The Dilemmas of American Action: The Repercussions of an American Strike on Iran
by Eldad Shavit and Jesse Weinberg
Editor’s note: This article was completed and scheduled to be published before the attack on Iran on February 28.
As the latest round of negotiations between Iran and the United States concluded this Tuesday in Geneva, substantial numbers of American troops continued deploying to bases and forward positions across the greater Middle East. The talks followed Donald Trump’s aggressive rhetoric more than forty days earlier, when he openly backed and encouraged Iranian demonstrators after the eruption of widespread anti-regime protests, which were met with a brutal crackdown by Iranian security forces, with reported death tolls reaching into the multiple thousands.
The significant reinforcement of U.S. forces in the region reflects the administration’s reliance on coercive diplomacy to pressure Tehran in the face of continued Iranian intransigence. Yet the outcome of the Geneva talks revealed little substantive movement, particularly on Iran’s insistence on its right to enrich uranium on its own soil.
Trump now confronts a dilemma he likely did not anticipate at the height of the Iranian protests, when he declared on Truth Social on January 1 that the United States was “locked and loaded and ready to go.” He has since shifted from maximalist demands regarding the Iranian regime’s response to the protests, to negotiations focused solely on the nuclear issue. The question of whether, and when, to use force against Iran runs directly against his political instincts: an approach that places dealmaking at the center of his foreign policy and is animated by a deep aversion to protracted conflicts.
The current American force posture highlights the wide range of military options available to Washington, from a rapid, concentrated strike to a more sustained campaign. What remains unclear is the strategic endgame and whether a viable exit strategy exists that would allow the president to claim tangible success while containing regional escalation. This includes recent reports highlighting doubts expressed by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, regarding the feasibility of a major U.S. operation without triggering a broader and protracted regional conflict. This uncertainty, and the high risk of a wider regional conflagration, could ultimately undermine Trump’s ability to expand the Abraham Accords, the signature foreign policy achievement of his first term, and to build a regional order that genuinely reduces Washington’s military footprint.
The Middle East Paradox
Donald Trump’s return to the White House was expected to usher in a phase of reduced American kinetic involvement in the Middle East. Yet the widening gap between his rhetoric and prior political commitments has produced a paradox: a president committed to ending “endless wars” and recasting the region as an arena for dealmaking could, in practice, preside over a regional conflagration. This tension was reflected in the National Security Strategy (NSS) released in early December 2025, which offered an implicit critique of decades of American interventionism, particularly the neoconservative project of exporting liberal democratic values, and reframed the Middle East as a theater for “partnership, friendship, and investment,” that is “no longer the constant irritant, and potential source of imminent catastrophe, that it once was.”
These themes resonated with anti-interventionist elements on the Republican far right and resurfaced during the Twelve Day War, when critics portrayed escalation as a betrayal of Trump’s promise to end “endless wars.” Trump’s response, however, was revealing. Attacks from figures such as Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon were met with open defiance, with the president declaring, “I’m the one that developed ‘America First.’ . . . For those people who say they want peace—you can’t have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon.” The subsequent B-2 strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities at Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz underscored Trump’s preferred model of intervention: the application of overwhelming force with minimal long-term investment, and a highly personalized approach that keeps the movement’s ideology subordinate to his immediate strategic calculations.
This episode highlights the degree to which MAGA is organized around Trump personally, functioning less as a coherent ideology than as a flexible vehicle shaped by his immediate political and strategic calculations. The resulting tension between an anti-interventionist narrative and a readiness to use force when expedient continues to shape U.S. policy in the Middle East and complicates America’s long-term strategic planning in the aftermath of a potential strike.
Israel’s Calculus
A significant factor in America’s strategic calculus has been substantial pressure on the part of Israel for decisive U.S. action against Iran. For Jerusalem, the long-standing focus on Iran’s nuclear program has now given way to significant worries about Iran’s rapidly expanding ballistic missile arsenal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli defense establishment see Iran’s ballistic missiles as the most pressing strategic threat facing the Jewish state, particularly after the American airstrikes on the Iranian nuclear facilities during Operation Midnight Hammer. Jerusalem’s stance has been underlined to the Trump administration in the frequent meetings between the prime minister and the president, yet the framework of the negotiations between the United States and Iran has focused only on the narrow nuclear issue, despite Israel’s best efforts to push for Iranian concessions on its missile program and support for its proxies throughout the region. Yet, despite these gaps, Israel and the United States remain highly coordinated, and a potential Iranian response would likely lead to direct Israeli involvement in tandem with the United States, bringing to bear Israel’s own considerable firepower together with its unsurpassed intelligence on Iranian targets.
The Immediate Response
While Washington and Jerusalem stand ready to strike Iranian targets, the most immediate and consequential arena for an Iranian response is likely to be the Gulf, where hydrocarbon infrastructure and military assets in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar would be most exposed to retaliation. These worries, as well as the desire of the Gulf monarchies to deescalate any further tensions that would harm the tenuous détente with Iran, are the central focus of their strategic calculus. Iranian proxies, such as the Shi’a militias in Iraq, a weakened Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen, could be brought to bear on Western as well as Israeli targets in a multi-front escalation.
Additionally, worries abound over potential Iranian actions targeting global shipping, including the possible disruption or closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the critical maritime artery through which more than 20 percent of global energy supplies transit, raising the risk of severe economic repercussions well beyond the region. A disruption in oil supply also could have significant impact on global prices, particularly in a critical midterm election year in the United States. While American officials, most prominently Energy Secretary Chris Wright, pointed to the lack of a global price shock during last summer’s Twelve Day War, the past is not always prologue, and a disruption of Iranian oil supply—around 5 percent of global output, could still impact prices.
