Author: Ayatoilet

Wars often reveal uncomfortable truths. One of the clearest lessons from the current confrontation with Iran is that decades of U.S. policy toward Tehran may have produced outcomes that benefited America’s allies far more than the United States itself.

For over forty years, Washington has pursued a strategy of sanctions, isolation, and containment against Iran. The justification has always been framed in terms of security, nuclear proliferation, and regional stability. But the economic and geopolitical effects of that strategy deserve closer scrutiny. In many ways, the containment of Iran removed one of the most capable and resource-rich competitors from global markets—while allowing neighboring states and allied economies to flourish in the vacuum.

If the United States is willing to rethink its assumptions, the current crisis could become something very different: a strategic pivot that transforms Iran from adversary into opportunity.

Trump can take an impetuous, poorly planned, and executed war with no underlying military strategy and completely turn it around into a massive strategic win at the negotiating table.

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The Hidden Winners of Iran’s Isolation

Iran is not a marginal state. It is a country of nearly 90 million people with immense natural resources, strategic geography, and a long history of industrial and scientific development. In many ways it is the natural economic hub of West Asia.

Yet since 1979, sanctions and geopolitical pressure have largely removed Iran from global markets. The result has been a profound distortion of regional economics.

Several U.S. allies have benefited enormously from this situation.

The Gulf Arab states built global financial centers, aviation hubs, and energy empires in an environment where one of the region’s most capable economies was largely sidelined. Cities such as Dubai became logistical and financial gateways for trade that otherwise might have flowed directly through Iran.

Europe also benefited. With Iran constrained, European companies faced fewer competitors in energy markets and regional infrastructure development. At the same time, Europe could maintain lucrative relationships with Gulf energy producers while supporting sanctions policies toward Iran.

Israel, meanwhile, saw a strategic advantage in the continued isolation of a powerful regional rival.

None of these actors were acting irrationally. Nations pursue their interests. But the crucial point is that the structure of Iran’s isolation has often aligned far more closely with the interests of U.S. allies than with those of the United States itself.

For Washington, the costs have been enormous: decades of military deployments, trillions of dollars spent on regional security, and repeated crises that threaten global energy markets.

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America’s Strategic Blind Spot

A core principle of international politics is that allies are not altruistic. They cooperate when their interests overlap and diverge when they do not.

Yet U.S. policy toward Iran has often been shaped by the security concerns and political priorities of regional partners rather than by a cold assessment of American interests.

This has created a strategic blind spot.

By supporting a system that permanently isolates Iran, Washington has effectively prevented itself from accessing one of the largest untapped economic opportunities in the world. At the same time, it has shouldered the costs of maintaining the regional balance created by that isolation.

The irony is that the United States, the architect of many of these policies, has frequently been the least direct economic beneficiary.

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The Opportunity Hidden Inside the Crisis

Wars, while destructive, also create moments when entrenched assumptions can be reconsidered. The current conflict with Iran may be such a moment.

Instead of doubling down on a strategy that has produced forty years of stalemate, the United States could choose a radically different path: repositioning itself as a long-term partner in Iran’s reconstruction and development.

The scale of the opportunity is enormous.

Iran possesses some of the largest reserves of oil and natural gas in the world. Its population is highly educated, technologically capable, and entrepreneurial. The country sits at the geographic crossroads connecting Europe, Central Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East.

With proper investment and integration into global markets, Iran could become one of the largest emerging economies of the 21st century.

And if that transformation occurs, the question will be simple: which countries will participate in building it?

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The Reconstruction Opportunity

If hostilities eventually subside, Iran will face a massive need for reconstruction and modernization.

Sanctions have left major sectors of their economy underdeveloped or technologically outdated. Infrastructure—from aviation and rail networks to telecommunications and energy facilities—will require large-scale investment.

American companies are uniquely positioned to participate in this transformation.

The United States leads the world in engineering, energy technology, aerospace, digital infrastructure, and finance. From rebuilding transportation systems to modernizing energy production, American firms could play a central role in Iran’s economic revival.

Such cooperation would not only generate enormous commercial opportunities. It would also create the economic interdependence that underpins long-term political stability.

History shows that trade and investment often succeed where coercion fails.

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Iran as a Strategic Partner

Beyond economics, a shift in relations with Iran could fundamentally reshape the strategic landscape of West Asia.

Iran occupies one of the most important geographic positions in the world. It sits astride the routes connecting the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Basin, Central Asia, and the Indian Ocean. It borders key energy corridors and major emerging markets.

A constructive U.S.–Iran relationship could open new possibilities in regional stability, energy security, and trade connectivity.

It could also reduce the need for the massive and costly U.S. military presence that has defined American engagement in the region for decades.

Instead of acting as a permanent security guarantor for a fragile regional balance, the United States could help foster a more integrated and economically interdependent regional system.

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Learning the Lesson of Self-Interest

None of this implies abandoning existing alliances or ignoring legitimate security concerns. Rather, it requires acknowledging a fundamental reality of international relations.

Allies pursue their own interests.

The (Arab) Gulf states, Europe, and Israel will continue to advocate policies that they believe serve their strategic and economic priorities. That is entirely natural.

But American policy must ultimately be guided by American interests.

If maintaining Iran’s permanent isolation benefits others more than it benefits the United States, Washington should have the strategic flexibility to reconsider its approach.

Great powers succeed when they adapt to changing realities rather than remaining trapped by outdated assumptions.

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A Strategic Reset

Transforming the relationship with Iran would not be easy. Decades of mistrust, ideological hostility, and geopolitical rivalry cannot be erased overnight.

But history offers many examples of dramatic shifts in international relationships. The normalization of relations between the United States and China in the 1970s fundamentally reshaped the global economy. Former adversaries in Europe became the foundation of a stable and prosperous political union.

Strategic pivots are possible when leaders recognize that the old framework no longer serves their interests.

In the case of Iran, the potential rewards could be immense.

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From Adversary to Opportunity

The central question facing the United States is whether it will continue viewing Iran solely through the lens of confrontation—or whether it will recognize the broader strategic possibilities that exist.

A nation with vast resources, a large population, and a pivotal geographic position will inevitably play a major role in the future of West Asia. The only uncertainty is who will shape that future alongside it.

If Washington remains locked in a strategy of permanent hostility, other powers—China, Russia, or regional actors—will gladly step in to fill the economic and political space.

But if the United States is willing to rethink its assumptions, it could transform a decades-long rivalry into one of the most significant economic and strategic partnerships of the century.

What today appears to be a costly and dangerous conflict could, in retrospect, become the moment when American policymakers recognized a simple truth:

Sometimes the greatest opportunities emerge not from victory in war, but from the courage to change course afterward.

This Is a Major War

The United States is now fighting a serious war with Iran.

Not a “limited strike.” Not a “targeted operation.” A real war—with billions in military losses, surging energy prices, and open talk of escalation that could devastate an entire country. In fact, the President calls it a war in his social media posts. He declares, proudly, ” We will bomb Iran into the Stone Age.

Yet the body constitutionally responsible for deciding whether America goes to war—the United States Congress—has done nothing. Absolutely nothing.

It is one of the most stunning failures of political responsibility in modern American history.

When Donald Trump first launched strikes against Iran, the language was carefully crafted. Officials called it a “limited action.” A contained response.

That fiction has now collapsed.

Carrier groups and bombers are operating across the region. Advanced missiles and aircraft worth billions have been destroyed or expended. Military planners openly discuss expanded bombing campaigns and attacks on Iranian infrastructure.

That is not deterrence. That is the language of total war.

Americans Are Paying the Price

The consequences are already hitting Americans at home.

Energy markets have been thrown into chaos as the conflict threatens the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most important oil arteries on the planet. Oil prices are climbing. Gasoline prices are rising again.

Inflation—just as it was beginning to ease—is being pushed upward again by war-driven energy shocks. Americans are now paying for this conflict every time they fill their tank or buy groceries.

There are major global shortages of key commodities, such as urea (fertilizer), Sulfur, Helium, and aluminum. The cost of diesel and jet fuel has skyrocketed. Airlines are canceling flights and raising fares. Shipping costs are climbing.

And the direct financial cost of the war itself is staggering. Modern warfare burns money at a rate that would have seemed unimaginable a generation ago. Even short campaigns can consume tens of billions of dollars within months.

Yet Congress has never voted to authorize this war.

The Next Step Could Be Catastrophic

The truly dangerous part is what comes next.

Military escalation is already being discussed openly: wider bombing campaigns, attacks on Iranian infrastructure, perhaps even the first steps toward a ground invasion.

Iran is not Iraq in 2003. It is a massive country (5x the size of Iraq) with nearly ninety million people, formidable terrain, and the ability to destabilize the entire region.

A full war with Iran would be one of the largest conflicts the United States has ever entered. There are rumors of the President authorizing the use of nuclear weapons. The doomsday plane has been seen conducting maneuvers in preparation. This is serious.

And still Congress does nothing.

The Collapse of a Constitutional Guardrail

The founders placed the power to declare war in Congress for a reason. They feared exactly this scenario: a president dragging the nation into a massive conflict without debate or consent.

That safeguard now appears to be collapsing.

Instead of asserting its authority, Congress has chosen the safest political strategy available: avoidance. Lawmakers issue statements, appear on television, and criticize details—but they refuse to force the one decision that matters.

Should the United States be fighting this war?

They do not ask the question because they do not want to vote on the answer. Israel controls their voting patterns, and their allegiance to Israel over the United States will be revealed. This marks the total collapse of Congress as a guardian of America’s national interests.

A National Abdication

What makes this moment so alarming is the scale of the stakes.

