Trump is stuck in an Iran trap of his making — with only two options

The president launched the attacks without preparation. Now he has to finish the job.

By John R. Bolton

President Donald Trump is caught in an Iran war trap of his own making. He has for weeks been all-too-visibly eager for a deal allowing him to declare “victory” for … something. Conversely, he seems to deeply fear making a Barack Obama-like nuclear deal, and the inevitable (and justifiable) criticism. Good answers seem scarce, reinforcing his frustration. That was evident on Sunday when, posting online, he denounced as “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” Iran’s response to a U.S. framework to end the war. He must feel like George H.W. Bush, who once described himself as “one lonely little guy down here” at the White House.

Much of the trap’s construction depended on what Trump didn’t do. Before launching U.S.-Israeli strikes against Iran, he never explained to Americans why military force was justified to help achieve regime change, eliminate Tehran’s nuclear weapons and terrorist threats, or eviscerate its military capabilities. He apparently did not brief members of Congress. He seemingly did not consult U.S. allies, neither in NATO nor the Persian Gulf, nor America’s Indo-Pacific friends, who depend heavily on Middle Eastern oil. George H.W. Bush did all these things before launching Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

Moreover, if regime change were ever a goal, Trump apparently did little or nothing to coordinate with dissidents inside Iran. Long-standing economic hardships across the country engendered enormous opposition, embodied in the nationwide demonstrations murderously crushed in January. Half of Iran’s population is under age 30, and these young people largely reject the ayatollahs’ radical ideology. Ever since Mahsa Amini was killed in the custody of Iran’s morality police in 2022, many Iranian women have openly defied the regime’s fundamental claim to legitimacy. Iran’s ethnic groups, particularly Kurds and Baloch, have reached new levels of discontent.

Without any such preparation, Trump launched what has nonetheless been a punishingly successful military campaign. Not yet successful enough, but certainly not one to deride, including the now-suspended Project Freedom to open the Strait of Hormuz to Arab oil exports.

Trump’s problem is not that he launched the attacks, but that he has not finished the job. As Winston Churchill said of British Prime Minister Anthony Eden’s failed 1956 Suez Canal strategy, which ended when the United States forced a halt to the British-French-Israeli effort to seize the canal, “I don’t know whether I would have dared to start; I would never have dared to stop.”

But Trump did stop, and he now seems lost, in effect hoping Iran’s Revolutionary Guard gives him a diplomatic exit, which it has so far declined to do. Instead, the regime’s remnants seek time to emerge from Iran’s rubble, reconsolidate their rule and rebuild their military capabilities, including their nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs and their terrorist networks and proxies. They see correctly that Trump’s domestic political troubles vex him far more than the distant threat of a reconstituted Iranian militarized theocracy. Thus, even if Tehran appears to accept Trump’s proposed ceasefire as a basis for future negotiations, the regime will take its time doing anything substantial, including opening the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump has only two options consistent with U.S. national security. The first is declaring the much-violated ceasefire over and resuming destruction of Iran’s instruments of state power. U.S. critics of the U.S.-Israeli attacks, perhaps even Trump’s own CIA, believe much work remains before Iran’s military has been destroyed. Fine, let’s get on with it, while the already-assembled U.S. forces remain in the region.

If he can’t bring himself to take the big step, Trump’s other option is the smaller step of militarily opening the Strait of Hormuz to commerce with the Gulf Arabs, while still blockading Iran. At stake here is freedom of the seas, a foundation of U.S. foreign policy for 250 years and with enormous implications in other contested regions, such as the South China Sea. Moreover, enabling Gulf oil’s return to international markets would substantially relieve the current economic troubles. Maintaining the U.S. blockade, and expanding it by air where possible to Iran’s Caspian Sea ports, would further torque up economic pressure.

Most important, military action is necessary to restore deterrence. Tehran must learn with certainty it would suffer severe consequences for later trying to close the strait. Allowing merely a diplomatic end to this crisis, particularly under the “gradual” process apparently contemplated by Trump’s latest offer, would set a ruinous precedent. Emboldened as it now is, Iran’s regime would probably conclude it would face only diplomatic, not military, consequences for again closing the strait. Entirely predictably, Tehran could then open and close it like flipping a switch, raising or lowering the pressure as it saw fit.

The opening hours of Project Freedom, with the U.S. military escorting merchant ships through the strait, showed great promise. But it is obvious that much more must be done than this more limited option. Opening both the Gulf and the strait cannot be a purely defensive operation. It requires active efforts to destroy Iran’s fast boats, its anti-ship missiles and its drone capabilities against maritime commerce. If Tehran ups the ante in response, that would simply prove the regime never intended to release its grip on the strait.

Iranian hegemony in the region is entirely unacceptable to Gulf Arab states, and should be unacceptable in Washington. Trump’s way out of his self-constructed trap is very clear. He himself will decide whether he wants to be remembered as America’s Anthony Eden.

John R. Bolton was ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush and national security adviser under President Donald Trump.