The Day After: The Regional and Global Balance
The most pressing question for American strategic planners remains: what does Washington aim to accomplish over the long term? The consequences of the choice before the administration, whether to continue to pursue a diplomatic agreement with Tehran or, more consequentially, to resort to force, will constitute a critical test for President Trump and a defining moment of his presidency. The implications of a military campaign would shape perceptions of American power from the Middle East to Moscow and Beijing, with far-reaching geostrategic implications for the international system, particularly in light of the lessons drawn from the U.S. experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Another inconclusive or protracted conflict would further shape global perceptions of U.S. power and credibility, reinforcing doubts not only regarding Washington’s ability to stabilize the Middle East, but also about its capacity to sustain long-term competition in other critical theaters. This is particularly significant when viewed through the lens of Washington’s broader strategic competition: Russia would likely interpret another Middle Eastern conflict as a diversion that creates additional space for expanded operations in Ukraine, while China would closely scrutinize American military performance and strategic behavior that could directly inform Beijing’s own calculations in the Indo-Pacific arena and beyond.
The Trump administration’s preferred option remains the resolution of the current standoff through diplomatic means, which would see Iran agree to freeze uranium enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief. If this is the case, it will serve as a textbook example of the success of American coercive diplomacy. Conversely, any perception of American capitulation to Iranian demands, including a performative deal to save face, particularly if accompanied by a withdrawal of the U.S. Navy carrier groups and forward-deployed forces, would deal a significant blow to Washington’s credibility and deterrence.
If Trump decides to attack, the most optimistic scenario rests on the assumption that a sustained and concentrated military blow would shatter the Iranian regime’s will, forcing Tehran back to the negotiating table from a position of near-total inferiority, akin to the moment at the end of the Iran–Iraq War when the Ayatollah Khomeini was compelled to “drink from the poisoned chalice” in order to preserve the Islamic Republic. The core analytical premise underpinning this scenario is that an Iran that is functionally and structurally weakened would have little choice but to seek an agreement largely capitulating to American demands, most notably on the issue of uranium enrichment. With this logic, an attack need not explicitly aim at regime change, an outcome for which there are no guarantees, but rather at destabilizing Iran sufficiently to encourage renewed mass protests and elite fragmentation and discord. Additionally, a targeted American campaign aimed at degrading the foundations of Iran’s leadership and critical infrastructure, all while encouraging renewed public protests, but stopping short of explicitly pursuing regime change—leading to changes within the construction of the regime, could emerge as a plausible outcome, achieved without the deployment of U.S. ground forces or direct political intervention. Yet this still leaves significant questions as to what Washington’s long-term strategic plan would be. A military move to seek regime change remains the least likely outcome, and is far from guaranteed, even if Trump has previously spoken openly about his desire to see the Iranian regime overthrown.
An American attack remains burdened by a range of negative scenarios and, absent clearly defined strategic objectives, risks producing outcomes directly opposed to those intended. A large-scale American strike that fails to produce a durable agreement, alter the balance of power within the Iranian regime, or threaten its survival—leaving its current leadership and uranium enrichment capabilities intact—would be widely perceived by regional and global actors as a colossal failure, severely harming American interests. The Iranian regime would likely move to accelerate decisively toward nuclear weapons as a form of insurance policy, shortening breakout times and eliminating any remaining constraints. Such a move would then likely trigger a regional nuclear arms race, with states such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey reassessing their own nuclear options. As a result, an American strike without defined strategic objectives could thus institutionalize regional nuclear proliferation rather than prevent it.
At the regional level, American military action would likely reinforce ongoing geopolitical realignments, regardless of its outcome. The split and evolving rivalry between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), driven by their own competition for leadership within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Arab world, has also been driven by the Saudi desire to balance against Israel through an evolving regional alignment that includes Turkey and Qatar—particularly given Israel’s close strategic alignment with the UAE.
For Riyadh in particular, the pre-October 7 regional order—defined by a tense but largely self-contained balance between Israel and Iran and its proxy network—served Saudi interests by constraining both competing regional powers. Israel’s systematic dismantling of the Iranian “ring of fire” of proxy forces since the October 7 attacks has altered that equilibrium, with the Jewish state seen as the unrestrained regional hegemon. Yet an American success in defanging Iran would give the Trump administration greater ability to coerce the Saudis to rebalance its regional alignment with Qatar and Turkey, force Israel to make concessions on the Palestinian issue, and finally achieve the long-awaited expansion of the Abraham Accords. Likewise, Israel’s strategic standing will be impacted directly by the results of a conflict with Iran. A significant success will reinforce its image as the Middle East’s regional heavyweight, with American political and military backing. An American failure—and certainly one in which Israel is an active participant—combined with significant Iranian strikes on the Israeli home front would have a dramatic impact on the perception of Israel’s strength and deterrence in the eyes of regional actors.
Ultimately, Washington’s ability to shape the regional order will hinge on the outcome of any military operation, or its ability to craft a sustainable deal that limits Iran’s nuclear program. What cannot be denied is that the aftermath of a potential American campaign against Iran would carry far-reaching and potentially fateful consequences. Success would reinforce American deterrence, reassure allies, and strengthen U.S. leverage in expanding the Abraham Accords. Failure, by contrast, without either a diplomatic agreement or a change to the status quo in Iran, would weaken U.S. credibility in the region and potentially draw it into a protracted conflict in the Middle East. In this sense, the decision to go to war, and its outcome, will shape perceptions of American power among both allies and rivals, with lasting implications for the international system and the United States’ global strategic position for years to come.
Topics: Reflections & Dialogues
Eldad Shavit is a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and previously served in senior roles in Israel Defense Intelligence and the Mossad, where he served as the head of the research and analysis division.
Jesse R. Weinberg is a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and the coordinator of the Israel and the Global Powers research program at the institute.