Trump May Not Be Able to End This War

President Trump appears to careen between two opposing visions for victory in Iran: He has demanded Tehran’s “unconditional surrender” and also has signaled that he might abruptly declare victory and leave. Neither scenario is likely to end this war, because neither reflects any real understanding of the adversary.

Washington appears to have begun the conflict on the assumption that sustained military pressure would either collapse the Iranian regime or force its leadership to concede to fundamental political and strategic demands. But the Islamic Republic has demonstrated a remarkable capacity to survive crises. In fact, past crises have strengthened rather than weakened the regime’s internal cohesion.

The Islamic Republic was born in upheaval and has governed through confrontation for much of its existence. In the early years after the 1979 revolution, religious factions competed with secular and leftist movements for influence. The state’s security institutions were still consolidating power. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which today dominates much of Iran’s military, political, and economic life, had not yet developed the institutional strength it now commands.

The turning point came when Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded Iran in 1980. That external threat, and the eight-year war that followed, consolidated Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s domestic authority and dramatically expanded the role of the IRGC. In later decades, under Khomeini’s successor, Ali Khamenei, the IRGC evolved into far more than a military force. It became an economic network, a political actor, and a central pillar of regime survival.

Today the IRGC’s influence extends across large portions of Iran’s economy, including energy, infrastructure, and construction. Its commanders occupy key positions across the state apparatus. These institutional entanglements mean that the Islamic Republic is not simply a government that can be easily removed; it is a deeply embedded system of political, military, and economic power.

Recent developments appear to have reinforced this structure rather than weakened it. Khamenei’s son Mojtaba has succeeded him as supreme leader. The younger Khamenei has long been viewed as a key intermediary between the clerical leadership and the IRGC, and his elevation suggests continuity rather than disruption within the regime’s core power networks.

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The Islamic Republic knows that it is fighting for its life, and that all it has to do, as the saying goes about insurgencies, is not lose. The expectation that military pressure alone will produce the regime’s collapse under such circumstances is likely unrealistic. Even severe damage to military infrastructure will not necessarily translate into political disintegration. Instead, external threats could strengthen nationalist sentiment and encourage factions within the system to close ranks.

Trump’s oscillations—between maximalist calls for unconditional surrender and suggestions that he might unilaterally declare the conflict over—probably reflect competing pressures. Israel may prefer to keep tightening the screws on Iran, while Washington has to worry about global economic risks and domestic political opposition. The possibility of prolonged instability in the Strait of Hormuz—through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply flows—has already rattled energy markets and could lead to a global oil shock comparable to those of the 1970s.

The Iranian regime is aware of American vulnerabilities and will seek to exploit them. At the end of last week, the United States struck Kharg Island, which houses much of Iran’s oil infrastructure. Iran can be expected to retaliate against economic targets in the region, including ports and energy facilities in the United Arab Emirates and Oman. If the United States escalates in response, Tehran will expand that regional target list. These are moves that don’t require Iranian military superiority—just its will to survive and its willingness to spread chaos throughout the region and into the global economy.

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Even if its military capabilities are degraded, Tehran can keep disrupting maritime shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. It can activate proxies, as it has done in Lebanon, where Israel is battling Hezbollah. And it can make trouble through cyber operations and covert attacks. All of these are low-cost means by which a determined Islamic Republic can continue to confound a much more technologically advanced and powerful United States.

For this reason, the war may not end in a decisive victory or defeat, but with a transformation. The battlefield would not disappear in this scenario—it would simply move. Overt fighting could give way to a kind of subterranean conflict, defined by deniable actions, covert retaliation, and indirect pressure. Instead of visible military exchanges, the countries would engage in a shadow struggle of mutual sabotage, attacks on shipping routes, pressure through regional militias, and secret operations designed to impose costs without triggering a new round of full-scale war.

The Islamic Republic is ideologically and institutionally unlikely to declare its unconditional surrender. And so Trump may soon decide to cut his losses by saying that the United States has achieved its objectives and the war is finished. But wars do not always end when one side says they do. Iran’s leadership shows no sign of viewing the current conflict as a decisive defeat. As long as the regime believes it still has the capacity to resist, the confrontation may not cease.