As Carl Von Clausewitz famously argued, war is not the end of politics but its continuation by other means. While Tehran and Washington were engaged in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program—and, according to Oman’s foreign minister, a peace agreement was entirely within reach—U.S. President Donald Trump chose to pursue his political objectives not at the negotiating table but on the battlefield. The only problem was that Trump’s political objectives were no longer clear or straightforward. The goal he repeatedly invoked—preventing Iran from ever acquiring a nuclear weapon—was fully attainable through diplomacy. Yet it remains unclear what additional aims—whether regime change, the destruction of Iran’s military capabilities, or even the country’s fragmentation—drew Trump into yet another U.S. war in the Middle East.
The United States may have entered this war without clear objectives, but Iran has not. Despite being pulled into the conflict by U.S. and Israeli strikes, Tehran is pursuing a strategy that was debated, refined, and ultimately embraced across the Islamic Republic’s political spectrum long before the first missile landed. At its core is a single aim: to rebuild and redefine a new form of deterrence that will prevent future assaults.
As Carl Von Clausewitz famously argued, war is not the end of politics but its continuation by other means. While Tehran and Washington were engaged in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program—and, according to Oman’s foreign minister, a peace agreement was entirely within reach—U.S. President Donald Trump chose to pursue his political objectives not at the negotiating table but on the battlefield. The only problem was that Trump’s political objectives were no longer clear or straightforward. The goal he repeatedly invoked—preventing Iran from ever acquiring a nuclear weapon—was fully attainable through diplomacy. Yet it remains unclear what additional aims—whether regime change, the destruction of Iran’s military capabilities, or even the country’s fragmentation—drew Trump into yet another U.S. war in the Middle East.
The United States may have entered this war without clear objectives, but Iran has not. Despite being pulled into the conflict by U.S. and Israeli strikes, Tehran is pursuing a strategy that was debated, refined, and ultimately embraced across the Islamic Republic’s political spectrum long before the first missile landed. At its core is a single aim: to rebuild and redefine a new form of deterrence that will prevent future assaults.
Iranian officials contend that three decades of what they describe as “strategic patience” were catastrophically misinterpreted in Washington. In their view, Iran’s deliberate restraint—intended to prevent direct confrontation with the United States—was instead read as a sign of vulnerability, reinforcing the belief within U.S. policy circles that Tehran neither possessed the will nor the capability to broaden a conflict or impose meaningful regional costs. From Iran’s perspective, several episodes contributed to this misreading. The aftermath of the U.S. assassination of Quds Force commander Qassem Suleimani is often cited as a pivotal moment: Iran’s carefully calibrated missile strike on al‑Asad air base in Iraq—designed to avoid U.S. fatalities while still signaling resolve—was widely interpreted in Washington not as strategic discipline but as confirmation of Iranian weakness. Such interpretations, Iranian officials argue, emboldened U.S. decision‑makers and deepened the conviction that Tehran would ultimately absorb pressure rather than retaliate in ways that could meaningfully alter the regional balance.
The subsequent experience of the 12‑day war last June solidified a rare internal consensus in Tehran: The long‑standing strategy of restraint had not only failed to deter adversaries but had actively invited further coercion. This convergence of views across Iran’s political and security establishment marked a decisive reassessment of the assumptions underpinning its previous approach.
Previously, Tehran had sought to construct a defensive buffer by expanding a hub‑and‑spoke network of allied groups under the banner of the “Axis of Resistance.” The goal of this forward defense strategy was to keep any potential conflict with the country’s principal adversaries—Israel and the United States—far from its own borders. However, several rounds of direct if limited clashes between Iran and Israel, culminating in the 12‑day war, demonstrated that this strategy could no longer guarantee Iran’s security.
Under these conditions, Iran recalibrated. In February, Maj. Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi, then the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, announced that following the 12‑day war, Iran had revised its defensive doctrine and adopted an offensive posture grounded in rapid and expansive operations. According to him, Iran’s response would be swift, decisive, and unconstrained by U.S. calculations. Earlier that month, then-Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had similarly warned that any U.S. attack on Iran would transform the conflict into a regionwide war.
Iran’s new approach is rooted in deterrence by punishment. It is defined by horizontal escalation across the Persian Gulf and designed to raise the costs of continued confrontation to a level that renders the war strategically unsustainable for the United States. While Iran was unable to shift the regional balance in its favor at the negotiating table, it now hopes that, on the battlefield, it can leverage its geopolitical assets to establish a new balance and deter any future preemptive strikes.
In this effort, Iran’s most significant geographic advantage is its control over the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil supply passes. Since the beginning of the war, Iran has effectively closed this route, driving up global oil prices and heightening the risk of severe disruptions to the world economy.
Another advantage lies in Iran’s proximity to the southern Gulf states, all of which are U.S. allies and partners and host U.S. military bases. Even with its short‑range missiles, Iran can target military installations in these countries or, by striking their oil and gas infrastructure, further drive an energy crisis and escalate regional tensions. Last week, in response to Israel’s attack on the South Pars gas field—part of the largest gas field in the world and a lifeline for Tehran—Iran launched a large‑scale missile strike on Qatar’s Ras Laffan facilities. Iran also carried out drone attacks on the Saudi Aramco‑Exxon refinery in Saudi Arabia and on two refineries in Kuwait—actions that signal Iran’s willingness to operate in ways that are disproportionate and outside conventional strategic calculations.
This war will continue until a pathway toward an agreement, formal or informal, emerges that both sides judge preferable to the costs of continued conflict.
Trump has not articulated clear or limited political objectives for entering this war. Broadly speaking, he appears to envision decisive victory and Iran’s capitulation as his end goal. The risk, however, is that Iran’s security doctrine is built around asymmetric capabilities and the exploitation of its geographic advantages in the Persian Gulf—factors that make it difficult if not impossible to force the country’s capitulation or physically destroy its capacity for military action.
Although the United States has inflicted significant damage on Iran’s naval assets, Iran does not need an advanced navy or sophisticated technology to make commercial and oil tanker transit perilous. Its fleet of small, fast attack boats—of which it likely still retains a substantial number—and its use of inexpensive Shahed drones are sufficient to raise the risks of navigation in the strait. Moreover, Iran has not yet employed its most disruptive option: mining the Strait of Hormuz. Clearing mines in the strait could take months, dramatically amplifying the energy crisis and expanding the conflict’s global economic impact.
For Tehran, the war ends only when the new deterrence is credibly established. A cease-fire before that point is unacceptable because it would simply reset the conditions that allowed the United States and Israel to strike Iran with impunity. Iran may suffer severe damage to its fragile infrastructure, but its government believes that the long‑term strategic gains outweigh the immediate costs. This war, in Tehran’s view, is therefore the decisive one. Either Iran reshapes its adversaries’ perceptions of its resolve, or it risks a trajectory that ends in regime change.
Ultimately, both sides will be compelled to return to the negotiating table—but this time only after a new balance of power has been forged on the battlefield. The trajectory of the conflict suggests that diplomacy will reemerge not as an alternative to coercion but as its eventual consequence, when each party concludes that an agreement, whether formal or tacit, offers greater strategic benefit than the continued costs of war. Thus, new negotiations will not reflect a restoration of the old order but the recognition of a newly established equilibrium shaped by the dynamics of the confrontation itself.
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