in congressional primaries in late June.

The defeats significantly impacted AIPAC, highlighting campaigns that focus on their opponents' acceptance of lobby funds and their reluctance to label Israel's assault on Gaza as genocide.

Accepting AIPAC funds has become “toxic” to a growing number of US voters, who increasingly weigh a candidate's loyalty to the US against loyalty to a foreign lobby.

The financial pressure campaign runs parallel to broader Israeli efforts to shore up support among US citizens.

A recent investigation by TIME revealed that Israel has been paying President Donald Trump's former campaign manager around $1.5 million per month to run an influence operation producing pro-Israel content aimed at Gen Z audiences across social media platforms. 

The efforts have failed to stop the long-running reputational collapse, as one Pew Research Center poll released in April found 60 percent of US citizens view Israel unfavorably, while an older survey by Gallup showed more US citizens sympathizing with Palestinians than Israelis for the first time in US history.

Katz Tells Hegseth That Israel Won’t Withdraw from Gaza, Syria, or Lebanon

by Dave DeCamp | July 16, 2026

https://news.antiwar.com/2026/07/16/katz-tells-hegseth-that-israel-wont-withdraw-from-gaza-syria-or-lebanon/

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz told US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth in a call on Thursday that Israel won’t withdraw from Gaza, Syria, or Lebanon, according to a statement from the Israeli minister’s office.

According to The Jerusalem Post, Katz “emphasized Israel’s determination to remain in security zones in Syria, Gaza, and Lebanon to protect Israel’s borders and nearby communities from ‘threats posed by jihadist forces.'”

Katz added that Israel has “never asked the US to act in our place along our borders. We are committed to protecting the residents of Israel from every threat, and that is what we intend to do.”

The conversation came a few days after Katz said that Israel won’t leave Gaza even if Hamas disarms and that it would establish three “Nahala outposts,” a type of Jewish settlement that starts as a community for IDF soldiers with the goal of turning it into a permanent civilian community.

Axios recently reported that President Trump had asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to start “redeploying” forces from parts of Syria and Lebanon, though there’s no sign the US is concerned about Israel’s expanding occupation and continued attacks in Gaza despite the operations being a blatant violation of the US-backed ceasefire deal.

After the Trump-Netanyahu call, Netanyahu’s office said that the Israeli leader “raised the need for security zones along Israel’s borders,” and there’s no sign that Israel is planning to pull back or that the US is putting real pressure on Israel to do so. The Axios report noted that senior Israeli ministers want to establish settlements in southern Lebanon and southwest Syria.

In their call on Thursday, Katz and Hegseth also discussed Iran as the war between the US and the Islamic Republic continues to rage. So far, there’s no sign that Israel has joined in on the US attacks, though Katz and other Israeli officials have repeatedly stated that the IDF is ready to do so.

Vance says Epstein 'seemed to be connected' to elements of 'Israeli deep state,' American intelligence

'Epstein seemed to be connected to the elements of the Israeli deep state that were left of center,' says US vice president

Rabia Iclal Turan

15 July 2026•Update: 16 July 2026

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/world/vance-says-epstein-seemed-to-be-connected-to-elements-of-israeli-deep-state-american-intelligence/3999579

WASHINGTON

US Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday that disgraced late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein "seemed to be connected" to elements of the "Israeli deep state" as well as the "highest levels of American intelligence," while also acknowledging the Trump administration mishandled its response to the case.

Asked on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast that most people think that Epstein was linked to Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, Vance replied, “Yeah, Mossad or CIA or some other deep state, whether in America, Israel, or another country.”

“He clearly had connections to the upper, the highest levels of American intelligence. He clearly had connections to the highest levels of Israeli intelligence,” he said.

He added that he found the Epstein case "interesting" because, "as much as I know, (Israeli) Prime Minister Netanyahu, not a particularly popular person in the United States of America right now, Epstein seemed to be connected to the elements of the Israeli deep state that were left of center."

"It wasn't like he was super connected to the right of center of Israeli politics. America, he was connected across the board. Like he had Republican friends, he had Democratic friends. He had much deeper connections to the Israeli left of center than right of center," said Vance.

