The weekend’s news on the Iran war fluctuated between reports of massive U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran’s infrastructure and President Donald Trump saying he canceled the attacks because of an imminent deal.
Leaders in the White House, Congress, universities and think tanks agree on the necessity to end the war but not how best to do so. Here are five competing scenarios circulating in Washington on how the wearying conflict plays out.
1- Pounding the Regime
On July 29, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), said its forces had completed a “heavy wave of strikes against Iran” that hit dozens of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets, including military command centers, missile and drone facilities, coastal surveillance and defense sites.
“The strikes aimed to diminish further threats posed by Iran and its proxies to American forces, commercial shipping, and neighboring Gulf countries,” a CENTCOM statement said.
The war reignited in early July after Tehran attacked civilian shipping in the Strait of Hormuz following nearly two months of truce. Washington insiders argue that heavier military losses will prompt Iran to return to the negotiating table and stop disrupting international waterways to choke off energy supplies from the Sunni Arab Gulf monarchies.
As U.S. forces bombed Iran’s southern Persian Gulf coast for nearly two weeks, some in Washington compared the campaign to the “Christmas bombing,” or Operation Linebacker II, the massive U.S. bombing campaign late in the Vietnam War intended to force North Vietnam back to negotiations in 1972.
“Trump is in a position where he has to get Iran to publicly renounce their policy of attacking neutral civilian shipping,” said David Des Roches, a professor at Washington’s Thayer Marshall Institute. “That’s a heavy lift and will only be achieved if Trump delivers A LOT of punishment.”
He said Trump appears frustrated because he has few options beyond either withdrawing from the war or expanding it.
Des Roches, a former director of Gulf and Peninsula affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, said Iran’s primary response since the outbreak of the war has not been directed at the U.S or Israel, but at Muslim Arab states and neutral civilian shipping.
“The Iranians appear a bit intoxicated by the success of this approach and have asserted a right to permanent control of the strait, and to force a withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Middle East, which would inevitably lead to an Iranian-dominated region where the Arab states are somewhat less than sovereign,” he said.
Des Roches said Trump cannot accept that outcome because of its potentially disastrous consequences for global security and economy.
2- Regional War
On July 30, an apparent drone strike targeting Damietta, a Mediterranean port in Egypt, signaled that even the Suez Canal might not remain a safe alternative route for energy exports. Two ships, including a U.S. gas tanker, caught fire after the blast.
Damage is seen on a building near the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet after an Iranian drone strike in Juffair, Bahrain, in March.
Although no country claimed responsibility, the attack suggested that the U.S.-Iran war is expanding into new parts of the Middle East. After bombing Iranian advisers and pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq last week, Saudi Arabia is forming a naval coalition to protect shipping in the Red Sea.
“The introduction of additional actors from the region into the line of fire in a way that I think we haven’t seen before will cause the other regional actors to want to be very involved,” said Elizabeth Dent, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “This is such a dynamic situation.”
She said the Gulf countries will become increasingly entangled in the conflict and remain deeply engaged “not just in the mediation of the conflict, but also as parties to any sort of ceasefire or agreement that comes to fruition.”
Qatar’s role as a leading mediator and Oman’s long-standing relationship with Tehran did not shield either country from Iranian projectiles.
3- Persistent Stalemate
Some in Washington see no clear end to the war. Instead, they envision Tehran and Washington locked in an ongoing conflict unlikely to end through either a negotiated settlement or a decisive military victory.
“We’re clearly looking at a prolonged stalemate, and the closer it looks to an organized and effective regime of containment, the better it will be for Washington,” said Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “Whereas the more it looks like an unstructured, albeit restrained, free-for-all, the better it will be for Tehran.”
He said the Gulf Arab states would remain at a disadvantage because they would continue to face Iranian retaliation as long as Washington and Tehran remain locked in a lengthy contest with no clear endgame.
4- Negotiated Settlement
Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, sees the war ending not in victory or surrender, but with a negotiated pause that both Washington and Tehran can present as a success.
An Iranian newspaper featuring Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on its front page is displayed in Tehran.
He told MBN that Washington has demonstrated its ability to inflict enormous damage on Iran but has struggled to translate military superiority into Iranian capitulation. Tehran, meanwhile, cannot defeat Washington militarily, but it can make the war increasingly costly by threatening American military bases and infrastructure in the Gulf Arab states and disrupting global energy flows.
“Washington has learned that it can devastate Iran but cannot easily compel it; Tehran has learned that it can hurt the United States and the region but cannot stop America from devastating Iran,” he said. “That mutual vulnerability is where the diplomacy begins.”
Vatanka said the Strait of Hormuz could provide the key to breaking the deadlock.
“If Iran gets relief from the blockade and can export oil, while Washington gets reliable freedom of navigation and an end to attacks on shipping, there is the basis for a ceasefire,” he said.
5- Regime Change
In the opening days of the war, Trump stopped short of declaring that regime change was the objective. One of the White House’s first statements on the conflict, however, said Operation Epic Fury was aimed at “crushing” the Iranian regime.
Nearly a month into the war, Trump began saying that regime change had effectively already occurred “because the leaders are all very different than the ones that we started off with that created all those problems.”
Washington has not said it is targeting Iran’s new supreme leader, Mujtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen publicly since the war began. But amid reports that U.S. and Israeli intelligence services are seeking his whereabouts, the possibility that regime change remains a viable option in Washington cannot be ruled out.
Some analysts continue to argue that removing Iran’s government and helping the Iranian people shape their future would best serve U.S. interests and ultimately prove the more successful long-term strategy.
“Those with concerns about Iranian migration shouldn’t worry only about the day after the Islamic Republic falls,” analysts Navid Mohebbi and Behnam Ben Taleblu, argued in an opinion article in the Wall Street Journal. “They should also worry about every additional day the regime stays in power.”
