Trump's window for face-saving exit may be closing now

Escalation is only putting him in a lose-lose situation, so negotiating is the only option. However, Iran's growing leverage could prevent an easy off-ramp.

Trita Parsi

Mar 19, 2026

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-end-war-iran/

The developments of the past 24 hours may prove a turning point in this war: Israel and America’s escalation by striking oil facilities at the Qatari-Iranian Pars field, and in Asaluyeh, Iran's massive retaliation against oil and gas installations in Saudi, Qatar and beyond, which shot up oil prices, the near downing of an American F-35 fighter by Iran, and Secretary Bessent's revelations that the U.S. may un-sanction Iranian oil on the waters to bring down oil prices.

As I said already on the fourth day, the U.S. has lost control of this war. It had a Plan A, but no Plan B.

Plan A came crashing down after it became clear that the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei neither brought the implosion of the theocracy nor their surrender. As a result, Washington is increasingly letting the Israelis drive the bus, by virtue of them having a plan, even though their plan does not serve U.S. interests (the Israelis want to prolong the war to degrade Iran's entire industrial base, regardless of what happens to energy markets, Trump's presidency, and security in the region as a whole.)

The Israeli strike against the Pars field, coordinated with the U.S., is particularly important because it violated a promise Trump made to Qatar back in September 2025 that Israel would no longer be allowed to strike Qatar.

But that gas field is shared by both Iran and Qatar, hence it was an attack on Qatar as well as on Iran. With American coordination. This — and the impact on energy markets — may explain why Trump took to social media to blame Israel for the attack and publicly forbade them from striking further energy fields.

But Bessent's comments about un-sanctioning Iranian oil currently sitting in tankers on the sea are the most important. Though it's primarily done to push down oil prices, it appears that we may have nevertheless entered sanctions relief territory out of necessity.

I wrote several days ago that Tehran is very unlikely to end the war even if the U.S. pulls out and declares victory. Iran has leverage for the first time in years and will seek to trade it in. It has publicly demanded a closing of American bases, reparations, and sanctions relief in order to stop shooting at Israel and open the Straits. The first may happen over time anyway, the second is highly unlikely, but the third — sanctions relief — may become more plausible as the cost of the war rises, and escalation strategies become increasingly suicidal for Trump.

As I have explained, a return to the pre-war status quo is unacceptable to Tehran because it will not only be in a degraded state, but also in a continuously weakening state because its pathways to sanctions relief have been blown up. If Iran weakens further, it will only invite further American and Israeli aggression, Tehran believes, because it was the false perception of Iranian weakness that created the "window of opportunity" to attack Iran in the first place.

Sanctions relief is, as a result, a necessity to ensure that the war doesn't restart.

But here is where Iran may miscalculate. Trump may not yet have reached the point at which the cost of continuing the war is so high that he opts to offer sanctions exemptions to select countries to get Iran's agreement to open the straits and end the war. He will likely only reach that point once it's clear that his base is starting to turn against the war in a serious manner.

At that point, Trump will face a time crunch. He will need a narrative in which he declares himself a victor — with his base believing it. Absent the ability to convince his base that he has won, the benefit of ending the war may not outweigh the cost of continuing it. And as soon as his base starts turning against the war, his ability to convince them of his victory starts to wane.

Mindful of the fact that negotiating this end may take an estimated 7-10 days at best, which is different from the 24 hours or so it took to negotiate the unconditional ceasefire in June, Tehran may overplay its hand and only agree to enter these negotiations at a point at which the length of the negotiations may exceed the time Trump has left to convincingly declare victory and provide himself a face saving exit.

Getting the timing of this right will be very difficult for both the U.S. and Iran. Israel will do all it can to sabotage any such off-ramp, including killing Iranian's negotiators. But it will become increasingly clear — if it hasn't already — to Trump that all his escalatory options only deepen the lose-lose situation he has put himself in.

