NI: Is there a right way to lose the Iran war?

President Trump is fond of reminding everyone that “the United States has, by far, the strongest and most powerful military in the world.” He also admonished Ukraine by saying, “You don’t go into a war [against someone] that’s 15 times your size [like Russia].” These statements betray a belief that the strong defeat the weak. History, however, demonstrates the opposite often occurs, National Interest writes.

Why US escalation with Iran won’t work

To beat an adversary with greater military capabilities, the weak must have something their adversaries do not have — greater resolve. By being more willing to endure high costs over a long period, the weak can outlast the strong. The reason weaker actors won the Revolutionary War, the Vietnam War, and the Afghanistan War was not that they directly defeated their stronger adversaries on the battlefield, as the Allies did in World War II. Instead, they won by imposing costs on them for long enough that the stronger power decided to give up rather than continue the fight.

The key reason that continuing or escalating the air campaign against Iran is unlikely to work is that the balance of resolve favors the Islamic Republic. For the Iranian government, the stakes are high and implicate their power, wealth, and even lives. For Washington, the stakes are real but limited. Iran’s regional activities before the war were malign, but imposed only small economic and security costs on Americans. Tehran’s nuclear program poses a serious potential threat, but can be dealt with via other means, including negotiation or nuclear deterrence.

The Iranian government will likely be willing to endure the costs of war far longer than the United States. Public support for the Iran War is historically low compared to prior conflicts, and Americans are not willing to pay a few extra dollars per gallon at the pump to prosecute it. A large-scale ground invasion might be able to achieve regime change given the Iranian regime’s broad unpopularity. Yet, there is little evidence that the American people and members of Congress would be willing to bear the high costs of such an escalation.

Despite notable tactical successes, the United States is the strategic loser of the conflict. Better to recognize that reality sooner rather than later.

The United States has already expended huge percentages — up to half — of its advanced munitions like Patriot interceptors and Tomahawk missiles in just the first few months of war. The years it will likely take to replenish this stockpile will undermine deterrence in the short and medium term. America cannot deter rivals in Asia and Europe with weapons it no longer has to use itself or provide to allies. Indeed, Washington paused a $14 billion arms sale to Taipei to ensure it has enough munitions if the Iran War continues. Continuing and escalating the conflict against Iran would only worsen the problem.

Getting out more rapidly can preserve both a country’s willingness to act in the future and its credibility in the eyes of adversaries. By clearly backing down, countries might take some hit to their credibility in the short term. Adversaries could interpret withdrawal as a negative sign of their resolve. However, this decline will often be outweighed by the benefits to credibility of maintaining military capabilities and, crucially, avoiding war-weariness.

Toward a realistic peace with Iran

By taking the United States to war against Iran, Trump fell victim to what Lawrence Freedman described as the “short-war fallacy: the conviction that military and technological advantages would allow a state to defeat an enemy with the speed, direction, and ruthlessness of an initial attack.” Freedman is correct that this was a grave miscalculation and the decision to enter the war was ill-conceived. Worse still would be compounding the mistake by doubling down on a bad war rather than nipping it in the bud.

To cut American losses, Trump will, unfortunately, need to make some painful concessions to Iran. This likely includes allowing Tehran to continue uranium enrichment at low levels (monitored by the IAEA) just like the Obama-era nuclear deal, and accepting that Iran will continue to produce missiles, associate with terrorist groups like Hezbollah, and maintain some degree of control over the Strait of Hormuz.

The now-defunct memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran was lambasted by critics as “an American surrender,” with Trump’s own former vice president, Mike Pence, arguing it “smacks of appeasement.” However, it reflected a new geopolitical reality: Iran’s enhanced bargaining position. It is now up to Trump to have the political courage to accept this reality and follow through on the promise he made in his second inaugural address in 2025: “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also the wars that we end.”

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