This war is already shaking global energy markets. It is already costing billions. It is already affecting American households. And the trajectory points toward something far larger.

Yet the branch of government entrusted with the power to decide on war has effectively abdicated that responsibility.

If Congress will not act when the United States is sliding into a massive war with Iran, when exactly will it act?

Because at this point, the message from Capitol Hill is unmistakable:

The president can start a war. And Congress will fail to conduct its constitutional duties. This is a complete and total failure of the American system of governance.

Wars rarely escalate by accident. They escalate through signals—political, institutional, and rhetorical—that indicate a government is preparing to cross thresholds it previously avoided. In the current conflict between the United States and Iran, a series of developments over the past two weeks has triggered deep concern among analysts and lawmakers. Individually, each event might be dismissed as routine wartime friction. Taken together, however, they suggest that Washington is systematically preparing the political and institutional environment for a massive, potentially unprecedented escalation of Operation Epic Fury.

Whether that escalation remains within the bounds of conventional high-explosives or moves into historically uncharted territory is now the central question facing the world as we approach the mid-April window.

The Purge of Institutional Resistance

The first and most alarming signal is the sudden removal of senior officials who historically act as the “institutional brakes” on extreme military decisions. In the last 72 hours, the national security apparatus has undergone a tectonic shift.

The forced retirement of General Randy George, the Army’s top officer, effective immediately on April 2, 2026, sent shockwaves through the Pentagon. While the Department of War cited “gratitude for his service,” reports suggest his departure resulted from a direct clash with Secretary Pete Hegseth over the legality of “Phase 2” engagement rules. Simultaneously, the firing of Attorney General Pam Bondi—a staunch loyalist whose dismissal suggests that even her brand of loyalty had limits regarding upcoming executive orders—indicates a White House seeking a path of zero legal resistance.

Historically, when a government contemplates crossing a major strategic threshold, it must first silence the voices obligated to uphold international law. Military officers are bound to refuse unlawful orders; senior legal officials are tasked with vetting them. By replacing these figures with interim “acting” officials, the administration has effectively cleared the deck of any figure with the standing to say “no.”

The “Two to Three Week” Window

The second signal is rhetorical: the introduction of a defined, high-pressure timeline. In his national address on April 1, 2026, President Trump introduced a jarring contradiction. He claimed that U.S. “core objectives”—the destruction of the Iranian Navy and Air Force—were nearly complete, yet simultaneously promised to hit Iran “extremely hard” over the next two to three weeks.

This creates a specific “danger zone” between April 15 and April 22. In military language, the phrase “finish the job” implies that the 900+ strikes conducted since February 28 were merely preparatory. If the goal is truly to “bring them back to the Stone Age,” as the President stated, the force required to do so in a mere 21-day window suggests a move toward saturation bombing or the use of weapons with much higher yields than we have seen to date – i.e. Nukes. More than likely, Trump will wait for markets to close at 3 pm on Friday, April 17th, and then hit hard that night.

The Escalation of Language and “25x” Force

The third signal is the shift in the scale of promised violence. Rhetoric describing future attacks as dozens of times more powerful than previous strikes is a deliberate psychological tool. It prepares the domestic public for a “shock” and attempts to break the adversary’s will through terror.

However, this creates a strategic trap. When a leader promises force that dwarfs everything prior, and the adversary—now led by the hardline Mojtaba Khamenei—refuses to blink, the leader is often forced to deliver on that promise to maintain credibility. With Iran continuing to claim the downing of U.S. F-35s and maintaining its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the “ambiguity” of what constitutes “25x the force” is rapidly narrowing.

The strategic problem facing Washington is one of physics and geography. Iran’s most sensitive assets, particularly the Fordow enrichment site, are buried deep beneath solid rock. Conventional “bunker busters” like the GBU-57 have been utilised extensively throughout March, but intelligence suggests the most hardened lower levels remain intact.

This creates the “Strategic Crossroads.” Washington must either accept the limits of conventional power—thus leaving Iran with a residual nuclear potential—or seek the only other tools capable of reaching those depths, or alternatively, to hit a major target that would paralyse Iran’s capacity to fight back in any way.  If you do the math, 25x brings the bombing directly into the scope of a small nuclear weapon that the US does have in its possession. This is clear.  

When one performs the arithmetic, the answer begins to move out of the realm of conventional weaponry. Twenty-five times sixty tons of TNT would produce a blast yield of roughly 1.5 kilotons. That number is significant because it corresponds not to a conventional weapon but to the lower threshold of nuclear explosives.

Within the current American nuclear arsenal exists a weapon whose capabilities fall within precisely that range: the W76-2 nuclear warhead. This is considered the smallest nuclear warhead currently deployed in the United States stockpile. Designed as a “low-yield” option, the W76-2 has an explosive yield estimated at roughly 5 kilotons—though it can be configured for lower yields. It is typically mounted on submarine-launched ballistic missiles, providing the United States with what strategists call a “flexible” or “tailored” nuclear response option. Even at its smallest configuration, however, its destructive power dwarfs that of any conventional bomb.

To put the comparison in perspective, a five-kiloton nuclear explosion would have roughly 100 times the explosive force of a 30,000-pound bunker-buster. The arithmetic of Trump’s statement—twenty-five times the force already used—suddenly begins to resemble the threshold between conventional and nuclear warfare.

In other words, the implication embedded in rhetoric is unmistakable: the next step in escalation could involve the use of a small nuclear weapon. This technical reality, combined with the “Stone Age” rhetoric, is what has fueled the global panic regarding a potential shift in the nuclear posture.

The Nuclear Shadow and the Normalisation of the Unthinkable

For 81 years, nuclear weapons have been the “unusable” tools of last resort. The greatest danger we face today is not a single, mad decision, but the gradual normalisation of the unthinkable.

Each step over the last month—the killing of the Supreme Leader, the strikes on the Bushehr power plant, the firing of the Army Chief, and the setting of short-term ultimatums—has made the next, more violent step feel like a logical progression. When diplomacy is sidelined, and institutional dissent is purged, the path to catastrophe is not a leap, but a series of small, accelerating shoves.

Any dramatic escalation would immediately ripple through the global economy. Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz remains the ultimate “economic poison pill.” With April 6, 2026, as the final deadline of the current 48-hour ultimatum, the world is bracing for a catastrophic spike in energy prices. Any bombing action is likely to be followed by an invasion of strategic Iranian islands on the Persian Gulf. It will be part of an overall plan. So the timing has to coincide with the availability of resources to conduct beach landings – and that is why it is being pushed out a few weeks.

It is my view that Washington is moving to “Phase 2” strikes on or about April 17; they are not just attacking a regime; they are gambling with the stability of the global financial system. A “total blockade” response from Iran would turn a regional war into a global depression almost overnight. The whole world will be affected, and one must wonder what Iran’s response will be. Might they use their own secret weapons on Israel or other US allies? The catastrophe might expand far beyond Tehran.

The coming weeks will determine the face of the 21st century. The signals are currently flashing red. Washington has cleared the legal path, set the clock, and ramped up the rhetoric to its highest pitch. As the April 6 deadline expires and the mid-month window approaches, the world can only hope that the “signals” are still part of a high-stakes bluff—and not the final checklist for a catastrophic new phase of human warfare.

A Strategy Built on Isolation

For forty years, Western strategy in West Asia has rested on a peculiar form of geopolitical engineering: isolate Iran, redirect regional commerce, and construct an economic system centered on the small monarchies of the Persian Gulf. Iran was treated as the problem state—sanctioned, isolated, and pushed out of global markets—while Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and their neighbors were integrated into the international financial system and encouraged to expand their energy production, aviation networks, logistics industries, and sovereign wealth funds. It was a deliberate strategy, fueled by Arab states and their Western Allies. It has been a multigenerational program kept secret for almost 50 years.

And so, the Shah of Iran was deliberately toppled, and a firebrand cleric was handpicked and flown in from Paris, who proceeded to paint Iran as an extremist Islamist state. And, ironically, Iran’s nuclear program, which was originally developed and sponsored by the West, was then used as a pretext (a tool) to exercise this geopolitical engineering program. It was a very systematic and deliberate plan. These planners were the same people who peddled crack in America and then arrested 10 million African Americans for drug possession to keep them out of the voting booths (check out: War on drugs, Iran-Contra!!). Yes, very sick human beings.

For 50 years, the strategy appeared to work spectacularly well. Dubai became one of the world’s busiest trading hubs. Doha transformed into a crossroads of global aviation. Gulf sovereign wealth funds accumulated trillions of dollars and invested across the planet. Gleaming skylines rose from the desert and were hailed as symbols of modern economic success.

But the war with Iran is now exposing the deeper flaw in the entire strategy.

The global economy has effectively been built around a handful of small desert states sitting along one of the most volatile geopolitical fault lines on Earth. The result is what might be called the Persian Gulf paradox: the very system that produced the Gulf states’ extraordinary prosperity has also created one of the most fragile economic architectures in the modern world.

The Chokepoint at the Center of the System

The vulnerability begins with geography. The Strait of Hormuz—the narrow maritime passage between Iran and the Gulf monarchies—has become the most important energy chokepoint on the planet. Roughly one-fifth of global petroleum consumption moves through this corridor every day. A significant portion of the world’s liquefied natural gas follows the same route. When conflict threatens the Strait of Hormuz, energy markets convulse immediately, shipping insurance costs soar, and governments around the world scramble to stabilize fuel supplies.

The current war has demonstrated just how quickly a regional confrontation can send shockwaves through the global economy.

What is remarkable is that the world allowed such an extraordinary level of dependency to develop in the first place. The global energy system now relies heavily on a single narrow maritime corridor located next to a country that Western policy spent decades isolating and antagonizing. That was never a stable design.

