The reinvigorated war with Iran has sparked new oil price increases. In ordering a restoration of the U.S. blockade on Iranian oil exports and new strikes on Iranian military sites, President Donald Trump is pressuring Iran to return to the negotiating table and abide by the recently agreed-upon ceasefire. Trump’s key priority is an end to Iranian attacks on international shipping in the Strait of Hormuz energy chokepoint. But Trump also senses that Iran is meeting increasing pressure from the international community, including from its partners.
Trump’s logic is sound. The Iranian hard-liner elite centered on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps anticipated that Trump’s desperation to end the war-related economic turmoil would lead him to grant both generous sanctions relief and tolerance for continued Iranian attacks on commercial shipping. The hardliners have failed to recognize that the United States and, to a lesser but still significant degree, the international community, have adapted to their threat. Put simply, Iranian attacks are producing reduced economic shockwaves. Put another way, the Iranians have overplayed their hand. In the end, Trump’s only option in the face of Iran’s blatant disingenuousness was a return to military force.
Crucially, however, it is now well-understood that Trump’s focus is not on escalating this war to end the Iranian regime. Instead, Trump wants Iranian leaders — including the Revolutionary Guard — to recognize that a deal they can live with is far better than continuous American bombing. Trump knows that for all its bluster, the Iranian regime’s greatest fear is losing oil exports. And, in turn, suffering uncontrolled hyperinflation and an inability to pay off its security forces. That possibility risks an ensuing civil war or, at a minimum, civil uprisings.
At the same time, the international community now blames Iran for the return to conflict. Trump’s decision to launch this war was, understandably, deeply unpopular around the world. It was based on absurd expectations and willful disregard for Iran’s asymmetric capabilities. But that was then.
Today, having seen Trump show significant diplomatic latitude and a willingness even to alienate Israel in pursuit of a peace deal, international perceptions have shifted. In foreign governments the world over, Iran is now increasingly seen as the obstacle to a peace that would bring calm to their economies. Iran’s main trading partners in China and India both want the war over in order to reduce business energy costs, for example. America’s Middle Eastern allies also belatedly appear to have realized that the risks of Iranian attacks on their own oil infrastructure are outweighed by the risks of allowing Iran a perpetual blackmail get-out-of-jail free card in the Strait of Hormuz.
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Moreover, while forcibly reopening the strait would likely take many more months, Iran’s military threat and associated political leverage would decline as the conflict goes on. Hence why Trump seems newly confident in dangling a choice before Tehran.
Either the regime takes a deal it can live with, or it faces the ever-escalating risk of a true crisis.