US-Iran crisis: Another round of aircraft carrier deployments and ultimatums, another set of dire predictions about imminent war in the Middle East. Yet here we are again, watching Washington and Tehran engage in a ritualized choreography of brinkmanship that has become depressingly predictable over the past four decades.
The current confrontation—sparked by Iran’s sweeping crackdown on domestic protests and Washington’s decision to deploy the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf—follows a script that policymakers, diplomats and military planners know almost by heart.
President Donald Trump warns of “something very tough” while simultaneously acknowledging that talks are underway. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei cautions of “regional war” while his foreign minister pursues “fair and equitable” negotiations through Omani intermediaries. Regional actors—Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia—scramble behind the scenes to prevent a conflict none of them truly want.
If history is any guide, this standoff will not culminate in dramatic escalation. It will most likely end the same way previous crises have ended: not with a bang, but with a grudging return to the status quo ante, dressed up by both sides as strategic success.
The fantasy that “maximum pressure” combined with military threats will produce Iranian capitulation has been tested repeatedly—and has failed each time.
When the United States withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018, the move was intended to coerce Tehran into accepting a broader and more restrictive agreement. Instead, Iran resumed and then dramatically expanded uranium enrichment. What had been capped under the deal soon climbed to levels approaching weapons-grade purity.
The policy’s defenders argued that sanctions would cripple Iran’s economy and force the leadership back to the table on American terms. Sanctions did inflict pain. Iran’s currency collapsed. Inflation surged. Oil exports plummeted. But the regime did not fall. Nor did it surrender.
Instead, Iran adapted—deepening ties with Russia and China, building sanctions-evading networks, and steadily increasing its nuclear leverage.
Even limited military strikes have proven ineffective as tools of coercion. Israeli and American strikes on Iranian-linked facilities in Syria and elsewhere over the years may have disrupted specific capabilities, but they did not eliminate Iran’s regional footprint. On the contrary, they often reinforced Tehran’s conviction that only deterrence—possibly nuclear deterrence—can ensure regime survival.
Now, with another carrier strike group in regional waters and talk in Washington of sustained bombing campaigns, the same assumption is resurfacing: that intensified military pressure will accomplish what previous rounds failed to achieve.
But coercive diplomacy is not magic. It requires credible incentives as well as threats. You cannot bomb a country into submission while simultaneously demanding it negotiate from a position of humiliation. The contradiction is not merely tactical—it is strategic.
Even if the United States were to launch a sustained air campaign targeting Iranian nuclear and military infrastructure—a campaign that analysts suggest could require weeks of precision strikes—Iran would not be a passive target.
Tehran possesses a vast and diversified missile arsenal capable of reaching U.S. bases in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Iraq. It has demonstrated the ability to conduct calibrated missile strikes, as seen after the 2020 killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. Its network of allied militias and proxies, though weakened in some theaters, retains the capacity to strike American personnel and interests across the region.
Then there is geography. The Strait of Hormuz remains one of the world’s most strategically vulnerable chokepoints. Roughly one-fifth of global oil shipments pass through that narrow waterway. Even limited Iranian harassment of commercial shipping—through mines, drones or missile attacks—could send energy markets into turmoil.
Military planners in Washington understand these risks. They also understand the limits of air power. Bombing can degrade facilities. It can delay programs. But it rarely transforms political behavior unless accompanied by a clear and realistic diplomatic off-ramp.
That leads to the question often glossed over in hawkish rhetoric: what happens after the bombing stops?
Does anyone seriously believe that pulverizing Iranian infrastructure will produce a chastened regime eager to accept American terms? Or is the more plausible outcome a nationalist backlash that strengthens hardliners, accelerates nuclear weapons development under the banner of self-defense, and turns a tense rivalry into a generational blood feud?
History offers sobering parallels. American military interventions in the Middle East—from the 1983 deployment to Lebanon, to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, to the 2011 intervention in Libya—have consistently produced outcomes more complex and often more destabilizing than policymakers anticipated.
Grand strategies that looked compelling in briefing rooms faltered upon contact with regional realities.
Iran is not Iraq circa 2003. It has a population of more than 80 million, a long civilizational history, and a strong sense of national identity that transcends factional divides. External pressure, particularly military pressure, has historically strengthened rather than weakened the regime’s internal cohesion.
Iran’s current domestic unrest is real. Protests reflect deep grievances over economic mismanagement, corruption and social restrictions. The regime’s crackdown has been harsh and widely condemned.
Yet the notion that American military intervention would empower democratic forces inside Iran betrays a misunderstanding of nationalism’s force. When foreign bombs fall, populations tend to rally around the flag—even if they harbor grievances against their own government.
The experience of Iraq illustrates the point. External intervention intended to liberate a population often unleashes forces that external actors cannot control.