Sanctions and the Rewiring of the Regional Economy

The rise of the Gulf states cannot be understood without the simultaneous removal of Iran from the regional economy.

Since the Iranian Revolution, Western sanctions have systematically restricted Iran’s access to international finance, aviation networks, shipping insurance, and foreign investment. Iran became one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in modern history. But these restrictions did not eliminate trade with Iran. They merely rerouted it.

Much of that commerce flowed through the Gulf.

Dubai became the region’s great commercial intermediary. Goods destined for Iranian markets frequently passed first through Emirati ports, companies registered in free zones, and banks operating in the gray areas of global finance. Iranian imports and exports were often routed through the United Arab Emirates before reaching their destination.

In effect, sanctions created a commercial detour that allowed Gulf economies to profit from Iran’s isolation.

The result was a strange economic dynamic. Iran’s exclusion from global markets helped fuel Dubai’s rise as a global logistics hub. The city prospered by sitting between Iran and the world economy, serving as a conduit for trade that sanctions had made indirect.

Aviation Logistics and Geography Were Ignored

Aviation followed a similar pattern.

Geographically, Iran should be one of the world’s most natural aviation hubs. Tehran sits at a high altitude, allowing aircraft to depart with heavier payloads and greater fuel efficiency. Even more importantly, Iran lies directly between Europe and East Asia, making it an ideal midpoint for long-distance routes. Under normal circumstances, Tehran could easily have developed into one of the major aviation crossroads connecting continents.

Sanctions changed that trajectory.

Iranian airlines were locked out of aircraft purchases, financing, and international route networks. Gulf carriers stepped into the vacuum. Emirates, Qatar Airways, and Etihad built massive hub-and-spoke systems linking Europe, Asia, and Africa through Dubai, Doha, and Abu Dhabi.

The aviation map of Eurasia was effectively redrawn—not by geography but by geopolitical engineering.

The Inversion of the West Asian Economy

This process produced a striking inversion in the regional economy.

Iran has more than 90 million people, a diversified industrial base, and significant manufacturing capabilities spanning automobiles, steel, petrochemicals, and pharmaceuticals. It has a massive pool of engineers, universities, and a large domestic market. It also sits at the heart of central Asia, with the capacity to deliver to a dozen landbound nations.

By contrast, the Gulf monarchies historically had small populations, limited industrial traditions, and economies centered on hydrocarbons and services. They are surrounded by desert.

Yet during the sanction era, it was the smaller states that became global hubs for aviation, finance, logistics, and tourism while Iran remained economically constrained.

The outcome was not purely the result of market competition. It was shaped by policy.

By removing Iran from the global economic system, Western sanctions effectively altered the competitive landscape of West Asia. Their largest regional competitor was sidelined, allowing Gulf states to capture industries that geography and scale might otherwise have given to Iran.

The Hidden Subsidy

Seen from another perspective, sanctions functioned as an indirect subsidy for the Gulf economies.

Every shipping container routed through Dubai rather than Bandar Abbas represented commerce displaced from Iran. Every intercontinental flight passing through Doha rather than Tehran reflected traffic diverted by geopolitical restrictions. Every financial transaction processed through Emirati banks rather than Iranian institutions marked another shift in economic gravity away from Iran.

The Gulf boom was therefore not simply the result of brilliant planning or entrepreneurial dynamism.

It was also the byproduct of Iran’s exclusion.

Fragile Foundations

But concentrating so much global infrastructure in the Gulf also created extraordinary systemic risk.

The region’s prosperity rests on infrastructure that is both highly visible and highly vulnerable. Major cities, airports, refineries, and ports sit directly along exposed coastlines. Energy facilities and export terminals are clustered in a few strategic locations. Key sectors such as aviation, tourism, and finance are extraordinarily sensitive to instability.

Much of the workforce consists of migrant laborers who could depart rapidly if conflict escalates.

In short, the global economy invested enormous strategic importance in countries whose economic models depend on the demise of Iran and, therefore, on inherent instability. This was never a win-win outcome; it was always designed as a zero-sum game in which Iranians had the short end of the stick. It was deliberate.  

This War Reveals the Structural Flaw

The war with Iran is now revealing how fragile this geopolitical design always was.

A single regional confrontation can disrupt global energy flows, sending oil prices surging and rattling markets across continents. It is not only oil and gas, i.e., energy, but the region produces many crucial commodities linked to its oil and gas industry and low energy costs. More than 30% of the world’s sulfur, helium, urea, aluminum, and other basic chemicals. Not to be ignored is how critical the region is for global data connectivity.

The Gulf states were supposed to represent stability.

Instead, they have become the most critical point of vulnerability in the global energy system.

And beneath this fragile structure lies an inconvenient truth: Iran’s underlying advantages never disappeared. Its population, industrial capacity, energy resources, and geographic position remain exactly where they have always been. For decades, geopolitical pressure suppressed those advantages. But geography cannot be engineered away indefinitely by backroom map makers and politicians. In the long run, the fundamentals always dictate outcomes.

The Persian Gulf Paradox

The Persian Gulf paradox is therefore becoming increasingly clear.

The West attempted to weaken Iran by isolating it from global markets while simultaneously building a regional economic system centered on its smaller neighbors. The strategy appeared to succeed for decades, generating enormous wealth in the Gulf and reshaping global trade routes.

Yet by concentrating so much of the world’s energy, chemical infrastructure, and commercial logistics in a narrow and volatile region, the same policy created one of the most dangerous structural vulnerabilities in the modern global economy.

In the end, the real irony may be this: in trying to redesign the economic geography of West Asia, Western policy did not eliminate Iran’s strategic importance. It merely built an entire (fragile) global system around avoiding it. And now that system—constructed on a narrow strait, fragile states, and artificially redirected trade—has begun to show the strain of its own design.

The Persian Gulf was supposed to be the foundation of global energy security. Instead, it has become the place where the false security they built has cracked under its own weight.

You Need to Fire Everyone Around You.

Wars are often born not out of necessity, but out of bad advice. Presidents do not usually wake up one morning and decide to plunge their country into conflict with a nation of nearly 100 million people. They do so because a circle of advisors, analysts, allies, and intelligence briefers assures them that the war will be manageable, that the risks are limited, and that victory is likely.

But what happens when those assurances turn out to be illusions?

If the United States has truly embarked on a war with Iran, then the most important question is not how the war will unfold. The most important question is this: what exactly did the president know before making the decision—and what did his advisors fail to tell him?

Because if even half of the following realities were overlooked, misunderstood, or hidden, then the president’s first act should not be escalated. It should be firing the entire strategic advisory apparatus that led him into this trap.

Below are ten things that any serious strategist should have understood before initiating a war with Iran.

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1. Removing Khamenei Would Not Moderate Iran — It Would Radicalize It – and replace him with his son (Khamenei)

One of the enduring fantasies in Washington foreign policy circles is that eliminating an authoritarian leader somehow moderates a regime.

History shows the opposite.

If Iran’s Supreme Leader were removed or killed, the likely outcome would not be a reformist successor. It would almost certainly produce more militant leadership, one hardened by war and driven by revenge. I should remind you that beyond the supreme leader, a complete overhaul has occurred in Iran’s leadership, along the same lines, i.e., more militant members. In Iran’s case, the next leadership has been drawn from the most militant factions of the Revolutionary Guard — people who have spent decades preparing for precisely this kind of confrontation.

To add insult to injury, I am sure you are aware that Khamenei’s son is now seriously injured and has lost his wife, daughter, father, and mother. To say he has a grudge is an understatement. His father lost his hand to a bomb planted by the MEK, and when he finally consolidated power, he killed over literally 10’s of thousands of MEK members that they systematically apprehended.

Power vacuums inside revolutionary systems rarely produce moderates. They produce hardliners who win internal struggles by demonstrating toughness. Did anyone tell you?

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2. Every U.S. Base in the Gulf Would Immediately Become a Target

The United States operates roughly a dozen military installations across the Persian Gulf region — in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE, and elsewhere.

These bases are in an extremely vulnerable geographic area.

They are close to Iran. They are exposed. They are within range of thousands of Iranian missiles and drones.

Once a war begins, these bases stop being deterrents and start becoming targets.

Iran has spent decades preparing for precisely this scenario, developing layered missile capabilities designed to saturate defenses and overwhelm interception systems.

Any strategist should have anticipated that all these installations would immediately come under threat. Did anyone tell you this?

The assumption that they could operate safely during a major war with Iran is not well-planned. The US has not only lost billions of dollars’ worth of critical equipment and resources, but, more importantly, crucial defense systems that affect other theaters.

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3. The United States Does Not Have Enough Interceptors for This War

Modern missile defense is not a magic shield. It is a resource-intensive system that relies on expensive, limited, and slow-to-replenish interceptors.

Iran, by contrast, has built an arsenal designed around volume.

Thousands of ballistic missiles. Thousands of drones. Swarm tactics designed specifically to overwhelm defenses.

The uncomfortable truth is that missile defense becomes increasingly ineffective when the attacker can launch large numbers of relatively cheap projectiles.

If the United States has already begun diverting interceptors from other theaters — Europe, the Pacific, or homeland defense — simply to maintain defensive coverage in the Gulf, then the scale of the problem is obvious.

This is not a short campaign problem.

It is a sustainability problem. In other words, if the campaign was not going to be a quick in-and-out mission, any extension would pose huge strategic consequences in other theaters. Did anyone tell you this?

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4. Your Own Forces May Not Want This War

Wars are not fought by think tanks. They are fought by people.

And morale matters.