That's why Trump should never have listened to Netanyahu in the first place.

Iran attacks Israel's Dimona nuclear site in retaliation, dozens wounded

Iran signals tit-for-tat escalation after missile hits site near Israel’s nuclear facility

By Elis Gjevori

Published date: 21 March 2026

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/iran-attacks-israels-dimona-nuclear-site-retaliation-dozens-wounded

Iranian state television says a missile strike on Dimona, home to a nuclear facility in southern Israel, was a "response" to an earlier attack on its Natanz nuclear site.

Iran’s atomic energy organisation said the "Natanz enrichment complex was targeted this morning", adding there was "no leakage of radioactive materials reported", according to local media.

The Israeli army confirmed "a direct impact of an Iranian missile" on a building in the city that houses a nuclear research facility, AFP reported.

Israeli media report that at least 39 people were injured, although officials have yet to provide a full breakdown of casualties.

Dimona sits near one of the most sensitive locations in Irael: the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, long linked to Israel’s undeclared nuclear weapons programme.

The Israeli state continues to refuse transparency, neither confirming nor denying its arsenal, while maintaining one of the region’s most heavily fortified sites in the Naqab desert.

The International Atomic Energy Agency says it is aware of reports of a strike in Dimona but has received no information of damage to the Negev nuclear research centre from Israel

However, with Israel maintaining secrecy over its undeclared nuclear programme, questions remain over how much information is being shared with international inspectors.

The agency said regional authorities reported no abnormal radiation levels and that it is monitoring the situation. 

Iran’s Natanz nuclear plant

The strike on Dimona came hours after a US-Israeli attack targeted Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment complex.

Iran condemned the strike as “criminal attacks”, saying it violated international law and nuclear agreements, including the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and warned of wider consequences.

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed the Natanz attack but reported no rise in radiation levels outside the facility, as it launched an investigation and urged restraint.

Iran had previously warned it could target Dimona if Israel continued striking nuclear sites.

A military source told Tasnim News Agency on Saturday that Iran has shifted its strategy, signalling a move beyond a policy of proportional retaliation.

The source said Tehran now intends to raise the cost of any attack, warning that future responses will be broader and more damaging.

"The enemy must have realized by now that if they attack one infrastructure, we will attack several of their infrastructures; if they attack a refinery or gas facility, we will attack several similar facilities and teach them a crushing lesson."

The source added: "Iran responds to every mistake of the enemy with surprise and sets their interests on fire."

How the Israeli Tail Wags the American Dog

The US attack on Iran may be less about American security than about the priorities of Israel’s government.

Eli Clifton and Ian S. Lustick

March 12, 2026

https://archive.ph/e4PEo

One prominent rationale for the Israeli-American attack on Iran is to bomb the country into friendliness to the US and Israel. Very few believe this will succeed. Iran, a country as big as Germany, Britain, and France combined, has a population of 93 million, more than triple that of Iraq when the United States tried, even with a massive army, to transform it into a US ally. We all remember how that worked out.

President Trump ran two successful presidential campaigns with a populist foreign policy platform of promising “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars” and denouncing the “endless wars” pursued by his predecessors in Iraq and Afghanistan. He now appears to have jettisoned his “America First” foreign policy with no strategic rationale. But understanding this war as rational means believing it was launched as a means to achieve some particular end for Americans. Yet, despite President Trump’s claims to the contrary, Iran’s long-range missile program posed no foreseeable threat to the US according to US intelligence assessments. This forces our attention to its real origins and beneficiaries, in Israel.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged that the primary answer to the question of “Why [attack Iran] now?” was that US war-making decisions were effectively being driven by Israel. “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed, and then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn’t act,” he said on March 2.

