The transition from kinetic conflict to a two-week ceasefire reflects a shift in priority toward domestic inflation management. While military strikes degraded Iranian assets, the regime’s nuclear and proxy capabilities persist. A politically expedient deal may grant dangerous concessions, including maritime tolls, ultimately undermining regional security and providing opposition attack lines
Foreign policy is a low priority for US voters. But a rushed deal could impact the president’s domestic support in November’s midterm elections.
After days of escalating rhetoric, the ceasefire announced on 7 April pulls the US and Iran back from grave danger and offers a window to assess the appetite for a more durable settlement.
A deal offers the Trump administration a politically appealing off-ramp. Washington’s efforts to present its limited tactical battlefield gains as strategic successes to a sceptical American public hint at a desire to deescalate.
Ending the war would certainly serve the president’s domestic agenda. November midterm elections are fast approaching, and renewed, prolonged fighting risks greater damage to the US economy – always the top American voter priority over foreign policy concerns.
There is a danger now that Washington’s desire to reach agreement swiftly risks creating a bad deal for US national security – or at worst, as President Trump described the JPCOA in 2018, a ‘horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made’.
Deal or no deal, the path ahead is fraught, with fewer options for the US than at the war’s outset and new security and economic risks to confront.
Has the US achieved its war aims? Not really.
By most measures, the US has not yet succeeded in prosecuting its shifting war aims. The Pentagon claimed destruction of 90 per cent of Iran’s naval fleet and 80 per cent of its air defences. That is an impressive feat across vast territory and against a deeply entrenched military command. US forces also pulled off a complex, daring rescue of two airmen shot down over Iranian territory. But these accomplishments have not neatly translated into tangible strategic gains.
Though degraded, Iran still has the capability to launch ballistic missiles. Though weakened, Iran’s regional proxies can still operate with lethal effect. Its nuclear capabilities endure, in the form of 970 pounds of highly enriched uranium. And the war has likely only accelerated Tehran’s ambitions for a nuclear deterrent.
Perhaps most significantly, the regime is still standing: wounded but emboldened, despite a successful campaign to remove most of its senior leadership. That leaves the US and the world confronted by a potentially more hard-line Iranian leadership exercising uniliteral control over the Strait of Hormuz.
Therefore, while the US-Israeli military campaign has undoubtedly set back some of Iran’s offensive capabilities, it has concurrently enabled a new one in the Strait and deepened the regime’s resolve. US deterrence through threat of force no longer packs the punch it did before the war.
Will a lack of strategic success hurt Trump at home? Not among his base.
A majority of Americans oppose Trump’s actions in Iran. Democrats condemn the operation almost categorically, independents strongly disapprove, and non-MAGA Republicans are divided.
But MAGA supporters remain bullish, prioritizing loyalty to Trump’s agenda over concerns of US military overreach. And Republicans in Congress continue to give Trump wide latitude on the war.
Criticism from the right has been limited to disaffected MAGA supporters, including former Member of Congress Marjorie Taylor Green, media commentator Tucker Carlson, and Senate moderates like Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski. In the short term, therefore, Trump’s domination of his party remains intact. The president may once again weather a political firestorm and gear up to quickly spark the next.
The reckoning is more likely to come at the November midterms.
As the world’s largest oil producer, the US is better insulated from the war’s economic shock than most. But it is not immune to the effects of the conflict. Rising gas prices and concerns about inflation are the two most visible economic consequences of the war today. And analysts believe further delayed financial costs are coming, particularly given the massive damage to oil and gas infrastructure across the Gulf.
Even in a ‘deal’ scenario, elevated costs at the pump and in the grocery aisles could well be stickier than many Americans anticipate, handing Democrats ready attack lines in the months ahead on the issue that matters most to American voters: the economy.
In a ‘no deal’ scenario, the president’s position will be more exposed, as Americans may find commercial goods, produce and holidays increasingly unaffordable, with ships idling in the Gulf, gas prices rising, and global crop yields hit by fertilizer scarcity.
Financial markets may also be less resilient to additional geopolitical shocks, a metric the Trump administration watches closely. Such a scenario would present a real threat to Republican midterm hopes and potentially even begin to erode Trump’s extremely loyal MAGA base.
That context will inform any push by the Trump administration toward a deal.
Will the US and Iran strike a deal? Only if both see it as politically advantageous.
In Washington, senior officials are now weighing whether the political and economic advantages to maintaining the shaky ceasefire – or at least seeking a series of halting extensions – supersede the value of renewed fighting.
Current US and Iranian negotiation positions are maximalist, long-standing wish-lists that will not be resolved in the next two weeks. None can be achieved solely through an extended US bombing campaign or by the closing of the Strait of Hormuz.
The detail of any negotiations with Iran matters here. It is clear what a bad deal looks like in Trump’s eyes, because he spelled out his criticisms when withdrawing from the JCPOA in 2018: too few limits placed on Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for lifting of sanctions; massive new revenue flowing to the regime; insufficient mechanisms to detect and punish cheating on enrichment levels; failure to address Iran’s ballistic missile programme; and silence on the Islamic Republic’s support for terrorism.
If the US negotiators arrive in Pakistan without a hierarchy of priorities among this wish-list, the talks will collapse before they have begun.
Realistically, a bad deal for the US includes terms that lift sanctions without ensuring meaningful and verifiable constraints on Iran’s nuclear programme, whether by securing the highly enriched uranium or limiting future enrichment.
Addressing the nuclear programme will be more challenging than ever, when dealing with an even harder line regime. The US may have to put more concessions on the table to reach agreement – possibly beyond the sanctions and tariff relief Trump has already promised.
The haste of the talks, and the absence of key international partners who would need to buy into any verification arrangement, make an even minimally credible deal hard to envision. The US and Iran could bring a draft arrangement to the UN Security Council for approval, as Trump did for Gaza. But few will want to invest the resources to enforce the arrangement if doubts remain about the parties’ willingness to adhere to its terms.
Granting Iran the costly concessions it seeks – whether control over Hormuz, withdrawal of US forces from the region, an end to attacks on Iranian proxies, or the release of frozen Iranian assets – risk imperilling US national security in the longer term.
More immediately, any significant concession would hand Democrats a ready hand to play in November.
In his 2016 election campaign, President Trump repeatedly used the JCPOA to attack President Obama’s dealmaking ability. This year Democrats will also seek to capitalize on any deal that makes President Trump seem to have been outmanoeuvred by a weakened Iranian regime. A poor deal will also offer Congressional Republicans a new – though risky – opening to hit the president after the midterms, should his party suffer a rout.
In a midterm election year with the looming threat of two years of Democratic oversight, investigations, and impeachment proceedings, the near-term risks of renewed fighting carry huge political peril for the White House.
A hasty, expedient deal may be a way out of this self-made crisis for the administration. But the bill will eventually come due for Trump, his negotiators, and the American people. Someone will end up paying it, though it may not be Trump.