Trump Reaches an Iran Crossroads
He wants the war to end, but the regime offers him only bad deals.
By The Editorial Board
An Iranian flag flutters in the wind as ships remain anchored on May 16 in the Strait of Hormuz Majid Saeedi/Getty ImagesBack from his China trip, President Trump faces hard decisions on the war with Iran.
To wit, if Iran keeps stringing his diplomats along in negotiations, what is he prepared to do to win the war?
Nearly three months into the conflict, the answer isn’t obvious.
While the U.S. has done enormous damage to Iran’s military, and set back its nuclear program, the regime refuses his offers for a settlement and has shut down most commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
To his credit, the President has so far rejected a bad deal on Iran’s terms that might open the Strait at the price of easing pressure on the regime without real nuclear concessions.
Mr. Trump seems to realize this would be Obama 2015 redux that the world would see as a strategic defeat for the U.S.
Yet Mr. Trump’s cease-fire has now exceeded the length of Operation Epic Fury, even as Iran reneged on reopening the Strait and fires on the Gulf states and U.S. forces.
While a subsequent U.S. blockade on shipping to and from Iranian ports has meant Iran suffers most, the regime’s new leaders have been safe while they hold global energy supply hostage.
If the goal was to see whether Iran’s regime is ready to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons, by now Mr. Trump has his answer: It isn’t.
The Iranians confirm this with each counteroffer that refuses to dismantle underground enrichment sites or hand over their stockpiles of enriched uranium.
“There’s no question in my mind that they’d use [a nuclear bomb],” Mr. Trump said Tuesday, “and I deal with these people.
They’re extremely radicalized.”
Yet on Monday he gave them another chance.
The President said he was “an hour away” from relaunching the war until he got a call: “Sir, could you wait?
We think we are close to a deal.”
Given Iran’s past refusals, Mr. Trump added, “I hope we don’t have to do the war, but we may have to give them another big hit.”
He said he would wait “two or three days, maybe Friday, Saturday, Sunday, something.
Maybe early next week—a limited period of time.”
Such threats have been repeated so often that they now face diminishing returns.
Iran doesn’t seem to believe them, and in any case the regime seems prepared to ride out further conflict and fight back by targeting the Gulf allies and commercial shipping.
If a good deal isn’t possible, then Mr. Trump will have little choice other than to resume using military force.
But to what end?
Resuming the war needs to be tied to a strategic goal that can be achieved without the Iranian regime’s agreement.
One option is to seize Iran’s enriched uranium and destroy its potential enrichment site beneath Pickaxe Mountain, or aid Israel in attempting it.
The aim would be to further degrade Iran’s nuclear threat, changing the contours of negotiations and revising what a deal would have to achieve.
If the gravest nuclear threats can be taken off the table for many more years, the need for a deal with Iran declines.
Another option is to continue the Iran blockade while putting together a naval and air mission to escort shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
This is militarily possible, and if the Strait is reopened by force, time will be on America’s side.
Mr. Trump could then afford to wait, allowing the U.S. blockade to raise pressure on Iran as it is forced to shut-in oil wells and ration gasoline.
Mr. Trump could also destroy Iran’s oil infrastructure in stages.
He has avoided this so far, hoping the regime would see these assets as something to lose if it doesn’t accept a deal.
He also wants to avoid another blow to global oil supply.
But escalating damage would leave the regime diminished and cash poor, unable even to pay salaries if it rejects U.S. terms.
The President can still maintain the blockade while using the CIA to support dissidents inside Iran.
All of this carries risks, both military and economic.
But by now the President has no options that don’t include risks.
Signing a mooted “letter of intent” to continue negotiating for another 30 days—a cease-fire extension for Iran, in essence—would merely raise the costs while letting Iran string Mr. Trump along even closer to the election.
U.S. deterrence against China in particular would suffer.
As Mr. Trump famously said in criticizing his predecessors, the U.S. shouldn’t start a war if it isn’t prepared to do what it takes to win.
The Editorial Board speaks for free markets and free people, the principles, if you will, marked in the watershed year of 1776 by Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence and Adam Smith's “Wealth of Nations.”
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