What Alternatives in the War with Iran?

A growing number of Western analysts contend that the United States has failed to achieve its objectives in the war with Iran. This assessment is largely driven by the surge in global oil prices, which has rippled through the global economy and is being felt acutely in the rising cost of everyday goods in the United States – a recurring theme in the American press. For these same observers, Iran appears to hold the stronger hand in ongoing negotiations. But how accurate is that view?

A Closer Look at the War’s Underlying Motives

George Friedman, a geopolitical analyst, says he is not convinced that Benjamin Netanyahu was able to draw Donald Trump into the war. Not only, he argues, is the latter difficult to persuade, but Iran’s nuclear program is of far greater concern to the United States than to Israel.

Moreover, the 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS 2025) suggests that Washington’s priorities lie primarily at home and within the Western Hemisphere. Trump has sought to scale back the United States’ role in the Middle East, shifting greater responsibility to its regional allies among the signatories of the Abraham Accords. Iran, however, remains a significant obstacle, given its expanding arsenal and its interference across the region.

U.S. Strategy: Weakening Iran

Washington’s objective, then, is to weaken Iran and its allied militias. With the fall of the Baathist regime in Syria, the weakening of Hezbollah and Hamas, and the U.S.-British strikes against the Houthis between March and May 2025, the mullah regime has lost much of its hegemonic reach. The strikes carried out in June 2025 against Iran subsequently destroyed its air defenses, severely damaged its nuclear program, and inflicted significant losses on its missile production capacity. Once those strikes ceased, however, Iran moved quickly over the following eight months to repair part of the damage.

The current war has nevertheless deprived the Islamic Republic of a large share of its arsenal and curtailed its ability to support its regional allies. With the Iranian economy in ruins, the mullah regime’s most serious challenges may still lie ahead – particularly if ongoing negotiations between Washington and Tehran conclude without any lifting of sanctions.

The list of those dissatisfied within the country is long, particularly among marginalized minorities (Kurds, Azeris, Baluch, Turkmen, among others), the merchant class, students, women, pragmatists, and possibly even the Artesh – the Iranian army – given that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) continues to be favored at its expense.

However, the timeframe for any change in Iran’s behavior or regime remains uncertain. Airstrikes have not forced Tehran to back down, as it continues to possess sufficient asymmetric capabilities to disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, destabilize the global economy, and carry out attacks across the region. Moreover, Hamas and Hezbollah retain both the capacity and the intent to rebuild over time. The Gaza peace process remains fragile, while efforts toward a settlement in Lebanon are still in their early stages. In short, the United States has moved forward in pursuing its objectives in the Middle East, though they remain unfulfilled. For Washington, however, other priorities are now more pressing.

The Iranian Nuclear Program: A Real Threat

Following the June 2025 strikes, Iran’s nuclear program was significantly damaged. However, Tehran retained the capacity to reactivate it, as it continued to possess 430 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent, which could be readily further enriched to 90 percent. The centrifuges required for this process remained intact at their production facilities; they had not been deployed to the bombed nuclear sites, while Iranian universities continued to transmit the relevant technical expertise. In short, within a few years, Iran could have been in a position to restore its nuclear capabilities and acquire a nuclear weapon.

With the current war, the damage inflicted on this program is undoubtedly more significant, but no credible assessment is available at this stage. The United States is determined to prevent Iran from reactivating its nuclear program, not so much out of concern that the Islamic Republic might acquire nuclear-tipped missiles – a prospect that does not appear to be Washington’s primary fear – but because of the alleged connections between the mullah regime and al-Qaeda, the organization behind the September 11, 2001 attacks, some of whose leaders are said to have been hosted in Iran. US security officials fear a possible “second nuclear 9/11”: a scenario in which a small Iranian nuclear device could be transferred to al-Qaeda, concealed within a commercial shipment, and then transported to a major port such as New York, where its detonation could cause hundreds of thousands of deaths. This scenario is not imaginary, since al-Qaeda has already struck in the United States and in other countries. Similarly, Iran’s own “long arm” – already responsible for attacks in Argentina, Gulf states, and Bulgaria – is seen as potentially capable of carrying out comparable operations.

How Might This War End?

The Iranian regime remains firmly in place, and its behavior has not changed. Its nuclear potential, as well as its missile and drone capabilities, though significantly reduced, remain a reality. The Strait of Hormuz is still being blocked by the IRGC, while the US Navy is enforcing a naval blockade. Sanctions against the Islamic Republic continue to intensify, including from European countries. Iran’s economy lies in ruins, negotiations in Islamabad are dragging on, and the war is not yet over.

The Islamic Republic cannot claim a Pyrrhic victory, except in the eyes of credulous, indoctrinated supporters. At the same time, a U.S. victory achieved through airstrikes alone remains unlikely. A ground operation by the United States is still possible, but Trump is reluctant to launch one, as it would be costly. Pressure is mounting on the US president because of the toll the war is taking on the global economy. Time is not on his side. Iran is indeed being strangled, and time works far less in its favor, although this does not prevent it from betting on this factor to sway American public opinion against Trump, as the communists did during the Vietnam War with Presidents Johnson and Nixon. The difference is that U.S. casualties in this war have so far been negligible compared with those of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. By contrast, the Pentagon’s military successes are significantly greater than in those other conflicts. If Iran continues to play the time factor, a swift, large-scale and short US ground operation against specific targets inside Iran cannot be ruled out, although it would likely come at a high cost.