Reports of sailors sabotaging equipment, clogging toilets, or even triggering fires aboard carriers to force deployments to end may sound like rumors or isolated incidents. But even the perception of resistance inside the ranks reveals something deeper. This is serious.

Many American service members understand the strategic reality of a war with Iran.

They know it is not Iraq. They know it is not Afghanistan. They know it is not a quick strike operation. They fully understand that this was a war of choice.

And now, they realize that it could be a large, prolonged regional war.

When troops start signaling reluctance before a campaign has even fully begun, leadership should pause and ask why. What do they know that no one shared with you? What are they sharing with their friends and family back home? It could compromise not only this campaign but also domestic support. Did anyone tell you they were putting towels down toilets on ships, to screw up ship sewage systems to force redeployments outside the theater? Were you informed?

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5. Your Allies Were Not Prepared — and Many Do Not Want This War

Major wars require alliances. But alliances require consultation.

If Gulf states, European allies, and Asian partners were not fully briefed or prepared for escalation, then the United States risks fighting largely alone.

Many of these partners depend heavily on regional stability for their economies.

Tourism hubs like Dubai. Energy exporters like Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Trade gateways across the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The consequences are felt not only by these states around the Persian Gulf but also by global airlines, shipping companies, and banks… and the companies (and people) around the world that support them.

The war with Iran is not a strategic exercise. It is an existential economic threat.

Shouldn’t their reluctance be explored? Does this not signal any critical information? Launching a war, without consultation, isn’t intelligent; it robs the American people of vital feedback loops that only allies can provide. No one informed you of the consequences of your actions. No one around you pushed for this feedback.

6. Israel May Have Sold Washington a Fantasy

Israel has long warned about the Iranian threat, and its intelligence services are among the most capable in the world.

But allies also have interests.

And sometimes those interests include drawing the United States deeper into conflicts it cannot fight alone.

If Israel presented the war as quick, decisive, and manageable — while privately acknowledging that it would require major ground involvement — then Washington may find itself bearing the burden of the war largely on its own.

No ground invasion. No massive Israeli troop commitments. Just American forces absorbing the consequences, i.e., American blood and treasure.

If that is the case, then the United States has been handed someone else’s strategic problem.

Note that Israel’s offensive in Lebanon is designed fundamentally to offset a request by the US for assistance in a ground invasion of Iran. In other words, Israel is not only not providing troops but can easily deflect the request by saying it’s bogged down in Lebanon. It’s a very clever tactic.

You sent Kushner and Witkoff to negotiate with the Iranians and make recommendations – not realizing that they are also Israeli shills. You not only listened to Netanyahu but surrounded yourself with his agents. No one told you the truth, that after the war started, the US would be largely left on its own – without meaningful Israeli support. No one told you the truth, that Israel is a manipulative and useless ally. That the relationship is one-way and only benefits Israel. There is never ANY net gain in any involvement with Israel. They win. The US loses. (Yes, US politicians gain – personally, but American interests are hugely compromised).

No one had the balls to share this reality with you.  

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7. Iran Can Close Not One — But Two Global Chokepoints

Much attention focuses on the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil passes.

But the strategic map is bigger.

Iran and its regional allies also possess influence over the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the gateway between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

A credible threat to both chokepoints simultaneously could disrupt an enormous portion of global energy flows.

And it does not require a massive naval fleet.

Sometimes the threat itself is enough.

Insurance premiums spike. Shipping routes change. Tankers stay in port.

Global markets react instantly. None of this is good for the U.S. The strategic consequences were never shared with you.

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8. War Would Disrupt Much More Than Oil

Energy markets are only part of the story.

The shipping lanes running through the Gulf and Red Sea also carry critical commodities that underpin modern industry. More than 30% of the world’s Urea (fertilizer), sulfur, helium, Aluminum… to name a few.

Fertilizer (Urea) shipments are essential to global agriculture. Helium is used in semiconductor manufacturing and medical technology. Sulfur produces sulfuric acid; a critical industrial feedstock used in virtually every chemical process. Aluminum is crucial to aerospace and industrial supply chains. These are not only critical raw materials, but strategic in so many ways. The US cannot build more armaments, i.e., sustain a war, without semiconductors or Aluminum.

Disruptions to these flows ripple across the global economy. American farmers feel it. Manufacturers feel it. Technology companies feel it.

This is how regional wars become global economic shocks. Did anyone tell you – this is about more than oil and gas?

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9. The Digital Backbone of the World Runs Through This Region

Less visible than oil tankers are the submarine fiber-optic cables that carry global internet traffic.

90% of East-West communications flow through these corridors connecting Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

Damage to these cables — whether accidental or intentional — can degrade global connectivity.

Financial systems are slowed down. Cloud services degrade. International data transfers become unreliable.

And in a world increasingly dependent on data infrastructure, that matters enormously.

Even more concerning: major data centers themselves are becoming strategic targets.

If AI infrastructure, cloud networks, or digital logistics hubs are damaged in wartime, the effects extend far beyond the battlefield.

Global AI build-out — one of the largest infrastructure expansions in history — suddenly becomes vulnerable.

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10. Iran Is Not a Small Target

Perhaps the biggest strategic miscalculation of all is scale.

Iran is not Iraq. It is not Libya. It is not Serbia.

It is a country larger than Western Europe with nearly 100 million people, vast mountain ranges, and decades of preparation for asymmetric warfare.

Its missile forces are dispersed. Its facilities are buried in hardened bunkers inside mountains. Its militias and proxies span the region.

Destroying such a system quickly would require an enormous, sustained campaign.

And the assumption that Iranian citizens would welcome foreign military intervention ignores a basic reality of nationalism.

Many Iranians deeply oppose their government. But that does not mean they welcome foreign attacks on their country. Ordinary Iranians are not going to be pawns for the US and Israel. You can’t destroy their country, humiliate them publicly, threaten to steal their natural resources, and then expect them to put their lives on the line for you.

History shows that external threats often unite populations that were previously divided. This notion that Iranians would rise and force regime change was a mirage sold to you by the people around you (and Israel). And you believed them – didn’t you?

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The Strategic Question

War is sometimes unavoidable. But entering one without understanding the terrain, the adversary, and the consequences is not a strategy.

It is negligence.

If the president truly launched this conflict without fully understanding these realities, then the problem is not merely the war itself.

The problem is the system of advisors who assured him that it would be simple.

Because if those people failed to grasp even a fraction of the strategic landscape surrounding Iran, then they should not be guiding American policy.

They should be looking for new jobs. This includes Israel’s leadership, but especially those closest to you – i.e., Pete Hegseth!

Mr. President, this is an opportunity to clean house.

The global boom in artificial intelligence is often portrayed as a race between software companies and semiconductor designers. But the reality is far more physical. Artificial intelligence is not merely code—it is infrastructure. It requires massive data centers, constant electricity, rare industrial gases, semiconductor fabrication plants, and global fiber-optic cable networks capable of moving extraordinary amounts of data across continents.

In effect, the AI revolution is the largest infrastructure expansion program in human history. Technology companies are projected to spend hundreds of billions of dollars annually building hyperscale data centers and purchasing advanced GPUs to power the next generation of AI models. But this enormous buildout rests on fragile physical systems that depend on energy supply chains, industrial materials, and global telecommunications networks.

The war involving Iran has exposed just how vulnerable these systems are. What began as a regional military conflict is now rippling through the infrastructure that supports the global digital economy. Energy markets have been disrupted, critical semiconductor inputs have been constrained, major internet cable corridors have been compromised, and for the first time in history hyperscale data centers themselves have become military targets.

Taken together, these disruptions threaten to slow—or fundamentally reshape—the global AI data center boom.

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1. The Energy Shock: AI’s Hidden Dependence on Natural Gas

Artificial intelligence has a power problem.

Training and operating large AI models requires enormous quantities of electricity. Hyperscale AI campuses can consume multiple gigawatts of power—comparable to the energy demand of a medium-sized city. The next generation of AI clusters, designed to support hundreds of thousands of GPUs, will push power demand even higher.

While renewable energy capacity is expanding rapidly, most AI infrastructure today still depends on reliable baseload electricity. Data centers cannot shut down when the sun sets or when wind output fluctuates. Training runs lasting weeks or months require uninterrupted power.

For this reason, natural gas has become the default energy source for many new AI facilities. Gas-fired power plants can operate continuously, ramp production quickly, and can be built faster than nuclear reactors or large-scale renewable installations. As a result, a growing number of data center projects are being paired with dedicated gas power plants.

This creates a direct link between the AI economy and global natural gas markets.

The war in Iran has placed that energy system under stress. The Persian Gulf is a critical corridor not only for oil but also for liquefied natural gas shipments. Instability in the region raises insurance costs, disrupts shipping routes, and creates uncertainty around future supply.

When natural gas prices rise, electricity prices follow. For AI companies, energy costs are one of the largest operational expenses. Spiking electricity prices can reduce the profitability of AI training runs, increase inference costs for deployed models, and delay the construction of new data center campuses.

The AI industry, in other words, is discovering that its growth is tied not just to silicon and software but also to pipelines, LNG terminals, and global energy geopolitics.

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2. The Helium Shortage: A Hidden Threat to Semiconductor Manufacturing

Energy is not the only vulnerability in the AI supply chain. Another critical dependency lies in a gas that rarely receives public attention: helium.

Helium is essential to semiconductor fabrication. Ultra-high-purity helium—known as 6N-grade helium—is used to cool silicon wafers during etching in advanced chip manufacturing equipment. Without it, modern semiconductor fabrication simply cannot function.

Qatar produces roughly 30 percent of the world’s helium supply, much of it from the massive Ras Laffan industrial complex. This facility is one of the few locations on Earth capable of producing helium at the purity levels required by advanced semiconductor fabs.

