After six months, the Iran war has reached its endgame – a costly stalemate
AI generated
BEIRUT – The Iran war has reached its endgame: a costly stalemate.
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war → reach → endgame
Six months after US and Israeli forces attacked Iran, killing its supreme leader and maiming his son and successor, the Iranian government is under economic siege, but it still holds power and believes it has time on its side.
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it → attack → side
A threat by US President Donald Trump to impose crippling new sanctions on Iran faces a fundamental problem: Tehran is betting he will not take the final step to break the stalemate: aggressively enforcing secondary sanctions on the countries keeping its economy afloat, foremost among them China and India.
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he → impose → them
Washington’s latest measures, announced on Aug 24, mark a new phase in the conflict that began on Feb 28, shifting the battlefield from missiles and air strikes to Iran’s oil revenues, banks and trading partners.
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that → announce → revenues
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said the United States will cut off the financial lifelines sustaining Iran’s economy, while a US-led naval blockade restricts Tehran’s oil exports and access to hard currency.
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blockade → say → currency
“The (Trump) administration is groping in a sort of desperate fashion to try to find a pathway out of this,” said Aaron David Miller, a former US diplomat and senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment.
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Miller → grope → Endowment
Bessent invoked the 1944 D-Day landings in France during World War II when he unveiled the sanctions, but Miller said: “To me, this isn’t D-Day.
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this → invoke → me
It’s Desperation Day.
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It → ’ → ?
I don’t think the administration is any closer to finding a way out of this.”
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administration → think → this
Michael Knights, head of research at Horizon Engage, a New York-based strategic advisory, said the blockade may prove more consequential than the sanctions themselves because Iran’s immediate challenge is no longer how to survive economic pressure but how to break out of it.
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challenge → base → it
Tehran has spent decades adapting to sanctions and endured previous “maximum pressure” campaigns without altering its behaviour, he said.
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he → spend → behaviour
Mounting economic pressure, he said, may increase Iran’s incentive to raise the cost of the confrontation for its adversaries by pressuring Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, to push Washington towards a diplomatic off-ramp.
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he → mount → ramp
Knights said Iran could increasingly adopt the model used by its Houthi allies in the Red Sea: periodic attacks, intermittent negotiations and a prolonged campaign of disruption short of all-out war, potentially targeting shipping, ports, energy infrastructure or other critical assets to make the conflict increasingly costly for Gulf states to tolerate.
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states → say → shipping
Washington rejects that assessment and says the balance of power is in its favour.
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balance → reject → favour
“The Iranian economy is in free fall, and the regime’s military has been decimated,” US State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in response to questions for this article.
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Pigott → decimate → article
“President Trump holds all the cards, and we are cutting off every financial lifeline the regime has remaining.”
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regime → hold → lifeline
Replay of a tired playbook
Alan Eyre, a former US diplomat who worked on Iran, questioned whether Washington has the international support and bureaucratic machinery to make the sanctions stick.
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sanctions → work → support
He said that unlike the multilateral campaign preceding the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers, which curbed Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for lifting sanctions, the latest measures rely on public threats rather than sustained diplomacy with allies and trading partners.
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measures → say → allies
Iranian officials dismiss the US strategy as a replay of a playbook that has already failed.
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that → dismiss → playbook
One senior Iranian official told Reuters that countries such as China would not stop cooperating with Iran simply to serve US interests.
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countries → tell → interests
Some political analysts say the strategy faces a deeper flaw: From North Korea to Russia and Iran itself, sanctions have rarely forced governments to abandon goals they view as existential for their survival.
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they → say → survival
The senior Iranian official said Tehran believes Washington’s broader objective is to fuel domestic discontent in the hope that economic hardship could eventually translate into political unrest, but that the “maximum pressure” campaign failed during Trump’s first term and would fail again.
“If the pressure increases, Iran’s approach will change too,” he said, adding that Gulf Arab governments understood that squeezing Tehran further could put them at greater risk as well.
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squeezing → say → risk
It may be the risk that worsening hardship again spills into mass unrest, according to insiders and an Iranian official.
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hardship → worsen → insiders
Annual inflation reached 66 per cent in July, while consumer prices were 87.9 per cent higher than a year earlier, according to Iran’s Statistical Centre.
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prices → reach → Centre
Food prices rose 128 per cent year on year.
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prices → rise → year
President Masoud Pezeshkian acknowledged the severity of the squeeze last week, saying: “Our problems have multiplied several times over, while our income has also fallen.”
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income → acknowledge → squeeze
Economic grievances have repeatedly erupted into nationwide protests in recent years.
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grievances → erupt → years
In January, demonstrations over economic hardship were crushed by the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij militia, with thousands killed.
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thousands → crush → Guards
The appointment this month of Hossein Taeb, a key architect of previous crackdowns, to lead the Basij was one of the clearest signs yet of official concern about renewed unrest, a former reformist official said.
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official → lead → unrest
The Basij, a paramilitary force affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, has repeatedly been deployed by Iran’s clerical rulers to suppress protests.
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Basij → affiliate → protests
That points to a paradox at the heart of Washington’s strategy: Sanctions may deepen Iran’s economic damage without forcing its rulers to change course.
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Sanctions → point → course
The leadership has historically answered domestic unrest with repression, and external pressure with threats of retaliation abroad.
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leadership → answer → retaliation
They prefer economic and diplomatic pressure to another round of war, but fear an outcome that enables Iran to declare victory while retaining the ability to disrupt traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global oil supply route that Tehran has effectively blocked, pushing up global oil prices.
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Tehran → prefer → prices
Abdulaziz Sager, chairman of the Saudi-based Gulf Research Center, said Gulf governments are unconvinced that sanctions alone can rapidly alter Iran’s behaviour, given the leadership’s resilience and ability to maintain internal control.
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sanctions → base → control
Significant political change, or the collapse of Iran’s theocratic leadership, he said, is unlikely to come quickly.
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he → say → leadership
The result is a dangerous impasse if mediated talks fail to produce a breakthrough.
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talks → mediate → breakthrough
Washington wants Iran to abandon its leverage over Hormuz without conceding Tehran a role in managing the waterway, Iran wants the US naval blockade lifted without appearing to surrender, and Gulf states want the conflict contained without letting Iran emerge as the victor.
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Iran → want → victor
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