It took the United States 12 years from the first Gulf War in 1991 to the second to get rid of Saddam Hussein. The dictator’s capture was followed by years more of Iraqi insurgency. Starting with the financial markets, there is a lot of complacency on how soon the third Gulf War is likely to end. Donald Trump’s Operation Epic Fury on Iran has turned into an epic search for a way out. There is no obvious off-ramp, however, that does not lead back to the highway.
Iran’s latest offer illustrates why. Under the plan, Trump would lift the blockade, Iran would open the Strait of Hormuz, and they would tackle the nuclear issue later on. Though Trump rejected Iran’s proposal, it is unclear at this point that he can get anything much better. It was offered shortly after the US president had for the second time had to cancel his negotiators’ trip to Islamabad. Much has been said about how unqualified Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are to conduct complex nuclear talks. It may be a while before we find out the extent of their inexpertise.
The war’s most salient feature is that Iran has a strong incentive to keep it going. No matter how many times Trump offers a new golden age for the Middle East, Iran will find it hard to believe he will not flip back to regime change if things do not go his way. He has been veering from promising heaven to vowing hell on an almost daily basis. That Iran’s regime is brutal and fanatical is no excuse. Even the gentlest of negotiating counterparts would find it hard to take him at his word.
From Iran’s standpoint, the longer the waterway is closed, the more likely Trump will be to digest that lesson. But let us imagine that he agrees to some variation of Iran’s recent offer. Each side would hold a threat over the other in case the nuclear talks faltered or failed. Trump’s weapon would be a resumption of bombing that would include more decapitation strikes as well as targeting bridges, power stations and even desalination plants. Iran’s weapon would be to close the Strait of Hormuz again. It does not take a grand strategist to see which threat carries more leverage. Whatever he may say about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Trump has made it clear that reopening the waterway is his chief war aim. Iran has made it clear that it can absorb plenty of punishment from the air.
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If they do somehow manage to reach a nuclear deal, that would still leave Iran’s missile programme and regional proxies unaddressed. That Trump appears to have dropped the latter two goals as part of his framework is underappreciated outside the Middle East. For the Gulf states, closing Iran’s missile production matters as much as giving up its stockpile of enriched uranium. Their expatriate-based economic models depend on ending Iran’s missile and drone threat. Anything less could be disastrous for business.
For Israel, ending Iran’s support for militant groups is almost as important as killing its nuclear programme. At any point, Israel could scupper a Trump deal by fully resuming hostilities with Hizbullah. Iran would retaliate and the situation would revert to square one. Trump and Binyamin Netanyahu’s chief criticism of Barack Obama’s 2015 Iran-US nuclear deal was that it omitted those two goals. Trump is now ready to do what Obama did.
The bet is that Trump will take a temporary off-ramp in the Gulf before his China summit with Xi Jinping in mid-May. From the moment he returned to the White House in 2025, Trump has been pushing for a Xi meeting. After the two leaders agreed a trade war truce in October, Trump finally got the invitation he had been soliciting. His China state visit was originally scheduled for late March. He requested a delay to mid-May because Epic Fury was still raging. He will not want to postpone again.
[ Iran’s hardliners clash over talks to USOpens in new window ]
Wars come to an end when one side wins or when both sides are exhausted. Short of gambling on a US ground invasion – a spectre to which Trump is rightly allergic – we can discount the chances of either side winning. Iran’s willingness to outwait Trump is thus the key question. Here again China’s role is critical. Trump’s blockade on Iranian vessels and ports in practice seems to exclude ships that are destined for China. Seizing Chinese property would be tantamount to declaring war. Trump will not risk that. Which means Iran can rely on Chinese revenues to help keep it going.
Meanwhile, Pakistan, in effect a client state of China as well as mediator in the talks, just gave Iran permission to use its territory as a land route for trade. As has often been observed, Trump started this war but Iran will decide when it ends.
– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026