The war has disrupted this system. Drone strikes on Ras Laffan infrastructure forced production shutdowns and triggered a global helium shortage. Semiconductor manufacturers in South Korea and elsewhere have already implemented conservation protocols to stretch their remaining supply.

The consequences are significant. Every advanced GPU powering an AI training cluster—from NVIDIA accelerators to custom AI chips—requires semiconductor fabrication that depends on helium. If helium shortages persist, chip production will slow. And if chip production slows, the pace of AI data center expansion will slow as well.

This link illustrates the fragility of the AI supply chain. A conflict thousands of miles from Silicon Valley can constrain a rare industrial gas, which in turn affects the production of chips that power artificial intelligence systems worldwide.

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3. The Internet Chokepoint Crisis: 90% of East–West Data Traffic at Risk

The most serious threat to the AI infrastructure boom, however, may lie in global telecommunications networks.

Most people understand the Strait of Hormuz as an oil chokepoint. What is less widely understood is that the region also sits at the center of the world’s digital connectivity.

Multiple submarine cable systems pass through the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Even more passed through the Red Sea. These cables form the primary digital bridge between Europe and Asia, carrying most of the intercontinental internet traffic.

Together, these corridors carry roughly 90 percent of east–west data capacity.

For the first time in modern telecommunications history, both routes have been effectively compromised simultaneously.

Military activity, shipping disruptions, and insurance restrictions have turned the Persian Gulf and Red Sea into high-risk zones for cable operations and repair ships. When cables fail or require maintenance, specialized vessels normally perform repairs within days or weeks. In a war zone, those repairs may not happen for months.

As a result, internet traffic between Europe and Asia is being rerouted through longer paths across the Pacific Ocean and North America.

This dramatically increases latency. Direct routes that normally take around 130 milliseconds now exceed 250 milliseconds as traffic circles the globe.

For ordinary internet users, this may mean slower connections or occasional disruptions. For artificial intelligence systems, however, the consequences are far more severe.

AI infrastructure increasingly depends on distributed computing. Training runs may involve thousands of GPUs spread across multiple data centers in different regions. These clusters must exchange massive amounts of data with minimal latency.

When latency doubles and bandwidth capacity shrinks, distributed AI training becomes significantly less efficient. In extreme cases, it may become impractical.

Bandwidth constraints pose an even greater problem. The surviving trans-Pacific cable routes simply do not have enough spare capacity to absorb the loss of major Europe–Asia corridors without congestion.

This means the AI boom now faces a bottleneck not in computing power but in global network infrastructure.

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4. Data Centers Become Targets: A New Era of Infrastructure Warfare

Perhaps the most dramatic shift triggered by the Iran conflict is the emergence of data centers as military targets.

In early 2026, Iranian drones struck several hyperscale data center facilities in the Gulf region, including infrastructure associated with major cloud providers. The attacks damaged power systems and cooling infrastructure and forced operators to shut down parts of their operations.

This marked the first confirmed kinetic military attack on a hyperscale cloud data center.

The implications are profound.

For decades, data centers were treated as purely commercial infrastructure. Even during major conflicts, telecommunications networks were rarely targeted directly. But the role of cloud computing in modern economies—and increasingly in military systems—has changed that calculation.

Cloud infrastructure now supports everything from banking systems to logistics networks to military data analysis. As a result, it has become strategically valuable.

The attacks demonstrated that hyperscale data centers are physically vulnerable. Cooling systems, electrical substations, and backup generators are large, exposed pieces of infrastructure that can be disabled with relatively inexpensive weapons such as drones.

This creates a new risk calculus for the AI industry. Building a $20–$30 billion data center campus in a geopolitically unstable region suddenly looks far less attractive if that facility could become a wartime target.

Insurance costs, security requirements, and geopolitical risk assessments will now influence where future AI infrastructure is built.

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The AI Boom Meets Geopolitics

The war involving Iran has revealed a fundamental truth about the artificial intelligence economy: it is built on physical systems that exist in the real world.

AI depends on energy systems that can be disrupted by geopolitical conflict. It depends on rare industrial materials such as helium that can become scarce overnight. It depends on submarine cable networks that pass through narrow maritime chokepoints. And it depends on massive data center campuses that can be targeted during war.

For years, the technology industry assumed that its supply chains were insulated from geopolitics. The digital economy seemed weightless, detached from the physical world.

The war in Iran has shattered that illusion.

Artificial intelligence may be the most advanced technology ever created. But the infrastructure that supports it remains deeply vulnerable to the oldest forces in human history: geography, conflict, and scarcity.

The AI boom is not ending. Demand for computing power will continue to grow, and companies will keep building data centers around the world.

But the conflict has changed the landscape.

Where those data centers are built, how they are powered, how they connect to global networks, and how secure they are from geopolitical disruption will now matter as much as the algorithms running inside them.

The economic consequences of derailing AI data center buildouts and operations are massive – far more significant than the energy shock caused by this war. This has not only derailed progress but will also cause significant delays as China continues unabated with its own AI infrastructure build-out. The long-term impact of this will also be profound.  

The next phase of the AI race may therefore be decided not only in semiconductor fabs and research labs—but also in shipping lanes, energy markets, and contested choke points like the Strait of Hormuz.

Wars are usually remembered for their destruction. Cities fall, economies fracture, and lives are lost. Yet wars also reveal truths that years of diplomacy and propaganda can obscure. They expose the structural realities of power, geography, and strategy. In that sense, the recent confrontation between the United States and Iran may ultimately be remembered not simply as another Middle Eastern crisis, but as a moment that clarified the strategic landscape of the region.

Ironically, many of the lessons revealed by the conflict favor Iran. What was intended to weaken Tehran may instead have strengthened its long-term strategic position. In effect, the war delivered Iran a series of unintended gifts.

Five, in particular, stand out.

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Gift One: The True Power of the Strait of Hormuz

The first gift is the renewed understanding of the strategic importance of the Strait of Hormuz.

For decades, analysts have acknowledged that the narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean is one of the most critical chokepoints in global commerce. Roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil passes through this corridor each day, along with massive volumes of liquefied natural gas and other commodities.

Yet even with this knowledge, the full extent of Iran’s leverage was never truly appreciated—perhaps not even within Iran itself.

The recent crisis demonstrated something extraordinary: Iran does not actually need to close the Strait of Hormuz to disrupt global markets. The mere threat of closure can send shockwaves through the global economy. Oil prices spike, shipping insurance premiums explode, and energy markets become unstable. Governments thousands of miles away suddenly find their economic planning thrown into chaos.

In other words, the weapon is not missiles or mines—it is uncertainty.

For Iran, this realization is profound. Geography has handed Tehran a powerful strategic asset that requires relatively little military expenditure to leverage. Simply maintaining the credible ability to disrupt the strait allows Iran to influence global economic conditions.

Regardless of which political faction governs Tehran in the future, this lesson will endure. The strait is not merely a defensive tool—it is a strategic economic lever that can be monetized diplomatically and politically for decades to come.

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Gift Two: The Fragility of the Gulf Monarchies

The second gift revealed by the war is the structural vulnerability of the Arab states surrounding the Persian Gulf.

For years, cities such as Dubai, Doha, and Abu Dhabi have projected an image of unstoppable prosperity. Skyscrapers rise from the desert, luxury airlines connect continents, and sovereign wealth funds deploy trillions of dollars across global markets. The narrative has been one of economic miracle.

But this prosperity rests on surprisingly fragile foundations.

The Gulf states share several structural weaknesses:

• Flat and geographically exposed terrain
• Heavy dependence on energy exports
• Massive reliance on expatriate labor populations
• Economies concentrated in a handful of sectors such as energy, finance, and tourism

The recent war exposed how vulnerable these systems are to regional instability. Airspace closures, shipping disruptions, and energy market volatility immediately threatened the economic lifelines of these states.

The contrast with Iran is striking.

Iran possesses:

• A vast and defensible geography
• A large domestic population and labor base
• Diverse natural resources
• Strategic location between Europe, South Asia, and East Asia

In aviation alone, Iran holds inherent advantages. Many of its airports sit at high altitudes that improve aircraft efficiency, and its geography offers shorter routes connecting Europe with Asia. If geopolitical conditions normalize, Iran could become a major hub for global air transport.

Similar opportunities exist across multiple sectors—from manufacturing and logistics to energy processing and agriculture.

For decades, sanctions on Iran effectively redirected regional growth toward smaller Gulf states. In many ways, their rise occurred at Iran’s expense. Now the structural weaknesses of those states have been exposed, while Iran’s geographic advantages remain unchanged.

That realization could reshape the economic future of the region.

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Gift Three: Validation of Asymmetric Warfare

The third gift lies in military doctrine.

The United States spends nearly one trillion dollars annually on defense. Its regional allies—including Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar—collectively spend hundreds of billions more.

Iran, by contrast, operates with a defense budget of roughly $13 billion per year.

Yet despite this staggering imbalance, Iran has not been defeated. The conflict instead highlighted the effectiveness of Iran’s asymmetric strategy—one developed over decades of sanctions and isolation.

Unable to purchase advanced Western weapons systems, Iran built a military doctrine based on:

• indigenous technological development
• decentralized defense networks
• missile and drone capabilities
• naval disruption tactics
• proxy and irregular warfare strategies

These tools are designed not to overpower an adversary directly but to raise the cost of confrontation to unacceptable levels.

In essence, Iran has pursued a strategy of strategic deterrence through disruption rather than dominance.

The recent conflict validated that approach. Even vastly superior military budgets cannot easily neutralize an opponent that refuses to fight on conventional terms.

