July 27, 2026

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Give Peace A Chance? U.S. Reaching a Strategic Dead End against Iran

(AP Photo/Stella Martany)

Informed sources tell journalists that U.S. President Donald Trump has become increasingly frustrated at the failure of U.S. policy, to date, to bring about a termination of the war against Iran on terms U.S. officials can accept. Seeking to break the strategic logjam by coercing regime leaders to agree to a full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, Trump publicly threatened a “massive escalation” of strikes on Iranian targets last week, both military and civilian-related. To back up the threat — and provide Trump with a variety of new options — the U.S. has moved a vast array of additional combat aircraft, including heavy bombers such as the B-1, into theater. The deployments indicate that Washington might be considering resuming a broad air campaign at levels consistent with those at the start of the war on February 28.

But experts assess that the U.S. might have reached a strategic dead end in which even the escalatory options under consideration would not compel Iran’s regime to return to the terms agreed to under the June U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). That accord collapsed in early July under the weight of Iran’s insistence that it could regulate Strait traffic, an assertion at odds with the U.S. understanding that the pact reopened the waterway without any restriction. The reimposition of the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports will further damage Iran’s economy, but the regime has shown a consistent ability to absorb economic hardship without modifying its core goals. Showing no open signs of flexibility in Tehran’s position, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) foreign ministers’ meeting in Kyrgyzstan on Friday, said Iran would not discuss even a temporary truce “unless our demands regarding the Strait of Hormuz are fulfilled.”

Facing a strategic dead end, the Trump team might ultimately be forced to choose between two unpalatable options: accepting de facto Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz and further Iranian nuclear advances, or launching a major ground operation to coerce capitulation or even attempt to topple the Islamic Republic outright. For now, neither option appears to be under consideration in Washington. All sources indicate a major ground invasion of Iran, which lacks public and congressional support and is certain to cause significant numbers of U.S. casualties, is off the table. And the Trump team reportedly is not willing to modify the MOU further to accept Iranian control of the Strait.

U.S. military leaders have reportedly presented plans for more limited ground operations inside Iran that might include seizing Iranian islands along the Strait or its oil export hub on Kharg Island, according to the Wall Street Journal and other outlets. Another option reportedly under consideration envisions inserting U.S. Special Operations Forces to seize strategic Iranian facilities difficult to destroy from the air, such as the deeply hardened site under development to enrich uranium, called Pickaxe Mountain. Some press reports indicate that the U.S. has moved Special Operations Forces units into theater in recent weeks — as well as medical units — to prepare for such operations. Reported U.S. war games have repeatedly concluded that limited ground operations would not cause Iran’s regime to collapse or capitulate.

Despite trading threats, both sides appear willing to consider de-escalation. Since Friday, Trump has declined to order additional strikes on Iranian military and other strategic targets. Coinciding with the pause, the New York Times reported Saturday that Trump has decided against the return to major combat that he previously threatened. The report attributes the U.S. stand-down to concerns about the potential for depletion of U.S. offensive and air defense munitions, as well as a sign of support for renewed diplomacy. The U.S. pause came during a visit by Omani officials to the Iranian capital Thursday and Friday to revive earlier talks on a compromise formula under which the Strait would fully reopen. There are some concerns that Trump’s bluster and repeated threats, without actual follow-up, have eroded American deterrence vis-à-vis Iran's hardliners, who feel emboldened after the past five months of fighting.

