The Iran Failure We Needed

Count me among those grateful that President Trump has struck a deal with the Iranian regime. Recent months have provided powerful evidence that for military, economic, and political reasons, American and Israeli forces cannot dislodge the Iranian regime. Pragmatic reason dictates that this reality must be acknowledged. Moral reason urges leaders to find a way to end the conflict, for one of the central ambitions of just war doctrine is to prevent pointless war-making. I commend Trump for recognizing reality and pressing for a deal.

To say that continuing the conflict is not only ill-considered but morally suspect does not entail condemning the American and Israeli military adventure tout court. It’s possible to attain some good outcomes, even as one fails to achieve more ambitious ends.

Some commentators are quick to accuse Trump of conceding to Iran control of the Strait of Hormuz. But this is a specious claim. The conflict has exposed the fact that, given political and military realities in 2026, as long as Iran is willing to endure aerial assaults and economic sanctions, its military has the power to dictate shipping traffic in the strait.

This revelation can have positive consequences for the United States. The entire world now knows that American military power cannot (or will not) secure the free flow of oil in the Middle East. This will have a significant effect over time. In the first place, the long-term risk premium on Middle Eastern energy supplies will increase, leading the countries that need oil to diversify sources and reduce dependence on energy from the Middle East. The geopolitical importance of the Middle East will thus decline—a good outcome for everyone, it seems to me, especially Americans, who have been required to invest a great deal of blood and treasure in that region.

During the conflict, Iran attacked targets in the Gulf States. This marked an escalation by Iran, which had been satisfied to needle its regional adversaries through proxies such as the Houthis in Yemen. The upshot seems to be a strategic rethinking by Gulf States and others. Saudi Arabia struck a deal that put the Arab kingdom under Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella. Israel’s evident military capacity has attracted Arab allies eager to counter Iranian power. 

The realignments will be complex, fluid, and unstable, but they foretell a future in which the United States is not tasked with providing security for the region. Again, this is a good outcome for Americans, and it may lead to a more stable Middle East as regional actors are forced to make hard choices to enter into real alliances rather than pursuing destabilizing projects under America’s military umbrella. Put simply: In Middle Eastern capitals from Jerusalem to Riyadh, leaders now know that they need to run their part of the world rather than assuming that Washington will do so on their behalf.

And then there’s America itself. We can have no doubt that the inconclusive results of Trump’s military efforts against Iran have accelerated the American public skepticism of foreign entanglements. Those results have also cast America’s historic alliance with Israel into a new and harsh light. The latter is regrettable, but the overall effect will be to reduce public support for the American ambition to serve as the global policeman, and public sentiment is likely to demand a foreign policy that is crystal clear about American interests, which I regard as a good thing.

It is reasonable to deem the Iran war a failure. It did not achieve many of its stated goals. But military failures are not always without good consequences. They can impose the reality principle, not just on protagonists, but onlookers as well. Historians may look back at Trump’s adventure against Iran and deem it an important moment, the beginning of a clear-sighted American retrenchment that recognizes the limits of American power (which remains substantial, but not infinite) and the real scope of American interests (which are global in scale, but not global in substance). If this comes to pass, I’ll look back on the inconclusive conflict and the no doubt ragged-edged and largely ineffective deal that concluded it with little remorse.

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