For future Iranian governments, this lesson may prove invaluable. Rather than attempting to compete in expensive arms races, Iran’s security doctrine may continue emphasizing innovation, resilience, and asymmetric leverage.

Sanctions, ironically, forced the country to develop a unique and effective military model.

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Gift Four: Time

Perhaps the most valuable gift of all is time.

Wars are often won not by battlefield victories but by endurance. The side that can sustain pressure longer frequently gains the advantage.

The Persian Gulf region plays a central role in global supply chains far beyond oil. It is a major source of natural gas, fertilizer components, sulfur, helium, and numerous industrial inputs critical to modern economies.

Disruptions in the region quickly ripple outward:

• fertilizer shortages affecting global agriculture
• rising diesel costs impacting transportation and farming
• supply disruptions in high-tech manufacturing
• volatility in global commodity markets

As the Western Hemisphere moves into planting season, increases in fertilizer and energy costs place immense pressure on farmers and food systems worldwide.

In this context, Iran does not necessarily need to escalate the conflict militarily. Simply allowing tensions to persist imposes economic costs on the global system—and particularly on countries deeply integrated into global trade networks.

Time, therefore, becomes a strategic asset.

Even if the United States were to seize or occupy small islands in the Persian Gulf, maintaining such positions indefinitely would be costly and politically difficult. Would Washington realistically maintain permanent military deployments there for the next century?

History suggests that prolonged foreign occupations are rarely sustainable.

Iran, by contrast, is defending its immediate neighborhood. Geography once again favors endurance.

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Gift Five: A Fracture in the Western Coalition

The fifth gift lies in diplomacy.

The conflict was launched with limited consultation with key European and regional allies. The result has been a widening rift within the Western alliance structure.

Many governments are increasingly reluctant to follow Washington into new confrontations in the Middle East. Public opinion across Europe and parts of Asia has grown skeptical of military escalation in the region.

For Iran, this shift could prove transformative.

For nearly five decades, international sanctions—particularly those driven by the United States—have severely constrained Iran’s economic engagement with the world. These restrictions have disproportionately harmed ordinary Iranians.

But if the unity behind those sanctions weakens, opportunities may emerge for Iran to rebuild direct relationships with European and Asian economies.

Diplomatic space is opening where previously there was only containment.

Even within the United States, policymakers may begin reassessing long-standing assumptions about regional alliances and intelligence assessments that have shaped policy for decades.

If the political momentum behind sanctions erodes, Iran’s global economic reintegration could accelerate, with much more space for Iran to operate without the US in the picture.

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But there is “One Huge Opportunity.”

All these developments lead to a final and perhaps most consequential question: what if this moment becomes an opportunity rather than merely the aftermath of a crisis?

For the United States, the war may have revealed uncomfortable truths. Decades of containment have not removed Iran from the strategic map. Geography, resources, and demographics ensure that Iran will remain a central player in the region, and that its allies were merely self-interested in proposing the containment and destruction of Iran. The US had not properly assessed the strategic landscape in following their guidance.   

Rather than perpetual confrontation, Washington could consider a radically different strategic approach.

Such an approach might include:

• economic cooperation in Iran’s vast oil and gas sector
• infrastructure development and reconstruction projects
• commercial aviation and transportation partnerships
• joint ventures in nuclear energy for civilian power generation
• expanded regional security frameworks that include Iran rather than isolate it

Much like in Venezuela, American involvement in Iran’s oil and gas industry would not only support the continued success of US multinationals but also provide leverage against an energy-hungry China that the US badly needs to engage in favorable partnerships.

American companies could play a major role in rebuilding Iran’s infrastructure and energy industries. Investment opportunities would be enormous. Remember, Iran has no sovereign debt (because of decades of sanctions). If it opens, it can easily finance trillions of dollars of new projects. Not the least of these would be new transportation corridors in more strategic locations. This could literally mean hundreds of new orders for Boeing and GE. It would provide a massive economic boost to the U.S. Iran could also become a new buyer of US treasuries and support the supremacy of the dollar.  

A joint enrichment facility between the US and Iran could lead to exports of fuel to Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s nuclear industry and stop them from starting their own enrichment facilities, i.e., pose the same risks Iran appeared to pose these past few decades. Plus, a “joint” venture would fully control Iran’s facilities and make sure they complied with the necessary safeguards.

Strategically, the United States might even reconsider the structure of its regional military posture. Long-standing bases in smaller Gulf states exist largely because relations with Iran have remained hostile. Iran will also provide a gateway to Central Asia, enabling the US to penetrate another critical strategic region. Iran can become America’s regional policeman – helping improve Afghanistan, for example. A realigned Iran would be an incredible US ally (which, by the way, the Shah once was).

A different relationship could reshape the entire architecture of American engagement in the region. This would not require abandoning existing allies. Rather, it would involve recalibrating U.S. policy to prioritize American interests over regional rivalries that have often shaped Washington’s decisions.

History contains surprising precedents. During certain periods in the 1980s and early 2000s, the United States and Iran quietly cooperated on issues related to Afghanistan and Iraq. Strategic engagement has occurred before, albeit behind closed doors.

The difference now is that such engagement could be overt and transformative.

A Chinese proverb states that every crisis contains an opportunity. Two sides of the same coin.

The recent conflict may have unintentionally strengthened Iran’s strategic position. But it also presents a rare chance for a reset in U.S.–Iran relations—one that could stabilize the region and unlock immense economic potential.

Whether that opportunity is seized depends on political leadership.

If Washington and Tehran can move beyond decades of mistrust, the next chapter of Middle Eastern history might look very different from the last.

And what began as a confrontation could ultimately evolve into cooperation. If nothing else, the mullahs are unprincipled opportunists. Faced with the prospect of a massive upside to this relationship, they would not squander a completely new strategic opportunity (especially if they thought they would prosper as a result). Remember, these were the guys who turned 180 degrees on Jimmy Carter and aligned with Ronald Reagan when they realized it was a strategic necessity for survival. I would keep Netanyahu, Kushner, and Witkoff out of it. Frankly, I think Netanyahu’s days are over. His rosy and highly optimistic view of how this war would turn out was his downfall. He’s done. It doesn’t mean the US abandons Israel; it means it finally recognizes what a dog Netanyahu is and has been. If you sleep with dogs, you get up with fleas.

Now, it’s time for the US to recognize and assert its own interests and make this new “strategic” possibility a reality. The future of this conflict lies in diplomacy, not military maneuvers.  Vance can and should make this happen. He needs to walk in, look at the Iranians on the other side of the table, and say, “We need to look beyond this conflict, and Israel, and be courageous, be historic, and turn this conflict 180 degrees into an alliance. Turn conflict into cooperation.”

For much of the twentieth century, the United States cultivated the image of an unstoppable military power. From the beaches of Normandy to the Pacific island campaigns of World War II, American forces appeared decisive, overwhelming, and victorious. That image hardened during the Cold War, when Washington built the most sophisticated military apparatus in history—hundreds of overseas bases, carrier strike groups roaming every ocean, intelligence networks spanning the globe, and a defense budget larger than those of the next several countries combined.

Yet when one looks at the actual record of the past fifty years, a striking pattern emerges. Despite unmatched technological superiority and enormous financial resources, the United States has struggled to achieve decisive victories. Again, American military campaigns have ended not with clear strategic success but with stalemate, withdrawal, or political outcomes far removed from their original objectives.

The problem has not been a lack of power. It has been something deeper: imperial hubris.

Vietnam and the End of Invincibility

The modern story begins with the long shadow of Vietnam.

When the United States escalated its involvement in the 1960s, American planners believed that superior technology, firepower, and logistics would inevitably defeat the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong insurgency. By the peak of the conflict, more than half a million American troops were deployed. The United States dropped more bombs on Vietnam than had been used in all of World War II.

None of them produced victory.

Vietnam revealed a structural problem that would haunt American strategy for decades: military dominance does not automatically translate into political success. The United States could win battles, destroy enemy formations, and temporarily control territory—but it could not impose a stable political order that the local population would accept.

In 1975, when Saigon fell, and American helicopters evacuated the last personnel from the embassy rooftop, the myth of American invincibility was shattered before the entire world.

But Washington never fully absorbed the lesson.

The Mirage of High-Tech War

For a moment in 1991, the United States appeared to have recovered its aura of dominance during the Gulf War.

The campaign to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait was swift and devastating. Precision-guided weapons struck targets with unprecedented accuracy. American armored columns swept across the desert and crushed Saddam Hussein’s army in a matter of weeks. Television viewers witnessed what appeared to be the birth of a new era of technological warfare.

But the Gulf War was something of an illusion.

The United States deliberately limited its objectives. Saddam Hussein remained in power. Iraq remained unstable. The regional political structure remained unresolved. What appeared to be a decisive victory was a short and tightly constrained military operation—not the kind of complex occupation or nation-building project that would define the wars to come.

When the United States attempted those larger ambitions, the results proved dramatically different.

Afghanistan: The Forever War

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan with the aim of destroying al-Qaeda and removing the Taliban from power. At first, the operation seemed successful. Within weeks, the Taliban government collapsed, and American officials spoke confidently about building a democratic Afghanistan.

But the war did not end.

Instead, it evolved into a grinding two-decade conflict marked by insurgency, corruption, and strategic drift. The United States spent more than two trillion dollars attempting to stabilize the country, train Afghan security forces, and construct democratic institutions.

Yet the Afghan government never developed the legitimacy or strength required to stand on its own.

In August 2021, as American forces withdrew, the Taliban swept across the country with astonishing speed. Kabul fell within days. The same movement that the United States had overthrown twenty years earlier returned to power.