About the administration's handling of the Epstein case, Vance said, "If people want to say we mishandled the Epstein release, guilty. We did mishandle, especially the communications of it."

"We absolutely screwed up the comms of the Epstein files," he said.

Asked what should have been done differently, he said, "I think that we should have just dropped everything at the very beginning, and obviously takes a little time to review the stuff, to find the stuff, to redact things where you have victims and so forth. But we should have just done it as quickly as possible."

The US Justice Department recently released more than 3 million pages, 2,000 videos and 180,000 images in January under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law last November.

Epstein was found dead in his New York City jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He pleaded guilty in a court in the state of Florida and was convicted of procuring a minor for prostitution in 2008, but critics call the relatively minor conviction a “sweetheart deal.”

His victims have alleged that he operated a sprawling sex trafficking network that was used by members of the wealthy and political elite.

Trump’s Iran Trap

Why a Military Victory Could Become an Economic and Political Defeat for the United States

by Timothy Hopper | Jul 15, 2026 

https://original.antiwar.com/timothy_hopper/2026/07/14/trumps-iran-trap/

The latest U.S. strikes on Iran have put one of Donald Trump’s defining promises under pressure. He returned to the White House insisting that America could no longer keep paying for other countries’ wars. During the campaign, he pointed to trillions spent in Iraq and Afghanistan while roads, factories, and communities at home were neglected.

A long conflict with Iran would make that promise difficult to keep. The question is not whether the United States can defeat Iran conventionally. It can. The harder question is whether Washington can contain the fallout, absorb the cost, and keep a limited operation from widening. Presidents rarely stumble because their forces cannot win a battle. Trouble begins when war grows, bills rise, and its purpose becomes harder to explain.

Iran makes that distinction important. Discussion centers on missiles, air defenses, naval power, and Gulf force balances. But hardware superiority is not the same as success. Iraq and Afghanistan made that clear. The opening campaign can be swift; what follows is harder: sustaining forces, limiting instability, preserving support at home, and keeping costs from erasing gains.

Avoiding a ground invasion would not make the operation cheap. Carrier groups must stay on station, bases need reinforcement, and precision munitions and missile interceptors must be replaced. Intelligence, logistics, and maintenance continue daily. Modern war consumes money through equipment and tempo, not only troop numbers. A few more weeks can turn a limited operation into a larger expense.

That expense would come at an awkward time. Washington faces heavy public debt, recurring deficits, and demands for restraint. Trump returned promising lower taxes, domestic investment, and taxpayer relief. A prolonged war would compete with those priorities. Money presented as domestic renewal would again be committed overseas. The contradiction would be political as well as fiscal.

The damage would not stop with the federal budget. Disruption in the Persian Gulf can move oil markets almost immediately. The effects reach gasoline stations, shipping companies, manufacturers, and households. Most voters do not experience foreign policy through strategy papers. They experience it when filling a tank or paying for goods whose transport costs have risen. If war raises living costs, Trump’s economic message – one of his strongest assets—becomes harder to sustain.

Markets can absorb a brief shock. They are less comfortable with uncertainty that has no clear end. A drawn-out confrontation could delay investment, weaken confidence, and slow activity without producing a dramatic crash. The damage may be gradual, but households and businesses notice when stability fades.

Trump therefore faces a problem larger than the campaign. Winning battles is one thing; keeping victory from consuming the domestic program that returned him to power is another. The longer the conflict continues, the more pressing a second question becomes: what is America giving up in another Middle East war?

China is the obvious answer. Republicans and Democrats largely agree that Beijing, not Tehran, is America’s main long-term strategic competitor. The competition includes artificial intelligence, semiconductors, supply chains, technology standards, and Indo-Pacific influence. Successive administrations have argued that American planning and investment must remain focused there.

A prolonged Iran war would pull policy the other way. A carrier moved to the Gulf cannot be in the Pacific. A defense dollar spent replacing weapons used in the Middle East cannot be spent elsewhere. Officials consumed by another crisis have less time for long-term priorities. Strategy is about trade-offs. The United States might win militarily against Iran and still be less prepared where its future interests matter most.