The first part of Rubio’s answer, that Israel was planning to attack Iran and that Iran would retaliate against US targets, is a statement of a real problem: Israel’s behavior imposes security and economic costs on the United States. Successive US presidents supplied Israel with billions of dollars of military aid, political cover in international forums and tirelessly worked to shield Israel from accountability for its war on Gaza and long-running occupation of the West Bank. Israel has become accustomed to acting with impunity and disregarding US interests, particularly with respect to presidents Obama, Biden, and Trump’s stated priorities of refocusing US foreign policy toward the challenges of a rising China.

But the Trump administration’s solution, as explained by Rubio, was simply to acquiesce to Israel and join a deadly war of choice against Iran that is predictably sowing chaos in the region, killing Iranian civilians, and promising, much like George W. Bush’s ill-fated Iraq War, quick regime change to a US- and Israel-friendly democracy.

The real goals of Trump’s war cannot be found in his strategic vision, which is overshadowed, if it even exists, by a pinwheeling embrace of postures that serve his vanity and his short-term political interests. While most combat operations have been undertaken by the US military, at considerable risk to US service members and costs borne by American taxpayers, the war was born, planned, and insisted upon by Israel, and its long-serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I have tried to persuade successive American administrations to take firm action [against Iran], and President Trump did,” Netanyahu told Fox News, acknowledging his own efforts to push the US into yet another war in the Middle East. Netanyahu famously overpromises what US interventions will achieve. In 2002 he told Congress, “If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.”

No Time for Losers: Why the War Meant to Save Israel May Destroy It

by Ramzy Baroud | Mar 20, 2026 

https://original.antiwar.com/ramzy-baroud/2026/03/19/no-time-for-losers-why-the-war-meant-to-save-israel-may-destroy-it/

When Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu launched their military aggression against Iran on February 28, they appeared convinced that the war would be swift. Netanyahu reportedly assured Washington that the campaign would deliver a decisive strategic victory – one capable of reordering the Middle East and restoring Israel’s battered deterrence.

Whether Netanyahu himself believed that promise is another matter.

For decades, influential circles within Israel’s strategic establishment have not necessarily sought stability, but rather “creative destruction.” The logic is simple: dismantle hostile regional powers and allow fragmented political landscapes to replace them.

This idea did not emerge overnight. It was articulated most clearly in a 1996 policy paper titled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, prepared for then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by a group of US neoconservative strategists, including Richard Perle.

The document argued that Israel should abandon land-for-peace diplomacy and instead pursue a strategy that would weaken or remove hostile regimes in the region, particularly Iraq and Syria. The goal was not merely military victory but a geopolitical restructuring of the Middle East in Israel’s favor.

In many ways, the subsequent decades seemed to validate that theory – at least from Tel Aviv’s perspective.

The Middle East Reordered

The 2003 US invasion of Iraq was widely considered a catastrophe for Washington. Hundreds of thousands died, trillions of dollars were spent, and the United States became entangled in one of the most destabilizing occupations in modern history.

Yet the war removed Saddam Hussein’s government, dismantled the Baath Party, and destroyed what had once been the strongest Arab army in the region.

For Israel, the strategic consequences were significant.

Iraq, historically one of the few Arab states capable of confronting Israel militarily, ceased to exist as a coherent regional power. Years of instability followed, leaving Baghdad with a fragile political system struggling to maintain national cohesion.

Syria, another central concern in Israeli strategic thinking, would later descend into its own devastating war beginning in 2011. Libya collapsed earlier after NATO’s intervention in 2011 as well. Across the region, once-formidable Arab nationalist states fractured into weakened or internally divided systems.

From Israel’s vantage point, the theory of regional fragmentation appeared to be paying dividends.

Without strong Arab states capable of projecting military power, several Gulf governments began reconsidering their long-standing refusal to normalize relations with Israel.

The result was the Abraham Accords, signed in September 2020 under the Trump administration, which formalized normalization between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, later followed by Morocco and Sudan.

For a moment, it seemed that the geopolitical transformation envisioned decades earlier had been realized.