The longest war in American history ended almost exactly where it began.

Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Country

If Afghanistan was the longest American war, Iraq may have been the most consequential failure.

In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq under the claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed an imminent threat. Iraqi military resistance collapsed quickly under the assault of American forces, and Baghdad fell within weeks.

But toppling a regime is not the same as building a state.

The occupation dismantled Iraq’s existing institutions and unleashed a wave of sectarian conflict. Insurgencies multiplied. Militias emerged. Regional powers intervened. Out of chaos, extremist movements arose, including the group that would later call itself ISIS.

Although American forces eventually withdrew in 2011, Iraq remains politically fragmented and deeply entangled in regional rivalries.

Once again, battlefield dominance produced no lasting strategic victory.

The Pattern of Intervention

Beyond these major wars lies a broader pattern of interventions that achieved little in the way of durable stability.

In Somalia, American forces entered a humanitarian mission that spiraled into urban combat and ended in withdrawal. In Libya, NATO intervention helped overthrow Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, but the country soon collapsed into rival militias and competing governments. In Syria, American involvement oscillated between counterterrorism operations and proxy warfare, yet the conflict continues with no stable political settlement.

These episodes reveal a consistent pattern: American military power can dismantle regimes and destroy infrastructure with extraordinary speed, but replacing those systems with stable political orders has proven vastly more difficult.

Destroying a state is easy. Building one is not.

The Limits of Military Power

At the heart of these failures lies a misunderstanding about the nature of modern conflict.

The United States possesses unparalleled military capabilities—stealth aircraft, satellites, cyber tools, drones, and precision missiles capable of striking targets anywhere on Earth. In a conventional war against another traditional army, those advantages are overwhelming.

But most modern wars are not conventional wars.

They are insurgencies, proxy struggles, civil conflicts, and political contests fought among civilian populations. Victory in such conflicts depends less on technology than on legitimacy, alliances, and cultural understanding.

Local actors fight for identity, history, religion, and power. They can absorb enormous losses and continue the struggle. They can disappear into the population, adapt tactics, and wait for foreign armies whose political patience eventually runs out.

Time becomes their greatest weapon.

The Domestic Clock

Another challenge facing American wars is the domestic political clock.

Long conflicts require sustained public support, but modern democracies rarely tolerate prolonged wars without clear progress. Casualties accumulate. Costs rise. Political divisions deepen.

In Vietnam, public opposition eventually forced a withdrawal. In Iraq and Afghanistan, similar fatigue built as Americans increasingly questioned the purpose of wars that seemed endless.

Meanwhile, the adversaries in these conflicts often operate at entirely different times. Insurgent movements and regional militias can endure hardship indefinitely if they believe foreign forces will eventually leave.

Often, they are right. What works clearly are short, sharp operations. What doesn’t work are patently long-term military engagements. This has objectively been the pattern. Time is the true enemy of imperial military intervention.  

The Iran War: A Familiar Path

The current war with Iran threatens to follow the same trajectory.

At first glance, the balance of power appears overwhelmingly favorable to the United States. American airpower, intelligence systems, cyber capabilities, and naval forces far exceed anything Iran can deploy. Initial strikes may damage Iranian infrastructure and disrupt its command structures.

But strategic victory requires more than military superiority.

Iran does not need to defeat the United States in open battle. It only needs to impose costs—economic, military, and political—until Washington decides the war is no longer worth sustaining.

And Iran possesses numerous tools to do precisely that.

Geography alone gives Tehran significant leverage. The country sits beside the Strait of Hormuz, through which a large portion of the world’s oil supply passes. Even partial disruption of that chokepoint can ripple through global energy markets, raising prices and amplifying economic pressure on the West and its allies.

Iran also specializes in asymmetric warfare. Mines in shipping lanes, waves of drones, anti-ship missiles, cyber-attacks, and proxy militias across the region allow Tehran to escalate gradually without confronting the United States directly in a conventional fight.

Such strategies favor endurance rather than firepower. What started off as a quick, sharp regime decapitation and change program has turned into an extended war.

To sustain this operation, the United States must maintain aircraft carriers, missile defenses, troop deployments, and complex supply chains thousands of miles from home. Iran operates in its own neighborhood. Every drone launched, every ship diverted, and every missile intercepted imposes incremental costs on Washington and its allies.

Even if American strikes degrade Iran’s military infrastructure, the regime itself may survive and adapt—just as adversaries have done in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the geopolitical consequences ripple outward. A prolonged Middle Eastern war diverts American attention and resources from other strategic theaters, particularly Asia. Rising energy prices strain global economies. Domestic political divisions deepen.

These dynamics should feel familiar by now.

Imperial Hubris

Underlying these repeated miscalculations is the phenomenon known as imperial hubris.

Great powers often assume that their strength allows them to reshape distant societies according to their own designs. They believe that superior technology, wealth, and organization will compensate for cultural distance and political complexity.

History consistently proves otherwise.

From the British in Afghanistan during the nineteenth century to the Soviets in the twentieth, powerful states have struggled to control societies whose internal dynamics they barely understood.

The United States has encountered the same limits.

Military planners often entered conflicts confident in their tools but insufficiently attentive to the political landscapes they sought to transform. Complex societies were reduced to strategic diagrams. Wars were launched with optimistic timelines and vague end states.

Reality proved far messier.

The Lesson of the Past Half-Century

None of this means the United States lacks power. It remains one of the most formidable military and economic forces on Earth.

But the record for the past fifty years suggests that overwhelming military capability does not guarantee strategic success.

The age of easy victories is over. Military strength alone cannot remake societies, resolve ancient political conflicts, or impose legitimacy from the outside.

Empires often learn this lesson slowly.

The United States now faces a choice: absorb the experience of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the emerging realities of the Iran war—or continue repeating the same cycle of intervention, escalation, and eventual withdrawal.

History suggests that imperial hubris rarely disappears on its own. It usually ends only when reality becomes impossible to ignore. My prediction is that this military campaign in Iran won’t end well, but more importantly, it will have a profound and long-term impact on the status of the United States as an Imperial power.

In Washington’s political vocabulary, certain phrases become ritual incantations. One of the most common in recent years—especially among allies of Donald Trump—is the claim that “the Iranian regime has been a menace for 47 years.” The phrase is meant to evoke an unbroken arc of hostility stretching from the Iranian Revolution of 1979 to the present day. In this telling, the Islamic Republic has been America’s implacable enemy from the moment the shah fell, and the clerics took power.

But history is rarely that simple. Beneath the rhetoric lies a far more complicated story—one in which confrontation in public often coexisted with cooperation in private. The relationship between Washington and Tehran since 1979 has been defined not only by hostility, but also by a series of quiet bargains, tactical alignments, and covert understandings.

The “47-year menace” narrative works politically because it compresses this complexity into a single storyline: permanent war between two irreconcilable systems. Yet the historical record shows something closer to intermittent rivalry punctuated by moments of pragmatic collaboration.

From Revolution to Secret Channels

The starting point of the myth is the trauma of 1979. The overthrow of the shah—long a key U.S. ally—and the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran created a foundational image of Iran as an implacable adversary. The hostage crisis dominated American politics and helped propel Ronald Reagan into the White House.

Yet even before Reagan took office, whispers circulated about backchannel contacts between his campaign and Iranian intermediaries during the closing stages of the hostage crisis—a controversy often referred to as the “October Surprise.” In essence, the Shah was toppled by Jimmy Carter (who sent General “Dutch” Huyser to Tehran to tell the Shah’s military to stand down and support Khomeini). And Khomeini was flown in to Tehran on a French government-chartered Air France 747 from Paris. The Mullahs have been ‘western puppets’ for 47 years since the landing of that 747!!

There had been a meeting in Guadeloupe where the Shah’s fate had been decided by the US and allies. They had serious grievances with the Shah, plus North Sea and Alaskan oil had come on stream, and they needed Iran’s oil exports curtailed to make room for this new oil and keep prices up. The Shah had been a long-time financial supporter of the Republican Party in the US, and Carter had a bone to pick with him.

But then, the Mullahs became very suspicious of Carter and turned secretly to supporting Reagan’s campaign (by keeping the Embassy Hostages in place); and the rest, as they say, is history. They released the hostages a few seconds after Reagan assumed office. And there continued to be a multi-decade clandestine channel between Iran and the US, where arms were purchased for the Iran-Iraq war by the Mullahs at a huge premium, to help Reagan’s team fund the contras and buy Cocaine to import into the US (for distribution in swing states).

This channel was revealed when investigations into the Iran-Contra affair were exposed. That secret contact was unmistakable.

The Iran-Contra Reality

The most striking contradiction to the “47-year enemy” narrative came during the Iran–Contra Affair in the mid-1980s. Despite publicly portraying Iran as a terrorist state, elements within the Reagan administration secretly sold weapons to Tehran. The goal was threefold: securing the release of hostages held in Lebanon, funding anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua, and purchase of large quantities of cocaine for importation into the US for distribution in ghettos in swing-states (which led to the incarceration of 10 million African Americans and the complete change in US electoral map, sweeping Republicans into Congress).

Without Iran’s Mullahs, there would be NO Republican majorities in the House and Senate – because once you have a federal felony (i.e., drug possession), you can never vote again. Even today, 30 years later, there are, for example, in Florida, over 1 million U.S.-born citizens who can not vote because of their prior cocaine (drug possession) felonies.

The scandal exposed a paradox at the heart of U.S.–Iran relations. Publicly, Washington condemned the Islamic Republic as one of its most dangerous adversaries. Privately, it was willing to trade arms with the very government it denounced. Not to be forgotten is that Israel participated in the toppling of the Shah and provided arms to the Mullahs during the Iran-Iraq war. Also, the Shia in Lebanon were right up to 1982, allied with Israel!

