- cross-posted to:
- world@quokk.au
- cross-posted to:
- world@quokk.au
Trita Parsi May 18, 2026
We should first recognize that restarting the war amounts to an admission that Trump’s previous escalatory gambit — the blockade of the blockade — has failed. That, in turn, was itself an admission that the war had failed. Which was an admission that the threats of war in January had failed. As I have argued before on my Substack, this relentless search for an escalatory silver bullet capable of bringing Iran to its knees is not unique to Trump; it has become a defining pathology of American Iran policy for decades.
Although negotiators have made meaningful progress on several fronts, talks have thus far failed to produce an agreement, largely because of irreconcilable differences over Tehran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile. And as Washington has come to realize that the blockade is backfiring, a new and dangerous dynamic has emerged: both sides now believe another round of fighting will strengthen their hand in the negotiations that follow
I’m not buying that “both sides” want another round of fighting. The US definitely does - it’s their go-to mode anyway, and they’re checkmate on all other options. Already the rest of the world has decided they’ve definitively lost this war, so only starting another fight will make it look as if the war’s still on and the jury’s still out. It won’t make them win, it’ll just be damage control.
Meanwhile, Iran won’t be interested in more fighting if they don’t have to. Time’s on their side: every day that goes by with a choked strait of Hormuz, the more the world economy will slide and literally the whole globe will blame Trump and his feckless minions. They’ll obviously respond to an attack, and they’ll threaten hell as a deterrent. But why fight when the economy will do the job for you, and your enemy will look like the fool he is?