Trump faces three bad options as Iran war reaches a dead end

Nearly five months into the war with Iran, President Donald Trump has yet to find a way out. Three options lie before him — resuming large-scale military operations, tightening economic sanctions, or declaring victory and withdrawing — but none offers a clear path to winning.

Expanding airstrikes risks depleting US interceptor missile stocks and triggering wider escalation. Squeezing Iran into submission through sanctions could take considerable time. And pulling out now, with Iran's nuclear program and the Strait of Hormuz unresolved, would amount to an admission of failure.

The New York Times, in an analysis piece published Sunday headlined "Trump Seems Stuck in the Iran War," wrote that Trump — who believed his power had no limits — "has discovered several." Each option for ending the conflict, the paper said, "seems unappealing to him for different reasons."

Trump is reported to be deeply frustrated. According to people close to him, he has been even more unpredictable than usual in recent weeks — a notable shift even by the standards of a president who has long wielded unpredictability as a negotiating tool.

Last week, his administration moved to pursue a nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia that would have allowed uranium enrichment — a longstanding Saudi goal — only to reverse course within a day and demand that Riyadh join the Abraham Accords and normalize ties with Israel as a condition. Trump also floated the idea of collecting fees from vessels receiving US security guarantees in the Strait of Hormuz, then walked that back as well.

The first option before Trump is to resume large-scale military operations.

Trump warned last week that the United States could strike Iran at a far greater scale than before, but he withheld approval for additional airstrikes on Friday.

Inside the administration, officials have concluded that even a sweeping assault on critical Iranian infrastructure — power plants, missile facilities and the like — may not be enough to bring Tehran's leadership to meaningful negotiations, according to The New York Times. US intelligence agencies have also assessed that military pressure alone is unlikely to change Iran's calculus.

A shortage of US interceptor missiles compounds the problem. After 13 consecutive days of strikes and counter-strikes, American stockpiles have been drawn down to a serious degree, according to reports.

Vice President JD Vance and Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine have both expressed concerns about escalation. Washington also worries that visibly burning through key weapons in the Middle East could send the wrong signal to China, which has designs on Taiwan, and to Russia, which is at war in Ukraine.

The second option is to intensify economic sanctions and wait for Iran to return to the negotiating table — further restricting Iranian oil exports and ratcheting up pressure on its financial and petrochemical sectors.

But no one knows how long it would take for those measures to bite.

After withdrawing from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, in 2018, Trump imposed sweeping economic sanctions under a "maximum pressure" campaign — yet eight years on, the Iranian government remains in power.

In the meantime, the United States would need to maintain a large military presence in the Middle East. Intermittent exchanges of strikes and reprisals would continue to put American troops at risk and threaten US allies in the Gulf.

With midterm elections in November, a prolonged war and rising global oil prices — which translate into higher gasoline prices at home — add to Trump's political headaches.

The last option is to declare victory and exit the war.

Trump came close to that choice on June 17, when he signed a 14-point ceasefire agreement with Iran. But the deal effectively collapsed within weeks, and the two sides have since resumed trading strikes.

Withdrawing now could deepen the political damage.

If Iran retains near-weapons-grade enriched uranium and preserves its nuclear development capabilities, it would be hard to claim that the United States had achieved its stated war aim of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

The same logic applies to the Strait of Hormuz. If the United States pulls back while Iran maintains effective control over the waterway, Trump would face the charge that he fought a war and still failed to resolve either the nuclear question or freedom of navigation through the strait.

The dilemma, in short: airstrikes drain US military capacity without guaranteeing victory; sanctions require enduring a long war of attrition before they take effect; and withdrawal means accepting the political burden of having fallen short of the war's stated objectives.

On Friday, Trump said talks with Iran were continuing and that Tehran was "getting more serious than they've ever been before."

The New York Times concluded that the Iran war has forced Trump to confront real-world constraints — missile stockpiles, public opinion, global oil prices — and that none of his three options, escalation, economic pressure or withdrawal, is easy to choose.

sjy@heraldcorp.com