Despite their sharp differences with Tehran, most regional actors are wary of full-scale war.
Israel views Iran as its most significant strategic threat and has long advocated aggressive action against its nuclear program. Yet even Israeli leaders understand the risks of a prolonged regional war that could draw in Hezbollah from Lebanon, militias from Iraq and Syria, and potentially other state actors.
The Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have spent years de-escalating tensions with Tehran after experiencing firsthand the vulnerability of their energy infrastructure. Drone and missile attacks on Saudi oil facilities in 2019 underscored how exposed they are to Iranian retaliation.
Turkey, navigating its own complex regional ambitions, has little interest in another destabilizing war on its periphery.
Even major external powers such as Russia and China would view a U.S.-Iran war through the lens of strategic opportunity and risk. Both have deepened ties with Tehran in recent years. A large-scale conflict could draw them more directly into Middle Eastern dynamics, further complicating an already volatile landscape.
For all the public rhetoric, diplomacy has never fully ceased.
Oman has repeatedly served as a discreet intermediary between Washington and Tehran. Talks in Muscat—quiet, indirect, often deniable—have historically laid the groundwork for broader understandings.
The 2015 nuclear agreement emerged from years of backchannel contacts that began long before it became public.
The likely resolution of the current crisis will not be a sweeping grand bargain. The U.S.-Iran relationship is too deeply antagonistic and burdened by decades of mistrust for that.
Instead, we are more likely to see limited, transactional arrangements: temporary caps on uranium enrichment levels in exchange for modest sanctions relief; mechanisms to prevent naval incidents from spiraling out of control; tacit understandings about militia activity in Iraq or Syria.
Such arrangements will not satisfy hardliners on either side. In Washington, critics will label them appeasement. In Tehran, skeptics will claim vindication for their resistance.
But imperfect diplomacy may be preferable to a war that neither side can truly win.
American public opinion places clear limits on escalation. After two decades of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, there is little appetite for another open-ended Middle Eastern conflict.
Recent polling consistently shows strong opposition to war with Iran. Political leaders may project resolve abroad, but they cannot ignore the domestic costs of a prolonged conflict—financial, human and political.
Iran’s leadership faces its own constraints. The economy remains under severe strain. Youth unemployment is high. Social unrest simmers. While confrontation with the United States can be framed as resistance to foreign aggression, prolonged war would impose additional burdens that the regime may struggle to manage.
Both governments, in other words, have incentives to escalate rhetorically while avoiding irreversible steps.
If past crises are a guide, this confrontation will end not in decisive victory but in managed tension.
Iran will likely continue enriching uranium at levels that preserve a threshold capability without crossing the line into overt weapons production. The United States will maintain sanctions and military presence while pursuing episodic diplomatic engagement.
Regional powers will hedge—cooperating with Washington on security while maintaining channels to Tehran.
The fundamental rivalry will remain unresolved. But unresolved does not mean uncontrollable.
Some problems cannot be solved outright. They can only be managed. In the Middle East, where sweeping solutions have often produced unintended consequences, management can look like prudence.
The administration in Washington faces a stark choice.
It can continue to pursue the illusion that intensified pressure will force Iranian capitulation, risking a conflict that could spiral beyond initial intentions. Or it can accept the messy reality that sustainable arrangements with adversarial powers require compromise, reciprocity and patience.
This does not mean ignoring Iranian activities that threaten American personnel or allies. Nor does it mean abandoning efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation.
It means distinguishing between core security interests—preventing a nuclear-armed Iran, protecting U.S. forces—and broader regional competitions that can be managed through economic, diplomatic and multilateral tools.
Military power has a role. Carrier deployments signal resolve. Defensive preparations reassure allies. But power is most effective when paired with a credible diplomatic pathway.
There is a final irony in the cycle of escalation.
A war intended to demonstrate American strength could instead accelerate strategic retrenchment. Another costly Middle Eastern conflict would intensify domestic pressure to disengage from the region altogether—precisely the outcome Tehran might quietly welcome.
The United States would expend resources and political capital in a theater that many policymakers already consider secondary to great-power competition elsewhere.
Iran, battered but defiant, would claim survival as victory.
Better to recognize now what experience suggests Washington will eventually conclude: dealing with Iran requires not fantasies of decisive military dominance but the unglamorous work of diplomacy, coalition-building and calibrated deterrence.
The current confrontation will likely end as previous ones have ended—with both sides stepping back from the brink, declaring success, and preparing for the next round of tension.
It is not a dramatic conclusion. It offers no triumphant speeches or sweeping transformations.
But in a region where bold interventions have too often produced chaos, restraint may be the most strategic choice of all.
The question is not whether this crisis will end in negotiation. It almost certainly will. The question is how much additional risk, rhetoric and potential damage both sides are willing to incur before acknowledging that reality.