Gaza Changed the Equation

But history rarely moves in straight lines.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza did not produce the strategic victory Israeli leaders had anticipated. Instead, the war exposed deep vulnerabilities in Israel’s military and political standing.

More importantly, Palestinian resistance demonstrated that overwhelming military force could not translate into decisive political control.

The consequences reverberated far beyond Gaza.

The war galvanized resistance movements across the region, deepened divisions within Arab and Muslim societies between governments aligned with Washington and those opposed to Israeli policies, and ignited an unprecedented wave of global solidarity with Palestinians.

Israel’s international image suffered dramatically.

For decades, Western political discourse framed Israel as a democratic outpost surrounded by hostile forces. That narrative has steadily eroded. Increasingly, Israel is described – even by major international organizations – as a state engaged in systematic oppression and, in Gaza’s case, genocidal violence.

The strategic cost of that reputational collapse cannot be overstated. Military power relies not only on weapons but also on legitimacy. And legitimacy, once lost, is difficult to recover.

Netanyahu’s Final Gamble

Against this backdrop, the war on Iran emerged as Netanyahu’s most consequential gamble.

If successful, it could restore Israel’s regional dominance and reassert its deterrence. Defeating Iran – or even severely weakening it – would reshape the balance of power across the Middle East.

But failure carries equally profound consequences.

Netanyahu, now facing an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in 2024 over war crimes in Gaza, has tied his political survival to the promise of strategic victory.

In multiple interviews over the past year, he has framed the confrontation with Iran in almost biblical terms. In one televised address in 2025, Netanyahu declared that Israel was engaged in a “historic mission” to secure the future of the Jewish state for generations.

Such rhetoric reveals not confidence but desperation.

Israel cannot wage such a war alone. It never could.

Thus, Netanyahu worked tirelessly to draw the United States directly into the conflict – a familiar pattern in modern Middle Eastern wars.

The Paradox of Trump’s War

For Americans, the question remains: why did Donald Trump – who repeatedly campaigned against “endless wars” – allow the US to enter yet another Middle Eastern conflict?

During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump famously declared: “We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East.”

Yet nearly a decade later, his administration has plunged Washington into a confrontation whose potential consequences dwarf those of the earlier wars.

The precise motivations matter less to those living under the bombs.

Across the region, the scenes are painfully familiar: devastated cities, mass graves, grieving families, and societies once again forced to endure the violence of foreign intervention.

But this war is unfolding in a fundamentally different geopolitical environment.

The US no longer commands the unchallenged dominance it once enjoyed.

China has emerged as a major economic and strategic actor. Russia continues to project influence. Regional powers have gained confidence in resisting Washington’s dictates.

The Middle East itself has changed.

A War Already Going Wrong

Early signs suggest that the war is not unfolding according to the expectations of Washington or Tel Aviv.

Reports from US and Israeli media indicate that missile-defense systems in Israel and several Gulf states are facing a serious strain under sustained attacks. Meanwhile, Iran and its regional allies have demonstrated missile capabilities far more extensive than many analysts had anticipated.

What was supposed to be a rapid campaign increasingly resembles a prolonged conflict.

Energy markets provide another indication of shifting dynamics. Rather than securing greater control over global energy flows, the war has disrupted supplies and strengthened Iran’s leverage over key maritime routes.

Strategic assumptions built on decades of uncontested American military power are colliding with a far more complex reality.

Even the political rhetoric emanating from Washington has become noticeably defensive and increasingly angry – often a sign that events are not unfolding as planned.

Within the Trump administration itself, the intellectual poverty of the moment is difficult to miss. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whose public persona is built on television bravado rather than strategic literacy, has often framed the conflict in language that sounds less like military doctrine and more like locker-room theatrics.

In speeches and interviews, he has repeatedly reduced complex geopolitical realities into crude narratives of strength, masculinity, and domination. Such rhetoric may excite partisan audiences, but it reveals a deeper problem: the people directing the most dangerous war in decades appear to understand very little about the forces they have unleashed.

