In countless Hollywood blockbusters, a familiar and well-worn trope plays out. The stressed hero hovers over an explosive device as a clock counts down to zero, unsure of which wire to cut. Inevitably, our hero defuses the bomb and saves the day with just seconds to spare before disaster. It’s never hours in advance, but always just in the nick of time.
Similarly, the world was watching a countdown on Tuesday: President Donald Trump had announced an 8 p.m. ET deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz or face consequences of American escalation, rhetorically threatening civilizational destruction. Just like a movie audience, the world sighed in relief as, at the last minute, the president announced that there would be no post-deadline escalation but a tentative two-week ceasefire, brokered at the eleventh hour with Pakistan and, to a lesser extent, China playing the roles of intermediaries.
But unlike the Hollywood setup, wherein the results of a bomb not detonating are clear, there is still a vast gulf of ambiguity and confusion in the characterizations of the ceasefire and what conditions will actually be if it leads to a permanent conclusion of hostilities between the United States and Iran. Both parties have rushed to characterize the situation in victorious tones, each claiming the other has agreed to every possible demand and wish, and that the other begged for this agreement in abject defeat. We know the Iranians to be unreliable narrators, but it would also be fair to say that the Trump administration’s statements often require several grains of salt. But in the space between the two versions, there is room for concern.
Even in President Trump’s initial announcement, he stated that the Iranian “10-point proposal” serves as a “workable basis on which to negotiate,” granting the Iranian demands a bit of legitimacy. While a negotiation, short of dictating terms after a total defeat (as in, say, an unconditional surrender), means neither side gets everything it wants, suggesting that the Iranian proposal offers a framework for an agreement is concerning—it’s hard to see how anything in the proposal, or even degrees of these demands, would be acceptable or represent a better position for the United States than when we started the war.
With his Tuesday deadline specifically, and with the larger conflict in general, Trump seems to have issued threats and initiated actions without being able to answer the question, “What next?”
Iran is demanding an end to all sanctions, including those two decades old; repayment of frozen Iranian assets; post-conflict reparations; security guarantees against further U.S. or Israeli intervention; and extended protection for regime proxies, primarily Hezbollah. None of these is in America’s interest, all of them represent an improved strategic position for the Iranians, and most of them reflect the opposite of the many of the president’s stated reasons for initiating the conflict (although one wonders, since these reasons and goals shifted several times throughout the five-week campaign). Even the status of the Iranian nuclear program is in question, as Trump has said surrendering the remaining highly enriched uranium would be a requirement of any final settlement, and the Iranians (in Farsi language versions of the ceasefire announcement) claim they will retain it.
Perhaps most concerning is the ultimate disposition of the Strait of Hormuz. During the course of the conflict, the Iranians, as was anticipated, used their ability to threaten international shipping through the strait as an asymmetric lever. Not only did we flinch—demonstrating how effective this was—we seem to be close to codifying Persian control of shipping and extortion of large fees for perpetuity, with President Trump suggesting he could agree to that in some form.
Also seemingly forgotten in the discussion is the fate of the Iranian people, whose popular uprising in January started this specific round of Iranian-American tension, elicited empty promises of help from Trump, and to whom he said in his statement initiating the conflict, “The hour of your liberation is at hand.” The Persian people, who once again raised their hopes for freedom, find themselves at the mercy of the same despotic regime that killed tens of thousands of their friends, family, and neighbors just three months ago.
There is surely some frustration among the president’s allies toward those who, within 24 hours, went from loudly protesting about the idea of escalating the war at the deadline to saying his announcement of the ceasefire was another example of the “TACO” (Trump always chickens out) phenomenon, in which the president makes a bombastic statement of dire consequences only to reverse course. But both the president’s defenders and detractors partially miss the point. Trump’s statements approaching the deadline were not clear statements of intent—as good as our military is, the United States lacks the capacity to strike every bridge and power facility in Iran within four hours, nor does it possess the capability (or inhumanity) to end Persian civilization in a single period of darkness.
Of course, I and many others wish we could return to a time when the most powerful man in the world issued measured, responsible, and accurate statements. It also isn’t inherently a bad thing to accept a temporary ceasefire if there is the potential for a lasting agreement that meets the concerns for which we went to war. But with his Tuesday deadline specifically, and with the larger conflict in general, Trump seems to have issued threats and initiated actions without being able to answer the question, “What next?” if the threats or actions do not coerce Iranian leaders. Like a parent telling their child, “I’m counting to five” in reaction to recalcitrant behavior, one has to have a plan for what happens when you get to five.
None of this should take away from the tactical and operational mastery displayed by the U.S. military under CENTCOM command. From the onset of hostilities on February 28, IRGC forces and Iranian leadership were pummeled from the air and sea, and the recent rescue of a downed F-15E weapons systems officer deep inside Iran shows the skill, complexity, and excellence we can bring to bear. At a minimum, this should serve as a warning to other nations who mistakenly believe they can go toe-to-toe with American fighting forces.
But the tactical brilliance cannot be confused with strategic accomplishment. When grading the military successes against the varied specific goals the president and his advisers have laid out, we are not yet sure (pending the outcome of the negotiation) of the final status of Iran’s nuclear material, and the regime (despite the president’s claims) is still in power (just with subordinate leaders having been elevated). Large numbers of Iranian missiles and naval forces have been destroyed, but recent Israeli reporting suggests they retain larger portions of both than previously suspected, and, as mentioned earlier, a final settlement may provide additional protections for the regional proxies whom we had sought to diminish.
During his press conference Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth listed some of the many, many IRGC leaders killed during the campaign as clear evidence of success, which might seem like a compelling argument about strategic accomplishment had America and its allies not killed far greater numbers of Taliban leaders, a factor that proved irrelevant in the ultimate outcome of the war in Afghanistan.
In fact, this tactical overmatch potentially tells a different story in the strategic determination of the outcome. We exacted an incredibly disproportionate toll on the Iranians, killing thousands of their IRGC forces, whereas most Iranian attacks on U.S. forces were blocked and blunted. Yet despite this disparity, through economic costs and pressures, the Iranians seemed to have tested our threshold of pain to see how long we would last.
Nothing is yet agreed to, and we should not take Iranian characterizations of a deal that has yet to be negotiated as a definitive measure of post-conflict status quo, but Trump may have set himself up for a tougher position in those negotiations. His seeming eagerness to end this conflict gives the Iranians additional leverage. By having made maximalist and hyperbolic threats he had no will or capability to deliver, he makes the threat of walking away from negotiations and returning to the conflict less credible.
Trump would do well to remember the example of another American president who issued a threat he had no interest in enforcing and then acceded to a last-minute deal to avoid following through, brokered by a third country with adversarial interests to the United States. President Barack Obama, accepting the shamefully transparent Russian attempt to rescue Syria’s Bashar al-Assad from American action, reneged on his red line and demonstrated fecklessness and a lack of resolve, perceptions of him as a leader and America as a power that led to future dilemmas. President Trump has hammered Obama over this weak leadership for years, so one might think he would keep the object lesson in mind.
President Trump should avoid the temptation to end the war under undesirable circumstances and hold firm to the truly nonnegotiable conditions we went to war to bring about. He was right to paint the Iranian regime as an evil and untrustworthy force in the Middle East, and he cannot therefore end this conflict on any terms that provide it with a positional advantage—be it military or economic.