One Month into the War with Iran

After over a month of fighting, the Trump administration continues to present the campaign against Iran as a significant military success. Yet behind the optimistic messaging lies a growing difficulty—not regarding the damage inflicted on Iran, but in the ability to formulate an endgame that can be presented as a clear strategic achievement. This was underscored by President Trump’s primetime address yesterday evening to the American people, where he vowed to hit Iran “extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.” But the bombastic rhetoric together with low public support for the campaign and acute economic pain at the gas pump emphasizes the core of Trump’s dilemma. Having run on an outspoken campaign platform promising an end to “endless wars,” Trump seeks not to be drawn into another protracted Middle Eastern conflict. Yet, at the same time, the President feels he cannot end the current conflagration without a significant strategic achievment that will enable him to claim victory, demonstrating not only that he has hurt Iran irreparably, but that he has changed the rules of the game through a demonstration of overwheming American power. As a result, the question confronting Washington is no longer whether the administration wants to end the war, but under what conditions it is capable of doing so—and even then, it is unclear to what extent control remains solely in its hands.

Against this backdrop, two competing approaches are emerging within the administration. One views negotiations as a genuine pathway out of the war, leveraging a position of strength; the other sees diplomacy primarily as a complementary move—one intended to buy time, enable further preparations, and build legitimacy in case a broader escalation is pursued. Vice President J.D. Vance appears to be among the prominent voices pushing to exhaust the diplomatic track, even if it entails some compromise relative to the maximalist objectives that were initially presented.

The current ten-day pause in strikes on energy infrastructure announced by Trump on March 26, alongside the advancement of a 15-point American proposal via Pakistan, suggests an effort to keep the door open for a negotiated settlement, one that Iran has so far publicly rejected. At the same time, military preparations continue in parallel: according to a March 29 report, the Pentagon is preparing for the possibility of weeks of ground operations in Iran, and U.S. forces in the region have already been reinforced, including Marines and additional elements from the 82nd Airborne Division. In other words, negotiations are not necessarily an exit strategy; they may also serve as cover for substantial military action.

If a decision is indeed made to shift from relatively limited military pressure to a wider ground campaign built on the reinforcements already deployed, the implications would be a longer, more costly, and far more complex war. Such a move could further erode domestic political support and sharpen the yawning gap between Trump’s promise to end wars quickly and the reality of deeper American entanglement in yet another protracted Middle East conflict. Therefore, even if internal pressure on the president is not yet decisive, the longer the campaign continues, the narrower his room for maneuver becomes: an early halt will appear as weakness, while a dramatic escalation risks turning the war into a far more prolonged conflict than originally planned.

At the same time, a degree of divergence may emerge between Washington and Jerusalem. For the United States, the “energy war” and the need to neutralize Iran’s chokehold over the Hormuz are integral to any endgame. For Israel, while this issue is important, the more urgent interest may be to conclude the Iranian chapter and shift focus to Lebanon, preventing Hezbollah’s reconstitution and halting its fire on Israel’s northern border. Iran, however, is seeking to prevent such a separation: Tehran has conveyed through intermediaries that any arrangement must also include Lebanon and a halt to strikes against Hezbollah. Thus, after more than a month of fighting, the picture that emerges is of a U.S. administration that continues to project success, but has yet to decide whether negotiations are, in fact, an exit strategy—or merely a prelude to further escalation.

Col. (res.) Eldad Shavit – Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). Formerly held senior positions in IDF Military Intelligence (AMAN) and the Mossad, where he served as Head of the Research and Analysis Division.

Dr. Jesse R. Weinberg –Research Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and coordinator of the program Israel and the Global Powers.