Washington has the firepower to strike Iran again within days. It has far less reason to believe another attack would achieve what the two previous offensives failed to do. Yet a settlement on Iran’s terms would force the United States to accept a blow to its hegemony in West Asia. Washington may see that as a greater risk than another war.

A deal that ends the fighting or puts it on hold remains possible. Washington’s decision will depend chiefly on the strategic cost of a settlement, the political constraints on Donald Trump, and the kind of campaign US forces can sustain.

The price of a deal

After Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023, Washington and "Israel" concluded that reversing the operation’s long-term consequences for "Israel" would require a fundamental shift in the regional balance of power. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly spoke of changing the face of the Middle East. In practice, that meant eliminating armed Resistance inside occupied Palestine and on its borders and accelerating the drive to bring down Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria. Its fall in December 2024 marked a success for that strategy. The ultimate goal was to overthrow the Islamic Republic of Iran, the keystone of the Axis of Resistance.

Lebanon showed how far that strategy reached. Hezbollah had opened a support front for Gaza nearly a year before the conflict widened into open war. Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Sheikh Naim Qassem, dates that escalation to September 17, 2024, when "Israel" detonated pagers across Lebanon in a terrorist attack. The assassination of his predecessor, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, showed that "Israel" was trying to eliminate Hezbollah altogether. Forcing the movement to end its support front for Gaza was only part of the objective.

The two unprecedented acts of aggression against Iran and the assassination of its head of state and religious leader, Sayyed Ali Khamenei, pointed to the same ambition in Iran.

Iran appears to have understood the scale of the threat. With its adversaries seeking to overthrow the Islamic Republic, Tehran set political goals commensurate with theirs, even though the two sides fought with very different means. Iran’s success in withstanding both offensives strengthened its confidence in its military capabilities and in the tactics it had used to wage an asymmetric war. It also gave Tehran reason to hold out for a settlement on its own terms.

Iran’s seven demands show what that means. Alongside an end to military operations, Tehran wants the naval blockade and economic sanctions lifted, an end to the war against its allies in the Axis of Resistance, and new arrangements for the Strait of Hormuz. Taken together, those terms would change the balance of power that has governed West Asia for decades. They would go well beyond restoring the position on the eve of October 7, 2023.

Tehran also appears unwilling to let the present standoff drag on. After Washington backed away from its commitments under the Islamabad MoU, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said the country’s new leader, Sayyed Mojtaba Khamenei, had called for an end to the "no war, no peace" state. The speaker of parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said Iran could end the standoff by building lasting deterrence and need not rely on talks alone.

That is Washington’s predicament. Accepting Tehran’s terms would cement an American defeat. It would weaken US deterrence and leave allies questioning whether Washington could protect them. The consequences would reach beyond West Asia. A retreat on that scale would accelerate the emergence of a multipolar world, with power spread across several centres.

Another war offers Washington a chance to break Iran’s resolve and reverse those losses. The first two wars give little reason to expect that outcome, but the United States still has formidable firepower, and policymakers who believe that power can be decisive have a reason to try again. A partial deal could freeze the confrontation and buy time.

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Its durability would depend on Tehran accepting the very standoff it wants to end.

For Washington, the choice may therefore look like accepting a strategic defeat now or risking a worse defeat in the hope of avoiding one. That calculation favors escalation, even though another war could be disastrous.

The midterms and Trump’s room to maneuver

The Republican defeat in the midterms exposed the domestic cost of wars that failed to achieve their strategic aims. It also revealed how divided Washington remains over what to do next. Democrats won both houses of Congress. Several of their leaders say they opposed the war from the outset, yet leading Democrats denounced the Islamabad MoU as a capitulation to Iran.

If Democrats see diplomacy as the way out, they need a credible plan to secure better terms than the Islamabad Understanding offered or to negotiate a pause that gives Washington a way out of its predicament. Either approach would have to account for what the wars have already changed. Iran has little reason to bargain as though the regional balance of power were still what it was before October 7, 2023.

The midterms and the Republican Party’s prospects in the next presidential election may limit Trump’s room for maneuver. Their influence on his decisions is harder to gauge. He has long defied his party’s conventions and the institutions of American government. If he sees the constitutional bar on a third term as final, he may feel freer to take risks during the rest of his presidency.

Netanyahu is still pressing him to resume the war. He sees himself as “one of the kings of the Israelites” and regards escalation as essential to the survival of the occupation entity, the continued occupation of Palestine, and the emergence of what he calls an “Israeli era” across the region. His bloc’s loss of its Knesset majority gives him a more immediate political stake in renewed fighting.

These pressures matter. The strategic cost of a settlement still weighs more heavily in Washington’s decision.

What US forces can do

The US military could mount another attack without a major build-up. The US Naval Institute has tracked two US aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea, the George Washington and the George H. W. Bush. A third, the Theodore Roosevelt, is approaching as part of a rotation. Add the fighters already in the region and the long-range bombers that can fly from US territory, and Washington has enough firepower for extensive strikes over a short period.

More transport, refuelling, and surveillance flights are passing through European bases, particularly in Germany and Crete. Activity at Diego Garcia also points to stronger logistical support and greater operational readiness. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that the United States still has enough munitions for another confrontation, although some stocks have been heavily depleted.

A sustained campaign would put those forces under a different kind of strain. Studies by the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Royal United Services Institute show how difficult it would be to replace precision munitions and interceptors. The United States would also have to defend its bases against Iranian missiles and drones and keep its forces supplied under fire. The deployments visible in open sources show little sign of the extra strike capacity and logistical support a long, intensive campaign would require.

The US posture is broadly consistent with an assessment offered by Major General Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. He told Al Mayadeen that Trump and Netanyahu had planned for no more than a three- to five-day operation and had yet to identify a strategic objective they could achieve in that time.

The danger is that Washington can decide how quickly it strikes, but Iran’s response will help decide how long the war lasts. Even a few days of heavy strikes could set off repeated exchanges and draw the United States into the prolonged campaign its current posture is less suited to sustain.

When "Israel" opened the war on June 13, 2025, it did so with Trump’s prior knowledge and approval. By joining the war, Trump broke with previous US administrations, which have avoided direct military confrontation with Iran. Seventeen months later, Washington faces a choice it helped create. A settlement on Tehran’s terms would weaken American hegemony. Another failed campaign could do even greater damage.

The case against going to war was strong in June 2025, and it is strong today. It failed to prevent the first attack. It is unlikely to prevent another, as it seems.