The war in Iran is nearing a crossroads

FIVE weeks into the Gulf war, the messages from the White House are more confusing than ever. Donald Trump and his emissaries insist both that Iran must reopen the Strait of Hormuz and that reopening the strait is not one of their war aims. They claim to be negotiating with a “new, and more reasonable” regime in Iran, yet also believe Iran is ruled by a 47-year-old regime full of unreasonable people.

This may not just be the president’s usual incoherence. The war is nearing a crossroads. A relative lull in the fighting cannot last much longer. There is a brief window for a diplomatic solution, improbable as that sounds. The more likely alternative is serious escalation, which risks trapping each party in a war of attrition.

The lull began on March 23rd, when Mr Trump announced that he was exchanging messages with Iran. It has not meant calm. America and Israel still carry out hundreds of air strikes in Iran each day. Some 3,500 Iranians have been killed, around half of them civilians. Iran has kept up a daily pace of roughly a hundred missile-and-drone strikes on Israel and Gulf states. On March 31st a drone hit a laden oil tanker off Dubai’s coast. Such attacks mean Hormuz is still largely shut to commercial traffic: an average of six ships transit every day, down from 125 before the war.

Still, the president has twice postponed an ultimatum for Iran to reopen the strait or face attacks on its power plants. His new deadline expires late on April 6th, and he has added a threat to bomb desalination facilities in Iran (which would be a war crime). Meanwhile, America and Iran have swapped proposals for a ceasefire via Pakistan, which is serving as an intermediary.

Even without that deadline, Mr Trump would soon have a decision to make. He has deployed some 7,000 marines, paratroopers and special forces to the region, with more probably on the way. The air war may be nearing a point of diminishing returns. When the fighting began, officials from both America and Israel said they had four to five weeks of targets to hit. Meanwhile, the economic damage keeps mounting and the politics of the war are getting worse. In the latest Economist/YouGov poll, released on March 30th, 62% of Republicans said they support it, an 11-point drop from two weeks earlier.

Mr Trump claims that Iran has agreed to most of his demands, which include shutting down much of its nuclear programme and limiting its ballistic-missile arsenal. That is surely an exaggeration. If there is to be a deal, it would be more limited: Iran would reopen Hormuz, and probably make some concessions around its nuclear programme; America would provide expansive sanctions relief.

That would be an imperfect deal for Iran, which wants the closure of American bases in the region (among other things). It would be worse for Mr Trump: its main accomplishment would be to reopen a strait that was only closed because of a war he started. Yet the regime may balk. It wants to deter future American or Israeli attacks and may reckon that inflicting more damage on the global economy will help achieve that. Some officials want to formalise Iran’s control of the strait and levy tolls on vessels using it, a potential revenue stream worth billions of dollars a month.

Mr Trump would then face two options. He could announce that America had met its military goals and leave the rest of the world to sort out the mess in Hormuz. He has hinted at doing so in recent interviews and social-media posts. The problem is that, aside from some MAGA die-hards, everyone would see such an outcome as a strategic defeat for America.

The past few months have shown that it is better to watch what Mr Trump does than what he says—and the military build-up in the region suggests that he is planning a ground offensive. He could order troops to seize Kharg Island, the site of Iran’s main oil-export terminal, or other islands near the strait; he could also attempt a complicated raid to seize Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

Iran would have missed its moment of maximum leverage to end the war on favourable terms, and it would face wider attacks on its economy and infrastructure. On March 27th Israel bombed large steel plants in the country, at least one of which subsequently halted production. Iron and steel are among Iran’s main non-oil exports, with revenue of almost $7bn a year. The plants also supply a range of domestic industries, from cars to construction. Israel is pushing to conduct more such strikes. For now America is holding it back, but it will not impose restraint forever.

The Trump administration hopes a ground operation will be a knockout blow: that it will either force Iran to reopen the strait or give the president a chance to declare victory. It may do neither. If America seizes islands only for Iran to remain unbowed, its armed forces will have to hold them. Should American troops suffer heavy casualties, Mr Trump may feel compelled to send more.

A long war would also further damage Israel’s standing in America, which has plummeted after two years of scorched-earth conflict in Gaza. Already, more Americans believe Israel will benefit from the war in Iran (55%) than their own country (30%). If the war drags on, a wounded Trump administration may accuse Israel of leading it into a quagmire. For now, each party to the war has its reasons for continuing. The risk is that they will overreach in turn, and find themselves drawn deeper into a conflict they cannot control. ■