A prior round of Oman-Iran talks in early July, which sought to defuse U.S.-Iranian differences in interpretation of the MOU’s provisions for the Strait (Article 5), were derailed by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) attacks on commercial ships. The IRGC attacks were meant to enforce Iran’s interpretation that ships transiting the Strait must not use U.S.-backed passageways that hug the Omani coast, but only sail close to the Iranian coastline. The Oman-Iran talks in Tehran made significant progress, according to sources for CBS News, suggesting Iranian leaders might yet accept a compromise on the Strait. Under the reported Omani proposal, Iran would ensure the safe passage of shipping on its coast, Oman would manage ships that choose to use routes that hug the Omani coast, and a new international channel would be designated for the middle of the Strait. It is not clear whether the Omani plan would provide for the U.S. Navy to continue to provide a measure of protection for ships that do not use the route closest to Iran’s coast. On Sunday, regional reports indicated that mediators Qatar and Pakistan, at the urging of China, have begun trying to organize a U.S.-Iran meeting aimed at restoring the MOU. A resumption of in-person U.S.-Iran diplomacy, if convened, would be sure to ease pressure on world energy and commodity markets.

Iran’s openness to renewed diplomacy suggests Tehran fears U.S. escalation or needs to alleviate U.S. economic pressure. U.S. strikes have caused severe damage to some parts of Iran, particularly the southern coast along the Persian Gulf. Iranian officials might also be hoping to preempt a multilateral meeting in London next week, intended to assemble a coalition to protect maritime shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, European diplomats tell Axios media. The meeting, which is to bring together defense ministers and top military commanders from Western countries and countries from the region, demonstrates to Iranian leaders increasing pushback against its claims to control the Strait. The meeting also signals that European resistance to helping the U.S. war effort is softening — a trend IRGC leaders likely accelerated by threatening retaliation against European countries that host U.S. aircraft flying missions against Iran.

Trump’s apparent turn away from escalation and toward diplomacy takes into account regional concerns, particularly the potential for Iran to expand its strikes on the Arab Gulf states, Jordan, and Iraq in response. Any of the U.S. escalatory options under consideration, even if confined to air and missile strikes on Iran, are certain to cause Iranian leaders to abandon any restraint in their retaliation against Arab Gulf state energy and civilian infrastructure. Doing so is sure to raise world oil and gas prices even further, dealing Trump a further political blow at home. Iran has even threatened to attack targets further afield, including U.S. or allied bases well outside the Mideast region, using the long-range ballistic missiles Iran now possesses. Although all accounts suggest Iran’s missile and drone arsenal has been degraded by U.S. attacks to date, Iran’s ability to cause significant destruction, particularly near its borders, is nowhere near exhaustion.

In recent days, Iranian retaliatory attacks have, among other consequences, damaged desalination plants in Kuwait, threatening the country’s water supplies that depend almost entirely on desalination. Even though the Iranian attacks call into question the value of hosting U.S. forces on large, vulnerable bases, the Gulf states show no sign of capitulating to Iranian demands to expel the U.S. units. All of the Gulf states agree with Washington that Iran must not be left in control of the Strait of Hormuz when the war ends. Since the MOU collapsed in early July, Bahrain and Kuwait, supported by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have quietly conducted their first retaliatory strikes on Iran, marking a potential turning point in the Gulf state response to Iranian attacks.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar, although also damaged by Iranian strikes, align with Oman in arguing the faster route to ending the war lies in engagement and diplomacy with Tehran. Yet Saudi Arabia has demonstrated it will respond to Iranian pressure if pushed too far. Last week, Iran doubled down on its core strategy of “horizontal escalation” by giving its ally, the Houthi movement in Yemen, a green light to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to Saudi tanker traffic. The Houthis backed up the threat by attacking several Saudi ships in the Red Sea. On Saturday, the group claimed to strike key Saudi refining facilities with missiles and drones — the first Houthi attacks on the Kingdom since the 2022 Yemen ceasefire. Resigned to the collapse of the Yemen peace process, Saudi leaders responded to the Houthi attacks on Saudi ships by striking the Houthi-controlled port city of Hodeidah — the main entry point for Iranian weapons shipments to the group. Additionally, reports on Sunday indicate that the ground war between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed Republic of Yemen Government forces might have restarted. The resumption of the Yemen war — characterized by some as a “war within a war” — is sure to complicate U.S.-Iran mediation efforts, as the Kingdom and the Houthis will likely insist their demands be accommodated in any U.S.-Iran settlement.