Hegseth’s style is symptomatic of a broader intellectual collapse within Washington’s war-making circles – where historical knowledge is replaced by slogans, and strategic planning by theatrical displays of toughness. In such an environment, wars are not analyzed; they are performed.

The End of an Era?

Netanyahu sought to dominate the Middle East. Washington sought to reaffirm its position as the world’s unrivaled superpower.

Neither objective appears within reach.

Instead, the war may accelerate the very transformations it was meant to prevent: a declining US strategic role, a weakened Israeli deterrent posture, and a Middle East increasingly shaped by regional actors rather than external powers.

Trump, despite the lofty and belligerent language, is in reality a weak president. Rage is rarely the language of strength; it is often the mask of insecurity. His administration has overestimated America’s military omnipotence, undermined allies and antagonized adversaries alike, and entered a war whose historical, political, and strategic dimensions it scarcely understands.

How can a leadership so consumed by narcissism and spectacle fully grasp the magnitude of the catastrophe it has helped unleash?

One would expect wisdom in moments of global crisis. What we have instead is a chorus of slogans, threats, and self-congratulation emanating from Washington – an administration seemingly incapable of distinguishing between what power can achieve and what it cannot.

They do not understand how profoundly the world has changed. They do not understand how the Middle East now perceives American military adventurism. And they certainly do not understand that Israel itself has become, politically and morally, a declining brand.

Of course, Trump and his equally arrogant administration will continue searching for any fragment of ‘victory’ to sell to their constituency as the greatest triumph in history. There will always be zealots ready to believe such myths.

But most Americans – and the overwhelming majority of people around the world – no longer do.

Partly because this war on Iran is immoral.

And partly because history has very little patience for losers.

Exclusive: Americans believe Trump will send troops into Iran, and don't like the idea, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds

By Jason Lange

March 19, 2026

https://archive.ph/MIDBp#selection-1041.0-1059.14

WASHINGTON, March 19 (Reuters) - Some 65% of Americans believe U.S. President Donald Trump will order troops into a large-scale ground war in Iran but only ​7% support the idea, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that ‌closed on Thursday.

The three-day poll showed Trump's broader standing with the public holding largely unchanged at 40%, up 1 percentage point from a Reuters/Ipsos poll carried ​out in the hours after the U.S. and Israel attacked ​Iran on February 28. The poll, which gathered respondents ⁠from 1,545 U.S. adults nationwide, had a margin of error of ​about 3 percentage points.

The Trump administration has mulled deploying thousands of ​U.S. troops to reinforce its operation in the Middle East, Reuters reported on Wednesday. The possible deployments could use air and naval forces to secure safe passage for ​oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, or could involve ​deploying U.S. troops to Iran's shoreline. The Trump administration has also discussed options to ‌send ⁠ground forces to Iran's Kharg Island, the hub for 90% of Iran's oil exports, Reuters reported.

Trump's Republicans largely support the war as it has played out so far, with 77% saying they approve of ​U.S. strikes on ​Iran, compared ⁠with 6% of Democrats and 28% of independents.

Some 37% of Americans overall approve of the war, the ​poll found. Fifty-nine percent disapprove, including about one in ​five ⁠Republicans.

Some 63% of Republicans - and 34% of Americans overall - said they would support deploying a small number of special forces troops to Iran. Fifty-five ⁠percent ​of respondents in the poll said they ​opposed deploying any ground troops, whether the scale of operations be large or small.

Iran Has Destroyed 10 US Radars, Hit Bases Dozens of Times

Iranian forces began firing missiles and drones at American military assets in the Middle East after a surprise attack by the US and Israel

by Kyle Anzalone | March 18, 2026

https://news.antiwar.com/2026/03/18/iran-has-destroyed-10-us-radars-hit-bases-dozens-of-times/

Iran has inflicted a heavy toll on the network of American radars across the Middle East. Advanced radar systems are crucial for identifying and shooting down missiles and drones.