There is precedent for that danger. Iraq and Afghanistan absorbed American money and attention while China enlarged its economy, modernized its forces, and expanded its reach. Beijing did not need to challenge the United States directly. It benefited while Washington spent its energy elsewhere. A new Iran war could reproduce that pattern.

The domestic political cost may be just as serious. Trump built part of his appeal by attacking “endless wars,” not defending them. That argument helped bind an America First coalition tired of overseas spending while problems at home remained unresolved. An extended Iran conflict would strain that identity. Each passing month makes it harder to explain how the war fits a promise to avoid foreign traps.

This is where military achievement and political success separate. Bombing can destroy targets while eroding the coalition that approved it. Higher fuel prices, a larger defense bill, and renewed focus on the Middle East could weaken Trump’s agenda. The most dangerous reaction may come not from opponents, but from supporters wondering whether his administration has entered the cycle it once condemned.

Allies would add another difficulty. European governments and regional partners may accept a short operation meant to restore deterrence. Keeping the same coalition together through a long war is harder. Costs are shared unevenly, priorities diverge, and patience wears thin. Diplomatic attention, like military capacity, has limits.

Supporters have a reasonable reply. The United States holds the military advantage, and limited strikes might restore deterrence without occupations like Iraq and Afghanistan. That possibility should not be dismissed. But the measure is not whether American forces can hit targets. It is whether doing so produces a political outcome worth the cost. Recent history offers little reason to assume the two coincide.

That is Trump’s trap. A president elected in part to end expensive foreign adventures could repeat their basic pattern. The greatest danger is not battlefield defeat. It is a victory that leaves the country paying more, politically divided, and strategically distracted.

Great powers rarely weaken because of one lost battle. More often, they wear themselves down by allowing immediate military goals to crowd out longer-term needs. If another Middle East war consumes the money and attention required for economic renewal and competition with China, the cost of victory may exceed the cost of restraint. That may become the defining foreign-policy test of Trump’s second term.

The Inconvenient Jew Is One of Zionism’s Biggest Problems

by Jason Jones | Jul 14, 2026 

https://original.antiwar.com/jason_jones/2026/07/13/the-inconvenient-jew-is-one-of-zionisms-biggest-problems/

Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter recently offered what he apparently believed was a devastating answer to those decrying the genocide in Gaza.

“Jews do not use children’s blood for rituals,” Leiter said. “Jews do not poison wells. And Jews do not starve populations or commit genocide.”

The smear in this common Zionist talking point is obvious: Those who accuse the Israeli government belong in the same moral category as those who spread medieval blood libels against innocent Jews. To say the regime of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has committed genocide is not merely to criticize a government, an army, or a political ideology. It is to accuse “the Jews.”

But there is a growing problem for Zionism and its favorite smear: the moral indignation of Jews.

According to a new AP-NORC poll, 30% of Jewish adults in the United States say Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Only 49% say it has not. Among religiously unaffiliated Jews, the share rises to about four in ten. Also, only about four in ten Jewish adults believe Israel’s continuing military operations in Gaza are justified, while roughly six in ten view Netanyahu unfavorably.

In light of the grave public perspective of a growing percentage of Jews, the Zionists look more and more foolish. Their go-to argument – if you can even call this substance less insult an argument – has become an argument ad absurdum: Nearly one-third of American Jews, Zionists believe, are secretly medieval antisemites; Jewish critics of Netanyahu believe Jews poison wells; Jews who watch children starve in Gaza and call it genocide are not morally serious observers but morons trafficking in blood libel … against themselves.

But the absurdity is rapidly leading to yet another Zionist offense – as if a genocide were not enough. Since the inconvenient Jew is now one of Zionism’s biggest problems, the Jew himself – insofar as he accepts the universal human principles that genocide flies in the face of – must be treated as an impossibility.

He cannot be debated honestly, because his very existence blows the argument apart. He proves that Jewish identity does not require loyalty to Netanyahu. He proves that revulsion at starving children is not (forgive the grotesque suggestion – it is not mine but Zionism’s) an anti-Jewish prejudice.

So, Zionism does to the inconvenient Jew what it does to every inconvenient person.

It erases him.

He becomes “self-hating,” “brainwashed,” “disloyal,” or – perhaps most insultingly of all – “not a real Jew.”

