Iran sets the tempo of the conflict

MADRID - As early as February, analysts questioned whether any viable military solution existed that could guarantee US strategic objectives: regime change, the destruction of uranium enrichment capabilities, the end of Iranian support for groups such as Ansarullah, Hamas, and Hezbollah, and the dismantling of the ballistic missile program. Months into the hostilities, reality has spoken. Not only has Washington achieved none of those goals; Iran now controls the Strait of Hormuz, something it did not do before being attacked.

One might have expected that, following the catastrophic defeat of the forty-day war, the Trump administration would accept the terms of the memorandum of understanding and stop trying to batter down walls with its forehead.

Washington's latest gambit was thirteen nights of bombing aimed, this time, at forcing Iran to relinquish control of the strait. Thirteen nights in which Iran responded to every single one. More than that: Tehran demonstrated what experts call "escalation dominance," possessing effective response tools at every level of confrontation. The United States may have inflicted damage on Iranian military infrastructure, but Tehran was prepared to absorb that cost. Throughout the fortnight, Trump threatened to bomb Iranian bridges and power plants for every vessel attacked in the strait; he also threatened to use frozen Iranian funds to compensate ships targeted by strikes. None of it moved Iran an inch.

Tehran sets the tempo of this conflict and, as such, holds absolute initiative. In a stark shift of strategy, for instance, Iran launched preventive strikes with a dual objective: wearing down the United States and reminding Persian Gulf states that hosting American bases on their soil is a source of destabilization. It struck a US military installation in Jordan, breaking the previous week's pause in hostilities with a surprise action. Moreover, both Iran and its regional allies have expanded the theatre of operations: they are disrupting maritime traffic in the Red Sea and have attacked Syrian territory for the first time.

After those thirteen consecutive nights of bombing, the United States called a halt while Trump insisted that Iran had "begged" for a ceasefire. He also claimed that talks were "progressing." The truth is that, from Iran's strategic vantage point, there is no urgency for a ceasefire at a moment when every American military option has been tested and, simultaneously, has revealed its impotence. No alternative military solutions exist.

In this sense, Iran considers that the conflict, in its current phase, plays to its advantage and that, therefore, seeking a settlement through negotiation would make no strategic sense. Tehran calculates that the conflict can be prolonged and, in doing so, extract greater concessions from a United States that has demonstrated the limits of its capabilities. Washington is trapped. Accepting Iranian control over Hormuz is a humiliation difficult to swallow; yet the military options for retaking the strait are exhausted or, if attempted, risk multiplying the consequences. A supposed ground invasion illustrates the dilemma: the United States might attempt an operation in southern Iran, but the country possesses enormous strategic depth, and the American military simply does not have sufficient troops to achieve its objectives. In short, a North American victory in a land war against Iran is unrealistic by every metric. An amphibious invasion, floated by several military experts, would prove equally fruitless.

Iran escalates because it knows all of the above. It knows perfectly well that its rival's military options are spent and that, however many times the same strategies are repeated, the same results will follow. It has made the conflict so intolerable for Washington, politically and economically, that the latter has no choice but to reverse course.

Time, too, works in Iran's favor. The country's strategic culture allows it to absorb blows and their consequences with relative ease. Tehran is playing, moreover, with its eyes fixed on medium- and long-term objectives: if the authorities deem an agreement like the memorandum of understanding unviable, the steps forward are to prepare for a protracted conflict while simultaneously pushing the United States out of the region. 

That is already happening, to varying degrees, in the Persian Gulf, Syria, and Iraq, forcing Washington to fall back to Israel and Jordan. But even in Jordan the American presence is far from accepted: hundreds of activists and public figures signed an open letter demanding the withdrawal of US forces.

Trump and his administration face only unappealing options. Any diplomatic agreement will have to recognize Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz. The military solution, however exhausted and irrational it may be, and knowing the man, it cannot be ruled out, would keep oil prices elevated while making clear, once again, that Iran has no intention of altering its strategic calculus.

If the United States started this war, Iran is making it abundantly clear that it is Tehran, and Tehran alone, who will decide how and when it ends.