The Washington Post: Trump is advised to stop the war, otherwise it will be worse

After two weeks of war against Iran, President Donald Trump will probably be ready to declare victory soon. However, there is one problem: Tehran can also respond, writes The Washington Post columnist Michael Birnbaum.

Having destroyed most of the Iranian fleet, a significant part of the missile stocks and an important part of the top leadership, Trump is getting closer to the goals set by his military at the beginning of the war. However, during the two weeks of the conflict, it was not possible to achieve the broader goals that Trump has repeatedly stated. The entrenched regime in Tehran remains in power and provokes unrest in world oil markets, blocking the vital sea route through which oil and gas are transported from the Persian Gulf countries.

According to diplomats and analysts, the country's leaders are perhaps more eager than ever to create nuclear weapons. According to estimates by the United States and its allies, Iran retains control over its reserves of 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, which gives it another trump card in the struggle for survival under the onslaught of the United States and Israel.

This paradox calls into question Trump's ability to end the war. At the same time, the president is facing growing pressure from his own party, which demands that priority be given to the economy ahead of the midterm elections.

Gasoline prices have soared by 25% since the US and Israel began bombing Iran, farmers are facing rising fertilizer costs, and the death toll of American soldiers is rising. Tehran has demonstrated resilience in its ability to attack ships trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, which makes it unclear whether a unilateral end to the war by the United States will be enough to lower energy prices.

Iran's strikes have also led to serious problems in the Persian Gulf countries, which are traditionally considered allies of the United States. It is known that numerous American military bases are located on their territory. Trump continues to claim that only he controls the course of hostilities.

The war will end "when I feel that its goals have been achieved, I will feel it with all my being," Trump said on Fox News Radio on Friday, adding that, in his opinion, it "will not take long."

He also noted: "We are significantly ahead of schedule. Significantly."

However, there is a huge gap between what has been achieved on the battlefield and Washington's ability to control Iran as a regional threat, says Suzanne Maloney, an expert on US-Iranian relations, vice president for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution.

"We managed to achieve tremendous success in achieving specific military goals, but as long as Iran can dictate the date of the end of the war and still retains the path to the creation of nuclear weapons, this is a strategic disaster," she said.

One of the risks for the administration is that Tehran's motivation regarding its nuclear stockpile could change, as the positions of hardliners who could potentially be ready to develop a primitive nuclear device have strengthened, diplomats and analysts said.

It is not known whether Iran has access to enriched uranium gas reserves. It is believed that the containers with gas are buried under the rubble after the US bombing of nuclear facilities in June. It is also unclear whether Iranian engineers and scientists will be able to convert this gas into material for a "dirty bomb".

Iran's Supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who died in the first attack of the current military campaign, helped shape decades of resistance to the United States and its allies. He used his country's nuclear ambitions as a trump card — valuable even if the nuclear program fell a little short of the threshold required to create weapons.

His son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, may not have the authority and authority to restrain the more radical representatives of the Iranian security forces if they insist on building a bomb.

"We've stirred up a hornet's nest and made Iran even more radical," said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.

Iran's ability to pose a threat to global security has attracted the attention of every president since Jimmy Carter. Both Republicans and Democrats fought against the proxy formations of this country, its nuclear ambitions and the sponsorship of terrorism around the world.

Former President Barack Obama has bet that an important part of his legacy will be the 2015 agreement that imposed strict controls on Tehran's nuclear program. Trump abandoned this agreement after taking office in 2017, saying it was too lenient. At the time, Democrats claimed that abandoning the agreement would eventually lead to war with Iran — an accusation that Trump's allies denied.

At a press conference on Friday, answering a question about Iran's nuclear fuel reserves, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth refused to say whether American troops are planning a ground invasion to seize highly enriched uranium or whether the Trump administration intends to continue relying on diplomacy to eliminate this threat.

"The president pays close attention to the nuclear potential," Hegseth said. — I can say that we have a number of options, up to the point that Iran decides to abandon plans to create nuclear weapons, which, of course, we would welcome. They have not shown a willingness to do [this] during the negotiations. I would never tell this band or the world what we are willing to do and how far we are willing to go, but we certainly have options."