Insulting, yes. But I should add that to be insulted by a Zionist in 2026 – after nearly three years of genocide in the name of Zionism and yet another bloody campaign explicitly modeled on Israel’s Gaza operation now underway in Lebanon – is a badge of honor.

Let’s look again at Leiter’s formulation. He did not say “The evidence does not prove that the Israeli government has committed genocide.”

He said “Jews do not commit genocide.”

That substitution is doing all the work.

In the place of a morally indefensible government, the Zionist propagandist places an entire people — millions of human beings scattered across countries, cultures, religious practices, and political convictions — summoned as a human shield around the Netanyahu government.

Nothing could be further from a genuine defense of Jews than Zionist rhetoric. It is the opposite: A grotesque use of Jews. And worse: An attempt to make them morally complicit in what – as the polling shows – many of them reject.

Don’t get me wrong, by the way. I’m not addressing myself to Jews, as if I’m in a position to explain their own interests to them. And it should come as no surprise to anyone that, according to the same poll cited above, two-thirds of Jewish adults surveyed already understand (and said in the poll) that criticizing Israel’s military actions is not antisemitic. About half also said anti-Israel protests are not inherently antisemitic.

They get something Israel’s ambassador pretends not to get: attacking a Jewish person because he is Jewish is not the same thing as judging Zionist ideology or the actions of a government operating in its name.

I wrote recently that in light of the spread of the shocking truth about Israel’s conduct in Gaza, the ideology of Zionism is committing suicide by genocide.

This new poll reveals another reason why that’s the case: Jews are among the most convincing witnesses to the genocide. And every time Zionist spokesmen respond by erasing those Jews, they make their own fraudulence more obvious.

And so the Jew now standing in solidarity with the vulnerable Palestinian, is now vulnerable to the same attacks. But – in another twist of fate that makes the Jew very much like the Palestinian – the harder Zionism tries to make inconvenient Jew disappear, the more clearly everyone else can see him.

Trump’s New Iran Strikes Are Turning Failure Into a Wider Disaster

The President’s renewed strikes will not make Iran easier to coerce. They will make America weaker.

by Brian Hudson | Jul 13, 2026

https://original.antiwar.com/brian_hudson/2026/07/12/trumps-new-iran-strikes-are-turning-failure-into-a-wider-disaster/

The easiest mistake in war is to confuse the ability to strike again with proof that the previous strike worked. Donald Trump is making that mistake in Iran. The latest U.S. attacks may destroy more military assets and infrastructure, but they do not answer the political question that has haunted this war from the beginning: what outcome is all this destruction supposed to produce?

The Trump administration launched the initial campaign claiming that it would curb Iran’s nuclear program and break the military power behind what Washington described as Tehran’s regional threat. Months later, Iran has not surrendered, the nuclear dispute remains unresolved, and the Strait of Hormuz has become an even more dangerous center of confrontation. The United States is still negotiating through intermediaries over shipping and other unresolved issues. Trump says talks can continue even as he declares the ceasefire over and orders new attacks. This is not a strategy approaching success. It is a strategy using escalation to avoid confronting its own failure.

That pattern is the central danger. Each time force fails to produce the promised political result, the administration treats the failure not as evidence that its strategy is wrong, but as evidence that it has not used enough force. The inability of the initial campaign to compel Iran becomes the justification for another round. If that round also fails, its failure can authorize the next. The strategy becomes almost impossible to disprove because every setback is reclassified as unfinished business.

Iran has suffered enormous damage. The opening attacks killed senior political and military figures, while the wider campaign struck thousands of targets and degraded military capabilities. Yet destruction did not translate into political compliance. Even the scale of the funeral ceremonies for the Iranian leader assassinated in the opening U.S.-Israeli strikes, while not proof of national unanimity, showed that foreign bombardment had not produced the easy collapse in political authority some advocates of war expected.

Supporters of escalation will say Washington simply stopped too soon. Iran was weakened but not weakened enough, and more punishment will eventually force Tehran to concede. But this logic turns every failure into a reason to repeat the policy that caused it. If bombing does not secure surrender, bomb more. If retaliation follows, strike harder. If negotiations remain necessary, claim that diplomacy works only because the bombs created leverage.

