Five ways the Iran war could unfold
Donald Trump has said the conflict will be over ‘very soon’. How can he stop it?
Andrew England in London and Abigail Hauslohner in Washington
© FT montage/Reuters/AP/Shutterstock/AFP/Getty ImagesSince launching the US and Israeli war against Iran, Donald Trump’s stated objectives have ranged from destroying the Islamic republic’s ballistic arsenal and nuclear programme to a Venezuela-style change in leadership and “unconditional surrender”.
The US president has said it would be a “massive” military operation, with the timetable evolving from a few days to several weeks or “as long as it takes”.
On Monday he said it would be over “very soon”.
But the president’s failure to articulate how the US will measure the success of those goals means there is little clarity on how or when the war will end.
Does Trump call a halt and claim victory?
American political analysts expect Trump to claim victory regardless of how the conflict ends.
After a surge in oil prices on Monday, Trump said the war was “pretty well complete” but added that the US “could go further”.
He has also insisted that the US is “not looking to settle”.
But he may soon feel compelled to.
“Iran has a very coherent strategy,” said Michael Doran, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a Middle East policy adviser during the George W Bush administration.
By attacking US allies, degrading the region’s defence capabilities and driving up global energy costs, Iran is putting “maximum pressure on the US”, Doran said.
Steve Witkoff, Trump’s senior adviser and Iran negotiator, told reporters on Saturday that he believes there is still room to make a deal, but it will “be up to the president” to decide.
Trump will also face growing domestic pressure the longer the conflict continues, but will be wary of ending the war in a way that could allow Tehran to claim victory.
“He’s under real pressure to bring it to an end,” Doran said.
Is there a ‘Venezuela’ scenario?
Trump suggested last week that he wanted to be involved in selecting Iran’s next leader as, he said, he was in Venezuela after the US’s military assault on Caracas to kidnap Nicolás Maduro.
But the war against Iran is incomparable to the assault on Maduro.
The military operation in Caracas took just hours, there were no American casualties and Maduro was replaced by his deputy, Delcy Rodríguez, who is co-operating with Washington while the regime remains intact.
In contrast, the war against Iran is into its second week; there have been seven US deaths; Iran’s retaliation has wreaked havoc on travel and trade across the oil-rich Gulf and caused global energy prices to soar.
The Islamic regime also appears to be doubling down, selecting Ali Khamenei’s son Mojtaba to succeed the slain ayatollah as supreme leader.
“Mojtaba’s selection is . . . basically saying all this pressure the US has brought to bear on Iran has changed nothing,” said Ali Vaez, an Iran expert at Crisis Group think-tank.
The US or Israel may try to assassinate Mojtaba, but even if — like his father — he’s killed, Trump is not expected to find an Iranian “Delcy”.
Mojtaba’s selection is a signal that “more people in Iran would prefer to be Maduro than Rodriguez”, Vaez said.
Does Iran make a deal?
There are no signs — so far — that Iran will agree to a ceasefire as long as the US and Israel continue to launch attacks against it.
And after US and Israeli bombs killed Mojtaba’s father, mother, wife, sister and niece, analysts say it is hard to see him compromising.
Trump’s demands that Iran totally dismantle its nuclear programme, accept tough curbs on its missile arsenal and end its support for regional militant groups were always considered a red line for the regime, which saw capitulation to the conditions as a graver threat to its survival than war.
For the Islamic republic, simply surviving the onslaught by the world’s most powerful military, and showing that it can keep hitting back, would be enough for Tehran to claim “victory”, analysts say.
Trump’s decision to launch a war while Washington and Tehran were in the midst of negotiations is only expected to have emboldened hardliners.
Even when the war ends, Iran will be reluctant to engage in future talks over its nuclear programme and ballistic missile arsenal, Vaez said.
But a regional official said a deal could still be reached “if the circumstances are right”.
Will the regime survive?
There are no signs yet of fractures in the ruling establishment or defections.
Iran continues to launch missiles and drones at Israel and Gulf states after days of intense bombing, though US and Israeli officials say the rate of Iranian fire has decreased since the start of the war on February 28.
There are also no signs of social unrest or a repeat of the mass anti-regime protests that were crushed in a brutal crackdown in January that killed thousands.
Iranians “are more worried about survival”, said Vali Nasr, a former US official now at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Vaez predicts that all sides remain locked in a war of attrition, with each waiting for the other to blink.
On one side, the Iranians are hoping that the US and Israel start suffering shortages of missile interceptors key to air-defence systems.
On the other, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu weaken Iran “to the extent it’s almost disarmed and not able to fire missiles or drones towards Israel or its Gulf neighbours”, he said.
But both are “lofty” objectives.
Emile Hokayem, at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that war will probably end with the regime surviving in a considerably weaker form — similar to the late dictator Saddam Hussein’s Iraq after the first Gulf war.
“It will no longer be able to project regional power, but will still be able to disrupt, lash out and impose costs,” Hokayem said.
“Then the region will move to discuss and put in place a costly, complex and imperfect containment system to box in an Iran that is more isolated than before.”
Doran also envisions a possibility where it remains an authoritarian state akin to post-Soviet Russia.
“Just like you had KGB officers take off their uniforms, put on their suits, [and] become the head of the oil company; all of a sudden they’re ‘capitalists’ or ‘democrats’ carrying out elections,” he said.
“But the DNA of the old system is not completely gone.”
The other possibility is civil war, “where you have a rump state that is not in control of all of its territory, and ethnic militias in different parts of the country, with varying degrees of support and intervention from outside powers”.
Will Israel keep fighting Hizbollah in Lebanon?
If Trump decides to end the US’s war against Iran, Israel is expected to follow suit, given its dependence on American support.
But Israel is preparing for an extended offensive in Lebanon against Hizbollah, the Iranian-backed Shia militant group, Israeli officials say.
Israel launched an assault against Hizbollah after it fired rockets and drones into the Jewish state following the US and Israeli killing of Khamenei.
Israeli forces have hit more than 600 sites across Lebanon, triggered the biggest evacuation of Lebanese civilians since the end of the 2024 war and killed more than 480 people, local authorities say.
Hizbollah has killed two Israeli soldiers, Israel’s first combat deaths since the war with Iran erupted. Israel, seeing a moment to crush its foes, will want to further weaken the militants.
Another risk, Hokayem said, was mounting social tensions in the fragile multi-sect nation between Hizbollah supporters and those who blame it for dragging the country into another war.
“My assumption is Israel will be back in the Lebanese arena, they will control territory [in the south], bully the political system and complicate its recovery and reconstruction,” Hokayem said.
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