Imagery reviewed by ABC News shows that at least 10 American radars in the Middle East were destroyed in the first two weeks of the war with Iran. The strikes have hit four AN/TPY-2 systems, which are the primary radars used by the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system.

The Department of War has started to move parts of the THAAD system out of South Korea to send to the Middle East. Additionally, radars for three major US bases in the region were hit in Iranian strikes, as well as the system for the US Embassy in Baghdad.

ABC News also reported that Iranian missiles have hit US bases in the Middle East at least 25 times since the latest conflict erupted in February. However, the true impact remains unknown, as the Pentagon has refused to release damage assessments, and satellite imagery that is typically publicly available has been withheld.

The war started on February 28 when Israel and the US launched an unprovoked attack on Iran that ignited a region-wide conflict. While President Trump was hoping for a quick victory, Iranian forces have continued to fire missiles at Israel, US bases in the region, and America’s Gulf Arab allies.

Tehran now says it is unwilling to agree to a ceasefire or engage in talks with the United States. During the last two rounds of dialogue between Washington and Tehran, the US and Israel launched aggressive wars against Iran.

Iran's Strategic Error

The member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council are one step away from entering into military conflict with Iran due to Iran's continued attacks on their transportation, communications, and tourism infrastructure, and now on their refineries and gas processing facilities, such as Ras Laffan in Qatar.

Iran should have kept the Sunni countries of the region neutral in the conflict with the United States and Israel, but all indications are that several internal and external factors have led what remains of the Iranian leadership (given that Israel has eliminated most of Iran's top decision-makers and strategists) to commit this strategic error.

It appears that Iran's strategy of setting the entire Middle East ablaze, thereby disrupting the oil, gas, and fertilizer supplies leaving the region primarily for Asia, Europe, and Africa, weighed far more heavily than avoiding conflict with their Sunni neighbors in the Gulf Cooperation Council, and even with predominantly Shiite Iraq, which has also been targeted by Iranian attacks.

While the Iranian leadership maintains that these attacks are directed against US bases or facilities serving the United States, the reality is that they have damaged vital infrastructure for the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and have led to the closure of much of the trade and tourism in important business centers such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, and Doha in Qatar.

Israel's elimination of Iran's key decision-makers has also led to the dispersed command and control centers of the Iranian armed forces and Revolutionary Guards making decisions independently (part of Iran's strategy). This has resulted in indiscriminate attacks across the region, without considering the reactions of the affected countries' governments or the repercussions for the already highly unfavorable balance of power for Iran in the region.

Iran's civilian leadership, including Foreign Minister Aragchi, insists they do not want conflict with the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, but their statements are consistently overtaken by Iran's ongoing attacks on its neighbors, although that these countries had nothing to do with the unjustified and unlawful aggression perpetrated by Israel and the United States against Iran.

Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud (Saudi Foreign Minister), speaking to reporters, reiterated that his country reserves the right to respond to Iranian attacks and that their patience with “Iranian aggression” is not unlimited.

Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, speaking to reporters in Riyadh, has said the little trust that remained in Iran has been completely shattered.

“Iran’s attacks on neighbouring countries were premeditated, and what we are witnessing now confirms this,” Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat added.

“I would hope that they understand the message of the meeting today (ministers of Foreign Relations of the GCC), recalculate quickly and stop attacking their neighbours.”

How will what remain of the Iranian regime emerge from this situation? Iran’s theocracy will almost certainly not emerge unscathed if it persists in attacking its Arab neighbors, as sooner or later they will be forced to enter the conflict against Iran, and this will mean even greater devastation for that country.

For the United States and Israel, the joining of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and even Oman in the conflict against Iran will constitute a strategic, political, and propaganda victory of great value. After NATO members refused to help the United States reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the fact that countries in the region are joining in the attacks on Iran would validate Washington and Tel Aviv's false rhetoric that Iran, not them, is the true threat in the region.