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Trump’s tactical victory could turn into an endless war.
Perhaps the answer to the instinctive question “So, How does this end?”, in the case of Iran, keep it simple: it doesn’t end. At least not for long, he writes David Ignatiuscolumnist for The Washington Post, in an article published in .
We will probably watch some kind of ceasefire, maybe soon. Oil tanker traffic will resume in the Strait of Hormuz. Bombings by North American B-52s and B-2s will stop. Iran and its proxy allies will refrain from launching drone strikes across the Persian Gulf.
Tehran will be able haggle the conditions of the ceasefire, but this will not be of great importance, because its military power has, to a large extent, been destroyed—at least for now.
The president Donald Trump will declare victoryas he always does, even when he loses. He did so on Wednesday, saying “We won”, adding the caveat: “we have to finish the work”.
But this could be a “victory” similar to those that Israel has proclaimed for decades, after wars that crushed their opponents in Gaza and Lebanon. These military victories reflected an overwhelming advantage in firepower, but did not defeat the enemy definitively.
If there is a lesson that the United States and Israel should have learned in recent decades, is that the Military success rarely translates into political victory — in Gaza, Afghanistan or, now, Iran. The opponent always comes back.
The Israelites learned that they must continue to “cut the grass”the brutal expression they use to describe the recurring cycle of violence. America, after having avoided an all-out confrontation with Iran for 47 years, may now be trapped in a similar cycle.
The war with Iran will be, in the short term, a tactical triumphand all the praise to unparalleled military power of the United States will continue to be true.
If the conflict ends tomorrow, Iran will have lost almost all of its nuclear facilities and scientists, most of its missiles and launchersmost of its armaments factories, most of your navy and a substantial part of the command and control structures of its military, intelligence and security forces.
But . He took the best blow in the USA and is still standingand. Several levels of military, intelligence and political leaders died, but were replaced by others. There are no signs of a popular uprising. The cadres of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard are hiding among piles of rubble, but they have not been eliminated.
This will be the Islamic Republic 2.0. For the foreseeable future, Ignatius predicts, it will be a state dominated by , functioning in a corrupt but pragmatic alliance with Iranian business interests.
A old theocracy had reached the end of the line. Ali Khamenei had no clear successor for supreme leader after i, his preferred heirin a helicopter crash in 2024.
Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, chosen last week, has no charisma nor religious authority, but it will be. He lost his father, wife and son in this war.
Perhaps in the meantime a cunning and manipulative figure like the former president Ali Akbar Rafsanjanithat , and that held true power during much of the elder Khamenei’s reign, and find a way to Trump.
But This is not the future desired by thousands of protesters brave men who were shot down in January, when Trump said he was coming to their aid, highlights Ignatius, who sincerely would like “regime change” to be possible in Iran. This terrible government brought misery to its people and its neighbors and deserves to disappear.
But this process is hard to imagine for hard-line intelligence experts in the United States and elsewhere who study the mullahs decades ago. “I don’t think we can break their will“, fears a senior Gulf official who passionately opposes the regime. “They will rebuild everything while they are alive.”
Mohammad Marandian Iranian professor who speaks on behalf of the regime, recently published a challenging video even as the bombs fell: “The Iranians will carry out this war until the US and the West recognize that attacking Iran is not an option. Not now nor ever again. Therefore, this war will not end anytime soon unless the other side capitulates.”
Why does the regime continue to fightr? Well, Iranian leaders know how to read the financial pages and can measure the vulnerability of the West in a protracted war.
They also know how to read North American political calendar. Research says this is a unpopular warsupported by less than half the country, and mid-term elections are approaching.
Iranians can even hear Joe Roganthe popular Trump-friendly podcaster who said on Tuesday that the war was “crazy”.
But there is a deeper reason for Iran’s persistenceand this is a characteristic of war that the United States and Israel should have learned long ago. People who feel they have nothing left but pride and dignity will continue to fight, even in the face of an overwhelmingly superior opponent.
This persistence is mysterious. The Israeli generals must have asked themselves, as they dumped tons of munitions on the Gaza Strip, why the Hamas simply would not surrender.
Steve WitkoffTrump’s Iran negotiator, said last month that Trump was “curious… why they didn’t capitulate”, while the United States threatened to attack. A previous generation posed the same question about the Viet Cong no Vietname do Norte.
Let us recognize the obvious, says Ignatius: a clear pattern of modern warfare is that the “strategic” bombing destined to break the popular will usually has the opposite effect. People barricaded themselves instead of surrendering. They continue to fight for what seems like a lost cause.
Even under a miserable government like the Iranian regime, there is national pride, identity and resistance to control by foreigners.
Trump’s war strategists seem understand the danger, in the long termof poisoning public sentiment in Iran. They realize that the majority of Iranians do not like the regime and want a better future. Therefore it would have been said that they advised Israel to do not attack targets such as energy installations or the electrical grid, which could cripple the country for a decades.
But for every sensible recommendation from the Pentagon, there is a comment like this from the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth: “We’re hitting them when they’re on the bottom, exactly as it should be.” Or the Trump’s absurd suggestion that it was an Iranian Tomahawk missile that destroyed a girls’ school. Or even the news that American bombs damaged precious Iranian cultural heritage sites.
Moments like these can generate a lasting angerknown as Ignatius
What’s nextnow that Trump has made us take a step towards the abyss? This war changed so much the old status quo that it is difficult to make predictions. But some basic points seem evident.
The Gulf States that were attacked by Iran they will now have to protect themselvesone way or another. They can reinforce your defenses against Iranian drones, or discreetly reopen diplomatic channels with Tehran, or opt for a combination of both routes.
The Emirates, which were hit by more missiles and drones than Israelmust erect a high-tech defensive shield. Some more vulnerable neighbors may lean towards Tehran. Oman, for example, has already sent congratulations to the new supreme leader.
The United States, having been a central actor in the conflict, will now be called upon to restore freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. But that would be extraordinarily expensive, putting U.S. Central Command in a permanent state of war.
Donald Trump really likes the demonstration of American powerbut prefer let others pay the bill. Unfortunately, it has burned so much goodwill with its allies, with its tariffs and talk of annexing Greenland, that it will have difficulty organizing a common rescue plan.
A final and deadly consequence of this war, David Ignatius fears, could be the resurgence of terrorism by Iran and its supporters. This is the piece that, until now, has not yet fallen. But it can prove to be extremely dangerous.
Middle East observers with memory recall the Black Septemberthe secret terrorist network created by deceased Palestine Liberation Organization after its crushing defeat in Jordan in 1970. Iranian terrorist networks are far more deadly than the PLO ever was.
The curse of covering events in the Middle East for more than 45 years, as is the case with Ignatius, is feeling that This has all happened beforeconcludes the journalist and columnist for The Washington Post.
