THE PUNDIT

The war that the United States and Israel have been waging against Iran since February 28, 2026, is aimed at overthrowing the Islamic regime in Iran. All other justifications — whether Iran’s nuclear capabilities, its ballistic missile program, or its regional alliances — are mere pretexts deployed to market that objective.

It is worth recalling that this is not the first attempt to destroy the Islamic Republic through war. The same was tried when Saddam Hussein launched his eight-year war against Iran in 1980, just one year after the Revolution. This war was instigated and financed by the Arab Gulf states —until Saddam turned on the Gulf, and the Gulf turned on Saddam.

Despite the voices of dissent against the current war in Europe and within the United States, their primary —if not sole— motivation is the economic fallout of the conflict, most notably the surge in energy and transportation costs, and consequently in the price of everything. The EU member states —Spain and Belgium excepted— do not oppose the war on principled grounds relating to violations of international law, Israeli expansionism, or President Trump’s recklessness. They oppose it because its consequences now threaten them with a stagflation spiral from which there is no escape, at a time when their economies are still contending with the aftershocks of the Ukraine war and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Indeed, President Trump’s critics —at home and abroad— fault him not for waging the war, but for failing to topple the Iranian regime, and for pushing Iran toward further entrenchment by eliminating Iranian leaders who were capable of containing the situation. They also hold him responsible for provoking Iran into seizing control of the Strait of Hormuz and temporarily lifting the ban on Iranian oil exports before closing the strait —a sequence of events that, should the regime survive, will see Iran emerge from the war stronger and more influential than before.

Iran–Gulf Relations: Masks Off, Intentions Laid Bare

A number of Arab states share with the United States, Europe, and Israel the objective of eliminating the Islamic Republic. Foremost among them are most of the Gulf countries, which now make no effort to conceal that goal —particularly after the blowback they have suffered from Iran’s response to the American-Israeli aggression.

UAE Minister of State Lana Nusseibeh stated on the tv program “Morning Joe” from Washington in the last week of February that the war cannot end without a decisive resolution of the threats posed by Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. Similarly, Anwar Gargash, adviser to the UAE president, reiterates time and again that Iran is the primary threat to the Gulf, and that any political settlement must include reparations from Iran, restrictions on its military capabilities, and guarantees against a repeat of attacks on Gulf states. This, in addition to what has leaked regarding the Saudi Defense Minister’s urging of the American administration to enter the war in January 2026, and the Saudi Crown Prince’s reported call on the US president to complete the mission—though Saudi sources have denied this.

These dynamics prompted Iran to strike Gulf states without hesitation, driven by several considerations: raising the cost for the United States, mobilizing global pressure to halt the war, and Iran’s assessment that Gulf states cannot prevent the US from using their bases, that they would not participate directly in an attack on Iran, and that even if they did, the damage they could inflict would be no greater than that already caused by American-Israeli strikes. A final consideration was the imperative to use its arsenal of shorter range missiles and drones before it loses it as a result of the American and Israeli strikes.

Yet despite all this, Iran’s targeting of Gulf states ultimately served the interests of the United States, which seeks to milk further resources from the rich Arab countries under the pretext of defending them. President Trump has publicly announced on March 30 that he was going to call on Gulf states to fund the cost of the war. It also served Israel’s interests, as it resurrected Shimon Peres’s New Middle East theory —premised on the idea that Iran is the real threat to Gulf states and that Israel is their natural protector— a theory that had been eroded when Israel bombed Doha in September 2025. Matters have now reached the point where the Israeli prime minister announced on March 31 that his country is finalizing alliances with Arab states to fight together in the near future.

