How This Probably Ends
Published at 22:11 on 31 March 2026
I will start with a disclaimer: Trump can be famously unpredictable, and in this situation he is particularly so. So it may well end differently. But, I still think the most likely resolution is that Trump gives up without effecting regime change in Iran. He will of course in all likelihood declare victory, but the Islamic Republic will still exist and may even be allowed to persist in collecting tolls from vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
Even in the former case, this will constitute a win for Iran, because all Iran had to do to win was to survive the onslaught from a vastly more powerful aggressor (actually, from two aggressors, one of them a superpower). Such is the nature of asymmetric conflict.
It will particularly be a win for Iran if they get away with extracting tolls indefinitely, as the war started without Iran having this power. Sure, Iran will have paid a terrible price in lost lives and destroyed infrastructure, but it will in this case emerge with more, not less, power and influence as a result of the war. By any reasonable definition, “emerge with more power and influence” defines the party considered the victor.
Correspondingly, the USA will in all likelihood emerge with less power and influence, as a result of alienating both its allies and the world community by launching an ill-planned and economically disruptive conflict. Trump may well elect to put a cherry on top of the sundae by withdrawing the USA from NATO (an action that technically must require Senate ratification, but the USA is so far gone from the principles of constitutional rule that this doesn’t much matter anymore). If so, this will particularly make it a loss for the USA.
Even if it ends via more protracted process, it still probably ends in a loss for the USA. Again, such is the nature of asymmetric warfare. This is a big part of the reason why no other president save Carter (who launched a very limited operation aimed at liberating the hostages in the US Embassy in Tehran) has opted to attack Iran: the basic asymmetry of any hypothetical conflict has always been strongly in Iran’s favour.