Damage, however, is not leverage unless it moves the opponent toward the outcome being demanded. The initial campaign changed the arena of bargaining without resolving the conflict. Hormuz, not the nuclear file, has become Iran’s most powerful instrument of pressure. Tehran now treats control over the waterway as its strongest strategic card. Washington went to war in the name of eliminating Iranian leverage. Instead, it helped elevate a maritime chokepoint through which the equivalent of about one-fifth of global oil and petroleum-product consumption passed before the war into the central battlefield of the relationship.

The confrontation in the strait is therefore evidence that the initial campaign failed according to its own declared logic. Washington presented the reopening of Hormuz as proof of success. Yet commercial shipping remains exposed, tanker traffic has slowed, Iran continues to assert authority over passage, and the United States is again using force to impose the access it claimed had already been secured. A victory that must be repeatedly recreated through bombing is not a durable victory. It is an unstable military arrangement waiting for the next incident.

The deeper problem is that Trump has no visible theory of how escalation ends. Is the objective a nuclear agreement, unconditional access through Hormuz, the destruction of Iran’s conventional military capacity, regime change, or punishment for attacks on shipping? Each goal would require a different strategy and political settlement. The administration’s shifting objectives obscure how little the bombing has accomplished. Ambiguity allows every new strike to be described as necessary while preventing the public from judging whether the war has succeeded.

This is how an unsuccessful campaign becomes permanent policy. Iranian retaliation justifies American escalation; American escalation produces further retaliation; and the resulting insecurity is presented as proof that restraint would be dangerous. War becomes both the cause of the crisis and the proposed solution.

The military cost is already substantial. The initial campaign consumed advanced U.S. munitions at a rate that exposed the limits of the industrial base. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that the United States may have used more than half of its prewar inventory in four of seven key systems, with one to four years required to rebuild those stocks. Each new round narrows future choices, increases competition among theaters and allies, and turns scarce production capacity into fuel for a war without a defined endpoint.

A serious “America First” policy would treat this as a warning. It would ask whether another missile fired at Iran makes the United States safer or merely postpones the moment when Washington must negotiate. Trump instead treats the act of striking as its own strategic justification. Firepower substitutes for political purpose, even as escalation depletes military readiness and deepens dependence on the diplomacy the administration publicly derides.

The economic costs follow the same pattern. Hormuz connects energy prices, shipping, insurance, manufacturing, agriculture, and household expenses. Oil prices fell when diplomacy appeared to reduce the risk of disruption and rose again when U.S.-Iran fighting resumed. That volatility is not incidental. It is one of the principal ways the war transfers its costs to people far from the battlefield.

A sustained campaign would raise insurance and freight costs, unsettle investment, and increase pressure on fuel-dependent industries and food production. The burden would fall on workers whose jobs depend on stable trade, families already struggling with prices, and communities repeatedly told that housing, health care, schools, and infrastructure are unaffordable. A government cannot plausibly claim to put Americans first while exposing them to a preventable energy shock and treating public resources as an inexhaustible reserve for escalation.

The regional political cost is equally serious. U.S. operations depend on Gulf states for bases, logistical support, and access. Yet those states absorb the immediate danger when Iran retaliates. The more Washington turns their territory into infrastructure for an open-ended conflict, the stronger their incentive becomes to hedge and seek arrangements that reduce their exposure. Trump’s escalation risks weakening the very network of relationships on which American power in the region depends.

Restraint is not surrender. It is the recognition that force without a political theory of success becomes an expensive ritual. Before any further attack, the administration should state its objective, explain how military action will achieve it, define the conditions for ending operations, identify the risks of retaliation, and provide the legal authority for widening the war. Congress should demand those answers rather than allowing a failed campaign to expand through presidential momentum.

The initial campaign proved that Iran could be damaged without becoming politically compliant. The renewed strikes are proving something more dangerous: Trump is prepared to weaken American military readiness, economic stability, regional relationships, and democratic accountability rather than acknowledge that bombing did not produce the settlement he promised. The responsible course is to use the remaining diplomatic channel to reduce escalation and negotiate the unresolved issues. Otherwise, every failure will become the excuse for another attack, and the United States will turn a failed strategy into a permanent war.