Iran’s unbreakable red line: Why Trump is stuck with ‘very few options’

📰 The war began with an attempt by Trump and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to damage Iran’s nuclear capabilities and perhaps topple its regime. However, the conflict’s centre of gravity has since shifted.

Nuclear matters have taken a back seat to the issue of whether shipping through the strait will in the future operate only under what Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, has called “Iranian arrangements”. This means ships will only be allowed to transit on Tehran’s terms.

The US rejects the idea of Iranian control of the strait and wants a return to the situation of free transit that existed before the war. Yet, after all of these months, it has still not figured out a way to achieve this goal at an acceptable cost. To understand why, it is helpful to break down US options into three groups: military, diplomatic and economic.

Militarily, nobody fully controls the Strait of Hormuz. It is a contested zone into which various countries can project military power. However, Iran does not need to control the strait entirely to achieve its aim. It only needs to continue to pose enough of a credible threat to vessels that they are too worried to transit.

Iran’s ability to menace shipping in the strait stems from its stockpile of missiles, drones and fast boats. These are relatively easy to conceal and launch, and the CIA assesses that Iran still has healthy supplies of them. To stop these capabilities, the US would have to seize a vast swathe of Iranian territory, risking great casualties. And even then, success would not be guaranteed.

Seizing Iran’s Kharg Island would likewise be highly risky. Occupying it may be easy initially, but any US forces stationed there would be exposed to Iranian attacks. A lengthy occupation would probably cost lives, making it hard to hold on to the island long enough to use as leverage in negotiations.

As cynical – and probably illegal – as military strikes on civilian targets would be, Trump perhaps thinks they might force Tehran to the table. But they also might not and risk kicking off a round of Iranian retaliation, which could do much greater damage to energy and civilian targets across the Gulf.

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