Despite the US and Iran exchanging fire and new missile attacks aimed at the United Arab Emirates this week, the Trump administration maintains that the ceasefire that began in early April is still in effect. Iran’s attacks on commercial and US Navy ships are still “all below the threshold of restarting major combat operations at this point,” according to Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine.
5 ways the Iran standoff could end
Is the US on the verge of a deal with Iran or a return to war?
Joshua Keating is a senior correspondent at Vox covering foreign policy and world news with a focus on the future of international conflict. He is the author of the 2018 book Invisible Countries: Journeys to the Edge of Nationhood, an exploration of border conflicts, unrecognized countries, and changes to the world map.
At the same time, Iran’s chokehold on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains in effect, with experts predicting only weeks left before a catastrophic global energy crunch. And the US blockade on Iranian ports is already having a devastating impact on the war-battered country’s economy.
Is there a way out? The US began a naval operation, “Project Freedom,” over the weekend to escort stranded ships out of the strait, but President Donald Trump paused it on Tuesday, citing progress in diplomatic negotiations. On Wednesday, Axios’s Barak Ravid reported the US and Iran were close to a deal to end the standoff. Oil prices began plummeting, but then paused when Trump poured some cold water on the reporting, saying it was a “big assumption” that “Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to.”
In short, no one really knows how this stalemate will end, but a few plausible scenarios are taking shape.
1) A nuclear deal
Ravid’s reporting, which appears to be heavily based on sources within the Trump administration, suggests the two sides are close to agreement on a “one-page memorandum,” that would include lifting both sides’ restrictions on shipping through Hormuz, Iran agreeing to pause its nuclear enrichment activity, and the US releasing billions of dollars in frozen Iranian funds. How long the enrichment pause would last is still under negotiation, but would probably be somewhere between the five years proposed by Iran and the 20 proposed by the US.
This would be an ironic outcome: The “green, green cash” flown on planes to Iran in 2015 has been one of Trump’s favorite talking points about the Barack Obama-negotiated deal he pulled out of in 2018. But it may be the best outcome available for the administration at this point, particularly if Iran agrees to remove its existing stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
2) A nonnuclear deal
Wednesday’s reports might be spin. This is not the first time in recent weeks that the two sides have reportedly been close to a deal. The main division between the two sides has been that the US wants concession on Iran’s nuclear program as part of the deal, while Iran just wants a deal to reopen the strait in exchange for the US lifting its blockade, with the nuclear issue put off for later.
Ordinary Iranians are struggling to buy basic necessities, and Iran may be running out of storage for the oil it can’t export (though this is probably less of a problem for Tehran than the White House seems to think). But Iran’s new leaders may still believe they can absorb more pain than Trump and could hold out for a deal on their terms — one that sidesteps nuclear concessions or at least puts them off until later.
According a recent Reuters report, US intelligence officials believe the Operation Epic Fury bombing campaign did not significantly change Iran’s timeline for building a nuclear weapon. While its missile resources have been significantly degraded, these can be rebuilt.
To the extent this war was ever primarily about Iran’s nuclear program, this outcome would have to be judged an unambiguous US defeat, despite the damage Iran has sustained.
3) The US reopens the strait by force
Under the currently paused Project Freedom, which the Pentagon maintains is an entirely separate operation from Epic Fury, US naval vessels successfully escorted two ships out of the Strait of Hormuz on Monday; more than 1,000 vessels are still stranded in the Persian Gulf. Even if it is resumed and expanded, Project Freedom is only intended to help stranded ships out of the Gulf, not help new ones to get in. Resuming full shipping through the waterways will require international shipping companies (and their insurers) to believe the trip is worth the liability.
During the 1980s “Tanker War,” the US Navy escorted ships through the Persian Gulf, protecting them from Iranian attacks — but that was before the age of drones, which allow Iran to threaten more ships at a much lower cost.
Trump has been reluctant to consider more dramatic steps like deploying US ground troops to capture the strategically located Kharg Island, given the high risk of US casualties, but public pressure on the White House to take action is growing. The administration has also been trying to cajole allies into joining a coalition to reopen the strait. They’ve been reluctant so far, but pressure may grow in the coming weeks as the economic devastation mounts.
4) Return to full-scale war
Given Trump’s insistence to the public and to Congress that the war has ended, it seems unlikely he would restart it. But he also says he will “go back to bombing the hell out of them” if there is no deal. This could entail targeting Iran’s power grid and bridges, which Trump dramatically threatened, but didn’t carry out in April. Certainly US ally Israel would be more than happy to resume the air campaign.
On Tuesday, Trump urged Iranian leaders to wave “the white flag of surrender” because “we don’t want to go in and kill people.” But as has been the case since the beginning of this war, it’s not clear that a regime more than willing to kill thousands of its own people to stay in power is willing to make concessions to keep the US and Israel from killing them.
5) It doesn’t end
Certainly the current status quo seems unsustainable, but rather than ending dramatically in a deal or a return to war, it’s possible this crisis could simply ease over time. The US could ease up on its embargo, as it has recently in Cuba. Iran could establish a system, either on its own or with other countries in the region, to charge tolls on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. This would be a new economic reality not just for the Middle East, but for the world.
Other countries located on strategic maritime chokepoints are likely looking at the possibility of taking similar steps to leverage them, threatening the freedom of navigation that has made our era of globalization possible.
And even if Iran does agree to lift its restrictions, it will now have the implicit ability to close the strait again when it feels under threat, arguably a more useful form of deterrence than its nuclear program ever was. Rather than asking how this crisis will end, it may be time to start asking how to adjust to the new world it has created.
