Strategic Risk Brief: Ending the war would end Pax Americana.
Negotiations while ground operations are being prepared means that negotiations will fail, with catastrophic effects.
Commercial Topics: Duration of war, level of destruction to energy infrastructure, exit pathways.
There has been media reporting on talks between the USA and Iran via intermediaries. We make four points:
A stop to the war would collapse the American order in the Middle East.
The positions of the two sides are very far apart. Each is still asking for terms that, to the other, appear like surrender.
The Iranians are demanding other negotiators than Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, given their proximity to Israel and their failure to even bring a technical team to previous nuclear talks. That alone reflects their unseriousness in past talks.
The mediators are Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, and potentially Oman. None of them has the ability to produce trustworthy security guarantees from the Iranian perspective. Only Russia or China can make such guarantees.
Ground operation vs negotiations
Meanwhile, the Americans are continuing a build-up of ground forces, by sea but also in Jordan and Israel. We make three points:
Trump appears to be buying time with negotiations to prepare for further escalation.
Even if Trump isn’t, the Iranians will assume as much, given past precedent.
All ground options against Iran are terrible.
Iran is built like a fortress. Persia has only been invaded by the Assyrians, Alexander the Great, the Muslims, and the Mongols. Pete Hegseth may share some of Genghis Khan’s moral views (though not on the sanctity of diplomacy), but not his military genius. Moreover, Iran’s geography means that none of the American options - capturing some islands, capturing the territory around Hormuz, or attempting to invade Iran via Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait - are viable with the size of the forces currently deployed, or, even, ever. The American public will not tolerate sending half a million soldiers or more to defeat Iran.
Why ground operations and threats against power?
The threat to launch a ground operation is itself an act of desperation. The Americans likely believe that they could perhaps take out Iran’s underground missile bases and nuclear facilities through Special Forces - the preparations are not large enough for the deployment of regular infantry and mechanised or armoured formations. Iran’s missile cities must have proven to be resilient enough to air attack. Iran has demonstrated that it can still strike targets with precision when it wants to. Because the war has not achieved its aim of neutralising Iran’s missiles, Trump has threatened to strike power stations, which he may still do. And because Iran can still retaliate, he has temporarily backed down, and is now building up ground forces. However, we repeat, they are nowhere near the level required for a major operation.
The cost of ending the war
The problem facing Trump is that, having involved himself in this war of choice, exiting it is more costly than trying to see it through.
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