Iran War, Where No Party Can Afford to Continue or End

On August 31, Anwar Gargash, who served as the Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Affairs for more than a decade, repeated his calls for ending the “region’s neither war nor peace” stalemate.  Gargash’s comment was a response to the American strikes against the Iranian Larak Island, followed by exchanges of hostilities between both parties without a return to the full scale of war.

The recent hostilities that have not ended yet reflected two contradictory desires on both sides. The first desire is to contain any escalation that may lead to full-scale war, as both parties are not in the best shape to return to the fight. The second one is to consolidate each party’s lines of deterrence. The two desires may not seem contradictory, but the field rules force each party to respond to the other party’s strikes while they want to contain the escalation. This dilemma complicates the situation and explains it at the same time: No party can afford to continue or end this war, while the region cannot afford the stalemate.

The US Last Shot

On August 24, Scott Bessent, the US Secretary of the Treasury, launched a new package of economic sanctions on Iran named “Operation Economic Outcast”. The sanctions are the toughest economic measure taken by the Trump administration as a last shot to force Iran to accept the American conditions before the midterm elections, especially to open the Hormuz Strait for international navigation without charging any fees.

While the sanctions target mainly the Iranian economy, they are directed against any third party involved with Iran in any economic activity related to digital assets, technology, gold, shipping, and aviation. The imposition of these sanctions is a clear sign that the US is not willing to resort to military tools again; meanwhile, it needs to coerce Iran to accept its conditions to end the war. Several factors form the US position, mainly internal politics calculations and the fear of heavy losses in the Midterm elections against the Democrats. The war on Iran did not win popular support in the US, as support for the war dropped to 37%. Another factor is the military readiness of the US forces, with several reports stating that the US forces suffer from a lack of air defense missiles.

In this context, the US needed to target two new launchers of mines on Larak Island on August 30, to deter the Iranians from planting more mines in the Hormuz Strait, according to the US narrative. The strikes were conducted to consolidate Trump’s threats to strike Iran if it tries to disrupt navigation in the strait.

The lack of credibility is a main problem that faces Trump in this war since it began. He tried to employ the Madman strategy via several extreme threats to Iran, but the most important component of this strategy is credibility. Iranians lost trust in Trump and his administration after they were attacked while they negotiated twice in less than one year. They deal with his declarations suspiciously to assess his seriousness. Neither Iranians nor several international parties take his threats seriously; hence, the US needs to use limited military force to restore the effectiveness of its threats and deterrence.

The Iranian Strategic Forbearance  

On the other hand, Iranians consider their demands to be legitimate, as they deal with the current war as an existential threat; it is important to guarantee it will not be repeated. They also watch it as an opportunity to consolidate their regional position and eliminate the US strategically by getting it out of the Gulf region.

This vision motivates them to reject any middle-ground solution that does not guarantee all their demands, and they count mainly on their internal cohesion in comparison with the Trump administration and Netanyahu, who will have elections within weeks. They count clearly on the time factor that will consolidate their leverage against the US and Israel, while they try to affirm their deterrence lines by responding to any American attack tit for tat without returning to full-scale war. Several factors make the return to war not a favorable option for the Iranians, including economic pressures and the power edge of the American-Israeli side.

As both sides can not afford to continue or end the war, they targeted third parties. Iran targeted the Gulf states and Jordan since the beginning of the war, and weaponized Harmouz strait by blocking international trade there. Now, the US does the same thing by imposing the latest package of economic sanctions that targets mainly all of Iran’s partners, attempting to bring the Iranian regime to its knees. This shared strategy by both sides makes the current stalemate costly for all parties that did not choose to start this war but were forced to pay its bill.