All of this has led the Gulf states to demand to be included in any negotiations to end the war, to ensure that Iran’s missile capabilities are constrained. That demand was met by incorporating Saudi Arabia into the initiative developed by Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt to carry messages between Iran and the United States following the war’s outbreak in an effort to explore the possibility of opening a pathway to direct negotiations. Saudi Arabia’s participation serves one of two competing objectives: either to leverage its financial and economic resources to pressure the United States into stopping a war that is severely threatening Gulf security and economies, and that exposes the fragility of the Gulf model —which is based on deploying financial resources to attract expertise and services from all over the world, and achieving stability and prosperity for local and expatriate populations through their alliance with the United States, without bearing the costs of American and Israeli policies wreaking havoc in the region —as long as that ravaging occurs at a safe distance. Or, alternatively, to monitor mediation efforts from the source, ensuring that no concessions are granted to Iran while keeping the focus on holding it accountable for the consequences of the war waged against it. The latter objective seems more probable as it appears that there are special arrangements between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia that are taking place separately from the Turkish and Egyptian mediators.

Current Mediation Mechanisms and the Prospects for Practical Outcomes

The ongoing contacts are conducted through Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt —states with exceptionally close ties to the United States, whose leaders enjoy a personal relationship with president Trump. This gives grounds for believing that these efforts are proceeding at American request, aimed at pressing Iran to accept US conditions and thereby providing the American president with an honorable exit from the war, rather than representing an independent initiative by the mediators. Such has been the pattern of mediation in recent years: the American side would ask Egypt and other countries to communicate with Iran, urging restraint and de-escalation whenever Israel or the United States undertook a provocative act: following the assassination of Qasem Soleimani in 2020, the strike on an Iranian consular building in Damascus in March 2024, the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran during the inauguration of President Pezeshkian in July 2024, the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut in September 2024, and the strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025.

It therefore appears that the American objective behind the contacts initiated after the outbreak of the war is to press Iran to accept maximalist unchanged US demands. This is reflected in president Trump’s statements, most recently on April 12, when he declared that he wants everything: not 90%, not 95%, but everything. He had previously replaced a proposal by the mediators for a five-day ceasefire with a freeze on strikes against energy infrastructure; and then encouraged Israel to violate that arrangement by bombing the Bushehr reactor, fuel depots, and water desalination units —following the same playbook used in Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon— in order to test Iran’s response. He then agreed to the current two-week ceasefire under pressure from ammunition shortages during combat. He also agreed to Pakistan’s mediation for a direct high-level negotiating round in Islamabad, aimed at reaching a formula to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to ease pressure on the global economy and energy prices —and on himself— while stripping Iran of that immensely powerful card, with international participation if possible. This would serve as a prelude to finishing off the Iranian regime by any means thereafter, including a ground operation if conditions allow, once the military buildup is complete, a coalition is assembled, and munitions are restocked after a significant portion was exhausted and the situation reached what the US military calls a “Winchester” status, meaning ammunition stocks have been depleted to a critical level during combat.

Although all three mediating states are genuinely seeking to stop the war given the severe consequences they are suffering from its continuation, they possess no real leverage over the United States. This limits the prospects for success unless other parties whose weight can counterbalance the United States intervene actively in the mediation in order to compel the United States to make concessions. That description fits only China and Russia, both of which have the means to contest the American primacy atop the current turbulent international order. But the mere entry of either into the equation is insufficient. What matters is the seriousness of their engagement in efforts to contain the war and, more importantly, the United States’ willingness —even if reluctantly— to accept such a role. This has begun to materialize gradually, first through Pakistan’s inclusion of China after the Pakistani foreign minister’s visit to Beijing following the quadripartite meeting in Islamabad, and then through the joint Chinese-Russian veto on a draft resolution submitted by Bahrain in coordination with the United States to form an international coalition to open the Strait of Hormuz. This compelled Trump to walk back his conspicuous threat to destroy the Iranian civilization just hours before the veto, and to accept the mediators’ proposal, put forward by Pakistan with Chinese backing, to reach a comprehensive two-week truce during which negotiations would be conducted toward durable solutions.

