Trump’s options in Iran are now limited – and all bad

President Donald Trump’s Iranian entanglement is beginning to resemble a visual illusion known as the Penrose Stairs, which go up and down endlessly but always end in the same place.

The predicament is Trump’s own making, having launched a war that never promised a definitive outcome and drafting a memorandum of understanding that failed to address the reasons for the conflict.

He found himself facing a familiar dilemma as the smoke cleared Wednesday evening from new U.S. airstrikes aimed at punishing Tehran’s attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

Is he escalating the war – at potentially high human, economic and political cost – in an attempt to shatter a new status quo that gives Iran the greatest leverage? Or is he trying to revive a flawed ceasefire that pays Iran billions just for talking?

The latest outbreak of violence, just three weeks after Trump signed the memorandum of understanding with Tehran, which he hailed as a deal only he could make, underscored the great futility of the U.S. war effort so far.

Essentially, by launching a new burst of missiles and air attacks, he risked starting a second war to undo the damage – Iran’s hold on the Strait of Hormuz – caused by the first.

Iran’s attacks on shipping underlined its determination to preserve this leverage which, in addition to the survival of its repressive regime, constituted its main war gain. He wants to turn this essential oil and gas transit route into revenue by imposing tolls. The strikes against multiple ships seemed intended to force ships to sail only along their preferred routes, thereby confirming their dominance.

The US attacks and retaliation appear to contradict the memorandum of understanding. But the document — negotiated by the team that included U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner — is so vague, lacking in enforcement and gullible about Iran’s intentions that it is hardly surprising that it has already fizzled.

A furious Trump declared during a trip to the NATO summit in Turkey that the memorandum of understanding was now “finished” and called Iran “cuckoo”. But he said his negotiators could continue talking if they wanted. Reinforcing the impression of strategic incoherence, he added: “They will never build nuclear weapons under our deal, but I don’t know if we’re going to reach a deal. We can just do it without a deal because you know what, it’s easier.”

Absent an original plan that no one has thought of, Trump’s options are limited and may not work.

He could order a massive escalation. Although an invasion of Iran is unthinkable, it could consider air attacks on Iranian civilian infrastructure or power plants, or an invasion of coastal districts along the strait to repel Iranian forces. Another possibility is an operation to seize Iran’s oil hub of Kharg Island.

But the costs could be enormous and trigger the economic backlash he specifically explained he was trying to avoid by signing the memorandum of understanding. An assault by Marines or special forces on Kharg would risk causing heavy losses to the United States. For all his other missteps, Trump has so far failed to emulate presidents who have tried to redeem their own credibility by ordering an action that killed many U.S. service members or civilians.

Any US escalation would not happen in a vacuum.

Expanding target lists in Iran would likely result in retaliatory attacks against U.S. Gulf allies and U.S. regional bases. Oil and gas plants could be in the firing line – again with the possibility of triggering a global energy crisis.

Then Trump would face backlash at home, including a return to high gasoline prices that helped weaken his political position during the war and hurt the Republican Party’s already perilous prospects ahead of the midterm elections.

It’s not even clear that a full-scale war would destroy Iran’s ability to threaten the strait, given that a few drones could shut down commercial shipping from launch sites miles away.

Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said on CNN Wednesday that Trump’s predicament showed why hawks calling for him to “finish the job” in Iran were wrong. “You will not be able to, quote, finish the job, quote unquote, to the point where it would break Iran,” Smith said. “That’s always been the weak point in the argument for starting this war. And now we’re in that hole.”

In theory, Trump could reinstate the US blockade on Iranian ships and ports after already rescinding the waiver of oil sanctions agreed to under the memorandum of understanding. But after weeks of enduring the first embargo of its kind, Iran is far from the “unconditional surrender” demanded by Trump.

Retired Admiral James Stavridis, while acknowledging that Trump does not have many options, told CNN’s Jim Sciutto that Trump’s best course of action may be to attack economic targets in Iran. “We bring a knife to a knife fight, but we have a gun,” Stavridis said. “Frankly, I don’t think we’re going to conquer Kharg Island, but we could block it. That would be the end of the Iranian economy.”

Stavridis warned his comment of the potential for serious Iranian retaliation. But perhaps sustained and painful economic pressure on Iran could force the regime, despite its indifference to the suffering of its citizens, to question whether it could endure indefinitely the political consequences of a ravaged economy.

One possibility is that Trump walks away, leaving the world with the reality of a contested Strait of Hormuz. This would mean more expensive energy and dangerous, more expensive passage for ships. Markets could adapt. But he would not be able to protect the United States from economic consequences – including the stock market indexes he uses as a barometer of his personal success.

Ultimately, a reduction in the volume of oil on the market could significantly deplete reserve stocks. And ignoring the problem would mean an embarrassing defeat for the president and destroy the world’s perception of American power. Iran could display its main leverage in the war in perpetuity.

That opportunity is now so valuable that it has led Iran’s new leaders to risk a deal that included billions of dollars in U.S. sanctions relief and reconstruction funds. Once again, the assumptions of a tycoon-led administration that everyone can be swayed by monetary gain – already undermined in Ukraine – appear increasingly threadbare.

That means new scrutiny of Trump’s top negotiators, Witkoff and Kushner. A new CNN report on Wednesday cited several former U.S. officials familiar with the effort as saying that many career government employees with the expertise needed to negotiate a complex deal with Iran, including nuclear specialists, had been consulted only intermittently. The White House dismissed the criticism as criticism from outsiders who had never made a deal.

However, at the same time, the Iranian approach carries serious risks. A possible exaggeration of its position could strengthen regional support for any tougher US approach. It may also hint at divisions within the regime, as nationalist officials in the newly elevated Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seek to discredit their more moderate colleagues who wish to negotiate.

America’s limited options offer a potential explanation for why Trump, after ordering Wednesday’s strikes, quickly returned to making threats.

“If this happens again, the situation will be much worse,” he wrote on social media. But Iran did not give in to such warnings during the much more sustained and aggressive American and Israeli bombings early in the war.

On Air Force One, as he returned from Türkiye, Trump turned to another well-worn page in his strategy playbook.

“They called a little while ago, they want to make a deal so badly,” he says, returning to a refrain he’s been repeating for months, but which never seems to come true.

At times, the president seems to be waging a war not only against Iran but also against reality.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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