Trump Should Seek To Avoid War With Iran

With only a month until Donald Trump’s inauguration as president, the Middle East is more chaotic than it has been in years. In early December, Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow, as his regime in Syria collapsed. The western media has become focused on what this will mean for Turkey, the Kurds, and Russia. Meanwhile, Israel has launched barrages of airstrikes on military targets across Syria.

While Syria is currently getting the lion’s share of attention, guiding American policy regarding Iran could be Trump’s most important strategic challenge in 2025. Within the President-elect’s  incoming foreign policy team there is a growing push to consider preemptive airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear program. Proponents of this approach cite a recent intelligence assessment, which makes the case that Iran is more likely to rely on nuclear deterrence now that it has suffered the strategic defeat of its allies in Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria. It is not only American analysts who are more seriously considering a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Reporting from The Times of Israel suggests that key figures in the IDF feel that the time is right for a direct Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

How should we think about Iran today?

Using this moment to push Iran from its heels to its back provides a tempting vision of both strategic success and moral high ground. We would be wise to remember that times of opportunity call for sobriety. The downsides of an American military intervention are likely and would be costly. Any attack risks the possibility of drawing the United States into a larger, prolonged conflict. Even if mission creep does not occur, the allocation of political capital and military focus will distract from the Pacific, which is the more strategically important theater. The reality is that the United States military is not currently equipped or stocked for a multi-theater conflict. The most recent expert assessments of the American military’s structure show that we will need new, large-scale investments, when only considering a potential conflict with China. In fact, it is arguable whether the United States could currently supply itself adequately in the event of a war with a smaller foe.

Put another way, the risks of the United States overplaying its hand in Iran are larger than the risks of being cautious. America’s current path is to diplomatically and economically isolate Iran, but to refrain from military action against Khameni’s regime. This strategy is working. Khameni’s grand strategy relied on the famed “Axis of Resistance.” Since October 7, the most prominent pillars of this alliance have been decimated. This series of losses and embarrassments has forced Iran to rethink its fundamental orientation to the region. Furthermore, the regime’s struggles at home are combining with its foreign policy crises in a way that could destabilize the regime entirely.

When we act cautiously we cast a powerful shadow over those who wish to harm us and our interests. When our actions and ambitions outpace our own capacity and the nature of what is actually plausible to accomplish we have stumbled into disasters: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam before that. We ought not to forget, so soon, how costly our swashbuckling foreign policy was from 9/11 onward. Supporters of the multi-decade Iraq and Afghanistan wars can point to some wins-the killing of bin Laden, for instance. But our losses were more numerous and more important. Iraq became an Iranian proxy state, the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, and America’s moral credibility took a large hit in most of the world. We are, simply put, worse off now than we were in 2003 and we have paid dearly for it. We now face a high risk of blundering much more profoundly should we go to war with Iran.

Strategic Coherence through Prudence

Regardless of who he chooses to advise him in key roles and regardless of how much pressure the hawks within the foreign policy community mount, Trump should work to stave off a war with Iran. Doing so will allow the United States to focus its military strategy on Asia, will save billions of dollars, and will ultimately limit the number of deaths in these wars. Judiciously using American resources as a way to maintain American strength is not weakness. Rather, it is the type of prioritization and strategic planning that America must have to maintain a credible stance as it faces the world in the twenty-first century.

John Kitch is a Lecturer in the Political Science Department at Texas State University.