The difficulty of achieving a successful mediation is further underscored by the fact that negotiations have thus far been limited to a single round, which yielded nothing more than the United States holding firm to its demands, Iran’s refusal to comply, the withdrawal of the American delegation, and President Trump’s announcement of the blockade and naval siege of Iran effective April 13.

Nevertheless, I believe that this will not affect the two-week truce. It may also be extended subsequently, if the United States concludes that it cannot resume fighting immediately for any reason. Equally, the suspension of the Islamabad negotiations does not mean that they will not resume —particularly if President Trump, true to form, chooses to backtrack once he or his family have secured substantial financial gains through speculation on oil prices and stock markets that fluctuate in line with the content of his statements.

The Real Estate Broker and Reality TV State of Mind

The positions of the United States become readily intelligible once we recognize that Trump operates with the mentality, and uses the tactics, of a real estate broker or a used-car salesman: trying to persuade his clients that he has their best interests at heart, then flooding them with misleading information, manufacturing a sense of urgency and the imminent loss of opportunity, enlisting trusted intermediaries, threatening that the deal will slip away, or mocking the other party for their inability to decide quickly, all to drive them to take decisions under pressure. The sole purpose of all this is to serve his own interests —after which he vanishes and moves on to his next mark.

This is precisely what happened with the Gaza plan, which regional mediators accepted and duly played their assigned role in pressuring Hamas to accept the terms of a halt to the genocide. Trump then attempted to replicate the same approach in Ukraine, using the same instruments —his son-in-law Kushner and his close friend Witkoff, both from real estate backgrounds like himself. But in this case, the Europeans held firm, as their security was directly at stake. They continue to support Ukraine to this day.

Trump is now attempting the same playbook with his fifteen-point deal with Iran. On March 22 he claimed that it had been agreed upon with Iran. When Iran denied, he backtracked and said he was awaiting Iran’s response. After Iran formally rejected the plan —declaring it a mere rehash of what had already been refused before the war, and which the war had failed to achieve — and put forward its own counter-proposals demanding reparations for the aggression, guarantees against its recurrence, and recognition of its control over the Strait of Hormuz, Trump resorted to escalation, threats, ultimatums, and deadlines. He then retreated and extended the deadlines, as has happened repeatedly since the war’s outbreak —until he arrived at accepting a suspension of military operations for two weeks with the possibility of extension. This is precisely the behavior of a broker insisting on selling defective goods, indifferent to a credibility he never possessed in the first place.

Sound negotiating practice in dealing with a dishonest broker involves several steps: first, demonstrating a willingness to walk away and find another broker, or to abandon the deal altogether; then extracting oneself from the torrent of distorted information and engaging other parties capable of checking his excesses; and finally, reviewing the facts on the ground to soundly assess the situation.

Trump attempted to use the trilateral mediation as an additional instrument to press Iran into accepting his terms. He contacted the Pakistani army chief, who may have contributed to persuading Iran to allow a number of vessels to pass through the strait under the Pakistani flag for the benefit of the United States or its allies. But as Trump’s threats and insults intensified, Iran turned away from him despite its acute need for a halt to the fighting and finally led him to accept the truce, which ultimately serves both parties’ interests, regardless of the accuracy of either side’s narrative.

As for President Trump’s insistence on issuing his decisions through a relentless stream of social media posts, this is best understood through the lens of his more-than-a-decade-long participation in reality television programs from 2004 to 2015, and his successful deployment of that experience in his political life — saturating the world with news of himself and distracting public attention from his errors. He inhabits a bubble of his own making, in which his aides echo his narratives regardless of their relation to reality, in the belief that others are deceived. But the truth is that the maxim attributed to Abraham Lincoln —that you can fool all of the people some of the time, or some of the people all of the time, but not all of the people all of the time— has become squarely applicable to the current American administration. Its consequences are expected to manifest in the results of the midterm elections this coming November.

