What happened
President Trump claimed that “very good and productive” talks with Iran were underway this week, even as elite U.S. combat troops were dispatched to the Persian Gulf and Iran denied it was engaged in negotiations. “They want to make a deal so badly,” said Trump, who asserted that envoy Steve Witkoff, son-in-law Jared Kushner, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Vice President JD Vance were all engaged in talks that had yielded “points of major agreement.” But Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, said no talks had taken place, and that Trump was using “fake news” to “manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the U.S. and Israel are trapped.”
The wrangling followed a threat by Trump to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants unless it reopened the strait within 48 hours. Trump, who a day before issuing the threat had said the war was “winding down,” backed off as the deadline neared, citing “productive” talks. Iran’s foreign ministry called Trump’s about-face a bid “to reduce energy prices and buy time for implementing his military plans.”
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As Iran continued to exchange missiles and drones with the U.S. and Israel, the Pentagon ordered up to 3,000 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division to head to the Middle East. The directive came as three warships redeployed from Asia approached the Gulf, carrying some 4,500 sailors and Marines. U.S. officials said the troops could potentially be used to seize Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export hub, or to reopen the strait by seizing parts of Iran’s shoreline. Trump suggested a deal could be struck for the strait to be “jointly controlled.” Asked by whom, Trump said, “Me and the ayatollah. Whoever the ayatollah is.”
What the columnists said
Trump backed down from his “obliteration” threat after Arab allies warned him of “the dangers of following through,” said Ben Bartenstein in Bloomberg. They said the destruction of Iran’s energy infrastructure “would almost inevitably result in a failed state” on their doorstep, and that Iran would strike back against oil and natural gas facilities across the region. Trump, whose approval rating has sunk to 36% in a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, had another motivation: “calming markets rattled by his threats and the ongoing conflict.” He issued the reprieve just before the start of U.S. trading this week; the S&P 500 then rebounded and the price of Brent crude dropped sharply.
Trump was so spooked by spiking energy prices that he made another concession, said Andrew C. McCarthy in National Review—this one utterly indefensible. His administration lifted sanctions on 140 million barrels of Iranian oil, which will yield Tehran about $14 billion, money that will fund its “combat operations against the U.S., Israel, and U.S.-friendly Gulf states.” The administration claims the move will lower global crude prices and give the U.S. more time to topple the mullahs. In reality, all it does is reveal that Trump will “make valuable concessions to our enemies if they disrupt financial markets” and harm his poll numbers.
This whole war is an exercise in “hollow absurdity,” said Jacob Bacharach in New York. Why are we fighting? What is the endgame? With no coherent answers, “we are left with the weird machinations of a would-be despot” who “seems to operate entirely on his whims.” Part of Trump’s problem may be his information diet, said Katherine Doyle in NBCNews.com. Sources say that each day aides show him a two-minute video montage of “the biggest, most successful strikes on Iranian targets.” Amid the triumphalist messaging, some allies fear he’s not “receiving—or absorbing—the complete picture of the war.”
Let’s dial back the panic, said Bret Stephens in The New York Times. The war’s “going better than you think.” In less than a month, we’ve crushed the military capacity of a hostile regime and decapitated its leadership. And we’ve done it with “no naval losses” and the deaths of only 13 personnel. Compare that with the 23 personnel we lost in the 1989–90 invasion of Panama, whose “military phase lasted a few days.”
Any negotiations to end the war face daunting odds, said Laurence Norman in The Wall Street Journal. Both sides have “maximalist demands,” with the U.S. insisting on unfettered passage through the strait and “zero nuclear enrichment,” while Iran wants full sanctions relief, compensation for the war, and removal of U.S. bases in the region. But if both sides want “an off-ramp,” there are ways to get there—perhaps a pause in enrichment and a “drawdown on sanctions” to be “phased in as Iran frees up the strait.” Other issues “could be kicked down the road.”
Trump’s military adventure has reached a dizzying impasse, said Edward Luce in the Financial Times. So certain of a quick victory he lacked a Plan B, he’s now tossing out wild threats and claims of diplomatic breakthroughs and seeing what sticks. But the one thing Iran will never agree to surrender is its “ability to disrupt the global energy markets”—which is “the one thing Trump must have.” Amid the “torrent of feints, hype, invention, and bluster,” it remains disturbingly unclear “how Trump will find a way out of this morass.”
What next?
The war’s snowballing has left Trump with hard choices, said Seth Cropsey in The Wall Street Journal. But his task is clear: He “must put boots on the ground to open the Strait of Hormuz.” The “temptation to walk away” and declare victory is understandable. But leaving Iran with the power to control the strait “would destroy American credibility” and send our adversaries the message that the U.S. “has no stomach for a knockdown fight.” Any such operation would “pose considerable risk to American forces,” said The Economist. Iran has many ways to attack landing craft and ships, including missiles and drones, speedboats rigged with explosives, and underwater mines. The strait is only 24 miles wide at its narrowest, with bunkers storing anti-ship missiles along the coastline. Troops onshore would “be well within range of Iranian artillery,” and escorting tankers through the strait would be “complex and perilous.” And that “presumes there are commercial ships willing to run this gauntlet.”