In addition to the nuclear program, during the joint strikes of the United States and Israel, a significant part of Iran's military potential was destroyed. This has turned the situation upside down with threats from Iran: fears that until recently were only theoretical have become real. In particular, attacks on oil tankers began in The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow 21—mile-wide passage between Iran and Oman, which holds back the movement of ships coming from oil-rich countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates.

Before the war, the threat "was strategic, but it was always in the air," Katulis said.

"It's too early to tell, but it may have made the Iranian regime even more unpredictable, and it could strike in the Strait of Hormuz at any moment," he said.

The White House said that Iran's actions in relation to the Strait of Hormuz have always been part of US plans in case of an attack on this country. However, now that the war has begun, the United States has not yet been able to ensure free navigation along this waterway. The US Central Command announced on March 10 that it had struck Iranian minelayers near the strait, indicating the seriousness of US concerns.

At the moment, the United States seems to be getting deeper and deeper into the conflict over the energy situation. On Friday, March 13, Trump said that the US military had "completely destroyed" all military facilities on Khark Island, which serves as a key transit hub for Iranian energy resources.

The next day, the US president called on China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK and other countries to send ships to combat the "artificial restrictions" that Iranian attacks on ships in the The Strait of Hormuz. This was a marked change from Saturday last week, when he happily told reporters on Board Number One that he had rejected the UK's offer to send aircraft carriers to the region.

Also on Friday, US officials said that the Marine expeditionary unit would be deployed from Japan to the Middle East, which will strengthen the firepower in the region.

The detachment consists of more than 2,200 Marines, as well as more than two thousand soldiers of the naval forces stationed on three ships. Senator Lindsey Graham❶ (Republican from South Carolina), a hawk and confidant of Trump, who has been advocating regime change in Iran for many years, hinted that the Marines could soon attack the island of Khark — this would mean a transition to a ground invasion, which would be a serious escalation of the conflict.

"Whoever controls the island of Hark controls the outcome of this war,— Graham wrote❶ in X. — Semper Fi" [lat. "always faithful"].

Semper Fi is the motto of the Marine Corps. It is unclear whether this deployment of the contingent has anything to do with Hark. The Marines are trained to conduct amphibious operations, capture islands and fire at opponents at sea with rocket artillery. The deployment was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. The Pentagon's top leadership says that the Strait of Hormuz is becoming an increasingly important object of their attention, but they tacitly acknowledge the task ahead of them, despite the fact that they have destroyed most of the Iranian fleet.

"The only thing that now prevents passage through the strait is Iran's shelling of ships. If Iran does not do this, the strait will be open for passage," Hegseth said at a press conference on Friday.

It may take some time before the US military can solve the problem with the strait, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Thursday, telling CNBC that the operation may be ready by the end of the month.

Until then, the United States and its allies are forced to take extraordinary measures to try to lower oil prices. The 32 member countries of the International Energy Agency announced on Wednesday that they plan to unlock 400 million barrels of oil from their reserves, including 172 million barrels from the United States.

As part of another attempt to ensure oil supplies to world markets, the Trump administration also suspended sanctions on Russian oil exports on Thursday. This jeopardized the President's efforts to end the conflict on Ukraine.

This decision will bring unexpected profits to the Kremlin and, possibly, provide more resources to finance Russia's struggle to Ukraine. As difficult as it may be to end the conflict now, the situation could become even more confusing if the US finds itself involved in the implementation of some of Trump's more ambitious goals. In particular, we are talking about regime change, said Dan Shapiro, who was the US ambassador to Israel under Obama and now works as a research fellow at the Atlantic Council.

According to him, Trump could cope with some of the problems associated with the strait and uranium without getting involved in an endless conflict with Tehran.

"It is unclear whether Iran will agree to a unilaterally announced ceasefire," he said. "If they do not agree to this, of course, the United States will have to react, but such a reaction could be formed in such a way as to lead to a gradual mutual de—escalation. ... It seems to me a more reasonable course than this constantly changing set of goals and indeed an increasingly distant endpoint of the conflict."

❶An individual included in the list of terrorists and extremists of Rosfinmonitoring