Facts on the Ground

This brings us to a review of the rapidly unfolding events, to enable an assessment of the probabilities of how the situation may develop. These realities are as follows:

A. The United States has progressively aed more than twenty thousand soldiers in the region: routing a Marine Special Forces regiment from the American military base in Japan to the region from the east, and another similar regiment from the United States to the region from the west, in preparation for an amphibious landing; dispatching a rapid-deployment airborne force to the region; deploying a third aircraft carrier to replace one that was damaged and diverted to Croatia for repairs, before the repaired carrier was returned to the region —bringing the total number of US forces in the region to approximately fifty thousand when combined with those already present.

B. The successful rescue of the two crew members of an American aircraft downed deep inside Iranian territory, in rugged terrain, with no American casualties —an operation that may embolden the American president to risk a ground incursion.

C. The groundwork is being laid for the Gulf states, and potentially other states to announce their participation in an international coalition to open the Strait of Hormuz. The UAE and Bahrain have already joined, so far.

D. Coordination meetings led by France and the United Kingdom have been held with military representatives from 35 to 40 countries to draw up plans for opening the Strait of Hormuz and securing maritime navigation in the surrounding area once hostilities end.

E. The adoption of Security Council Resolution 2817, submitted by Bahrain, condemning Iran and calling on it to cease attacks against Gulf states —without reference to who initiated the war.

F. China and Russia’s veto against a complementary draft resolution to Resolution 2817, also submitted by Bahrain to the Security Council, which would have formed a coalition of willing states to use all means necessary —meaning force— to open the Strait of Hormuz and take any other measures to stop Iranian aggression. The draft was modeled on Resolution 678, which formed the international coalition to liberate Kuwait in 1990, and Resolution 1386, which formed the international coalition for the occupation of Afghanistan in 2001, as well as Resolution 2803 last year, which permitted the creation of the Board of Peace and the establishment of an International Stabilization Force for Gaza —a force that has yet to materialize. Had such a resolution been adopted, it would have provided Arab states with international legal cover to join a US-Israeli led coalition for a final assault on Iran. The United States had attempted to push the resolution through before the end of March, during its Security Council presidency, calculating that Russia or China would not dare oppose it. When that failed, it tried to use Bahrain’s April presidency to pass the resolution before, China assumes the presidency in May. But the recklessness of Trump’s statements and his threats to commit war crimes —including erasing the Iranian civilization— prompted Russia and China to use the veto rather than participate in legitimizing such actions.

Despite the United States’ failure to push the resolution through the Security Council, it can replicate the precedent of the 2003 invasion of Iraq without a Council resolution, should it resolve to proceed with a forcible regime change.

G. The imposition by the United States of a naval blockade against Iran, with President Trump declaring that he is applying to Iran what he applied to Venezuela, but more forcefully.

H. European states’ reservations about participating with the United States in closing the Strait of Hormuz and blockading Iran.

I. The failure to achieve any of the war’s objectives despite overwhelming American military superiority: The regime in Iran has not changed; Iranian has not accepted to dismantle its peaceful nuclear program; Iranian missiles and drones have not stopped attacking American, Israeli, and Gulf targets; and Iran’s ties to Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Shia militias in Iraq have not been severed. On the contrary, the situation has deteriorated against the interests of the United States and its allies, with the Strait of Hormuz closed to vessels belonging to states hostile to Iran, and then shut entirely to all maritime traffic, including ships coordinating with Iran, following Trump’s instructions —unless he reverses course before this article is published.

Three Three-Dimensional Dilemmas

We can conclude that each of the three parties to the war faces multi-dimensional dilemmas that compound the war’s consequences and complicate the prospects for ending it.

The Western camp confronts the oil shock triggered by the war —a shock whose effects have been much worse than both the first oil shock of 1973 and the second of 1991, owing to its spread across both shores of the Gulf and its fundamentally unpredictable character. From the Western perspective, this dilemma requires regime change in Iran in order to prevent its recurrence. Here, the second dimension of the dilemma emerges: the absence of any viable alternative capable of achieving stability in Iran, meaning that mere regime toppling risks unleashing destructive chaos that would spread from Iran to surrounding countries, triggering shocks far more dangerous and far-reaching in their effects. The third dimension of the Western camp’s dilemma is facing the opponents to the war, who oppose it because it has hit them in the pocketbook, while they agree with the war’s fundamental objective of regime change in Iran.

On the other side, Iran’s only available option is to endure for the sake of survival. The first dimension of its dilemma lies in whether it can survive and replenish its capabilities under bombardment and blockade. The second dimension is the Damocles sword of domestic opposition hovering over the regime, an opposition rooted either in irreconcilable political grievances, or in economic hardships offering no escape. The third dimension relates to the fact that the war’s trajectory and Iran’s responses have left it surrounded by states that are either hostile or aligned with those who are —a situation that threatens to draw those states into supporting a ground incursion despite the invulnerability of Iran’s natural borders.

Finally, the Gulf states face the dilemma of the unmasking of the reality that American military bases have become a magnet for military threats rather than a shield against them, while those states have no recourse but to continue purchasing American protection. This comes as the United States presses them to align with Israel, while Israel calls for the construction of a pipeline to export Gulf oil through its ports, thereby positioning itself to control the source of Gulf wealth.

The second dimension of this dilemma is the revelation that there are no limits to Iranian fury when the Islamic Republic faces an existential threat. This leads to the third dimension: the exposure of the unsustainability of the Gulf oasis model —which offers security and prosperity to talented people from across the world— so long as the Gulf’s geographic environment remains destabilized.

Conclusion: Ending the War and Addressing its Consequences

In light of all the foregoing, the only imaginable reason to ending the war would be that Israel feels enough pain to compel it to abandon the drive toward outright regime change in Iran this time; or that the United States faces domestic or external pressure that the current administration cannot withstand; or that President Trump’s disappears from the political scene for one reason or another.

Yet if we look closely, we find that stopping the war in this manner —given the dilemmas just described— will only accomplish a provisional suspension of hostilities, with preparations underway to resume the offensive toward the goal of eliminating the Iranian regime in the future. Meanwhile, Iran will set about restoring its military capabilities, including the development of unconventional weapons to deter any future aggression.

This leads us to the conclusion that a durable solution is inseparable from the need to resolve the twin questions of Israel and Iran simultaneously –including the relations between Iran and the Arab countries, especially the Gulf states, as well as the relations between these countries and Iran. Addressing Iran’s situation through regime change does not solve the region’s stability problem, because Israel’s problem endures, and is aggravated by Israel’s boundless territorial ambitions in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, and the region as a whole.

Addressing Israel’s situation, on the other hand, may resolve a far larger number of problems —among them Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and even Iran, which Israel considers its primary enemy. But it would not resolve the question of Iran’s relationship with the Gulf states, which regard Iran as an existential threat, while Iran does not forget the Gulf states’ alignment with the United States aimed at eliminating the Islamic Republic —regardless of the fact that it is Israel that stokes the mutual hostility between the two sides.

Therefore, addressing the consequences of the war must aspire to resolve the dilemmas facing the entire region simultaneously: ending Israel’s ongoing aggression against Gaza and the West Bank; reaching a balanced settlement of the Palestinian question, whether through two states or one state with equal rights and the withdrawal of the Israeli forces from Lebanon and Syria. This if Israel wishes to stay in the region as a normal state that no longer faces resistance. Mutual arrangements and binding commitments between Iran and the Arab states on non-aggression, non-interference in internal affairs, and cooperation to secure oil production sources, vital infrastructure, and land and sea transportation corridors in the interest of all must also be reached. This should include as well the status of foreign military bases in the region, which presence depends on the sovereign rights of the countries in question as far as they are not used to attack, spy, or interfere in other countries. Finally, agreement must be achieved on the establishing of a nuclear weapons free zone in the region, and on binding measures for all regional states to control armaments, including missile capabilities.

God knows best. And above every possessor of knowledge is one more knowing.