The episode demonstrated a pattern that would repeat for decades: ideological hostility verbalized, but secret pragmatic engagement was pursued as interests aligned.

Afghanistan: A Quiet Alliance After 9/11

Nowhere was this engagement more visible than after the September 11 attacks in 2001. The Taliban government in Afghanistan—an adversary of both the United States and Iran— created a shared strategic objective.

During the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Iranian officials reportedly provided intelligence, logistical assistance, direct access to fighters via Iranian proxies (i.e., Northern Alliance), and diplomatic cooperation to American forces. Tehran had long viewed the Taliban as a dangerous Sunni extremist movement and had nearly gone to war with them in the late 1990s.

In the early stages of the war, Iranian diplomats even participated in negotiations that helped shape Afghanistan’s new political structure after the Taliban’s fall.

Washington and Tehran were effectively aligned against a common enemy. Iran physically delivered ‘cash’ to major US allies on behalf of the US, to help them survive during the transitions.

Iraq: Parallel Wars

This pattern repeated itself during the Iraq wars. When the United States toppled Saddam Hussein in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, it removed Iran’s most dangerous regional rival.

The political forces that came to dominate post-Saddam Iraq—many of them Shiite parties and militias—had longstanding ties to Iran. In effect, the war created a new Iraqi political landscape in which American military power and Iranian influence operated simultaneously.

While Washington and Tehran often competed for influence, they were also working within the same strategic reality: a new Iraq whose political order benefited both sides in different ways.

This relationship soured when there was intelligence that Iranians had assisted Iraqi militia with roadside bombings of US troops. While Iran was clearly involved, it is also known that Israel clandestinely assisted too, to implicate Iran in these events. Mossad has a long history of this sort of activity, most recently with the bombing of the US embassy in Riyadh (blamed on the Iranians), but later confessions by Mossad operatives who were apprehended revealed Israel’s hand.

Regardless, Iran provided considerable assistance to Iraq’s post-war stabilization, thereby assisting the US. It provided major commodities like Kerosene, cement, tires, and most crucially, electricity, while Iraq rebuilt its electricity infrastructure due to the bombings. Without Iran, Iraq would have been an even greater quagmire for the United States.

And remember, there were multiple campaigns in Iraq. And not to be overlooked is the considerable intelligence shared during both campaigns, which ensured the US invasions’ success. The US had no one on the ground in Iraq before the invasions.

This uneasy overlap again challenges the idea of uninterrupted hostility between the Mullahs and the U.S.

Intelligence and Shared Interests

Even beyond battlefield politics, the relationship has periodically involved intelligence exchanges and indirect cooperation through intermediaries. Governments that publicly denounce each other often maintain quiet channels of communication when mutual interests emerge, especially in dealing with extremist groups, regional conflicts, or covert activities. Iranians have provided the U.S. with considerable intelligence on Israeli activities in the U.S., too.

These contacts rarely become public because they undermine the narratives each side presents to its domestic audience. While Reagan or Rafsanjani called each other evil, they privately exchanged signed Bibles. While Bush called Iran part of the Axis of Evil, he secretly planned invasions with Iran’s military.

It has become a game. But they are part of the real architecture of international politics.

The Politics of the “47-Year Enemy.”

Why, then, does the “47-year menace” narrative persist?

The answer lies less in history than in political messaging. Portraying Iran as a constant and unchanging enemy simplifies complex geopolitical dynamics into a moral drama: democracy versus theocracy, freedom versus extremism.

For politicians seeking public support for sanctions, military pressure, or regime-change rhetoric, such simplicity is powerful.

Yet it obscures a central truth: adversaries often cooperate when circumstances demand it.

Throughout the past four decades, Washington and Tehran have repeatedly found themselves aligned against common threats—from the Taliban to Saddam Hussein—even while maintaining a posture of public hostility.

The Real Story

None of this means the relationship has been a friend-fest. Far from it. The United States and Iran have also clashed across multiple fronts: sanctions, proxy conflicts, nuclear disputes, and regional rivalries.

But the historical record does not support the idea of a simple, uninterrupted 47-year war.

Instead, it reveals a far more nuanced pattern—one in which confrontation, covert diplomacy, and occasional cooperation have coexisted.

The myth of permanent enmity survives because it serves political purposes. In a very tight and difficult political landscape in Israel, enmity with Iran provides a useful enemy and votes. Iran, as a pariah, has helped motivate Arabs to buy literally Trillions of dollars of arms – notably Saudi Arabia and UAE – with minuscule populations ranking 2nd or 3rd globally for every year in the last 20 years, in terms of expenditures on arms exported from the US.

Indeed, all these Arab states on the Persian Gulf have profited handsomely from Iran’s demise. Iran has been a useful enemy and a strategically useful secret partner. The reality is messy.

And the story of the past four decades between Washington and Tehran is less a tale of perpetual hostility than one of shifting alignments, hidden negotiations, and pragmatic bargains conducted behind the scenes.

In other words, the “47-year menace” narrative may be rhetorically powerful—but as history shows, it is far from the whole truth.

The core issue is that Trump has fired almost every Iran expert. It has relied on Israel for narratives (that politically suit Netanyahu), but has no basis within the Administration to verify the information he is given. He’s put a religious fruitcake schoolboy in the Department of War and has no one with any real experience to share on the ‘actual’ history of relations and to do serious diplomacy and war planning.

The Mullahs in Iran are called the “Ayatoilets”, because they have been nothing but a Western-planted government put in place to shit on Iran. The whole idea has been to keep them in power, use the (false) nuclear pretext to keep them sanctioned and contained, and to force them into subservience as needed.

Iranians know this. Apparently, Trump doesn’t! He’s completely missed the boat. He’s torn up the guidebook and unleashed a war, with no capacity now to contain events. Not unreasonably, the Mullahs have lost complete trust in their masters! And there will be blowback. Let’s not forget that Osama Bin Laden was a US asset once upon a time, too!

And the outcome now is a war of choice that has already led to a serious economic catastrophe, with a high probability of further expansion (much to the detriment of US national interests). It’s simply moronic. They have no idea how useful the Mullahs have been for US national interests. The situation today is analogous to the toppling of the Shah, where he had served US national interests for several decades, only to find himself toppled by the U.S., branded as an evil dictator by the very masters he served.

When they talk about a 47-year menace, they don’t know what they are talking about.  The very best outcome now would be if Mullahs/Netanyahu/Trump simply destroy each other … i.e., a MAD war that provides mutually assured devastation. And then ordinary Iranians and Americans can pick up the pieces, re-establish their democracies, and protect their national interests against Israel’s evil government (not people). Like a gang of killers and thieves sitting around a table: they are ALL evil with a long history of betraying each other.  

Wars are terrible instruments of policy. But history shows they are also powerful instruments of leverage. When guns fall silent, battlefield advantage can often be converted into diplomatic advantage. The question for Iran, if negotiations emerge from the current crisis, is not merely how to end the war—it is how to use the moment to reshape the political architecture of the Middle East.

Too often, wars in the region end in narrow arrangements that solve nothing. A ceasefire is declared, the front lines freeze, sanctions remain in place, and the deeper conflicts continue to simmer until the next round of violence erupts. That cycle has defined the region for decades. If diplomacy follows this war, repeating that pattern would be a historic mistake.

This is a unique opportunity. Neither Israel nor the US expected a protracted war, and their overall calculations regarding their desired outcome have turned out poorly. With the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, it is not only the reduction in oil and natural gas exports that is causing a hike in energy prices, but also the major global dependence on Sulphur, Fertilizers, and Helium exports from the region, which is having a devastating impact. An extended war, or further regional conflict, would be catastrophic. In addition, Iran’s continuous bombing of Israel and its neighbors in the southern Persian Gulf, has been devastating, and shows no sign of abatement.

Iran, therefore, enters these negotiations in a very strong position with the ability to make several obvious demands. Relief of Sanctions must be on the table; an economy cannot be expected to function indefinitely under a permanent regime of economic siege. Reparations for wartime damage will also be part of the conversation, as they are after nearly every major conflict. And perhaps most importantly from Tehran’s perspective, the presence of U.S. military forces across the region would have to be reconsidered.

For years, Iran has argued that the vast network of American bases—from Bahrain and Qatar to Iraq and Syria—creates an artificial military pressure system around its borders. Whether one agrees with that view or not, the argument will almost certainly be central in any negotiations. If the war produces a diplomatic settlement, Tehran will push for a reduction or withdrawal of U.S. forces from the region as part of a broader security arrangement.

But if Iran limits its ambitions to sanctions relief and troop withdrawals, it will have missed a much larger opportunity. The underlying causes of the conflict need to be considered. There must be a systematic approach to the problem. This war did not emerge from a vacuum. It is embedded in a regional structure that has been unstable for generations: unresolved territorial disputes, the absence of a Palestinian state, competing military alliances, and a nuclear imbalance that remains largely unaddressed.

If negotiations are going to happen anyway, the moment should be used to address those structural problems rather than postpone them yet again. Indeed, if the Ukraine peace negotiations are to serve as a useful case study, there were multiple “Minsk (Peace) Agreements” that were completely undermined by the United States, Europe, and Ukraine’s dual national (Israeli-Ukrainian) Leader (Zelensky). Peace negotiations with the United States or its allies are useless; their record of honoring agreements is very poor. Indeed, Iran was in the midst of two separate negotiations with the US, which apparently were running smoothly, when, surprisingly, war broke out each time.

Without these underlying issues being addressed, the deals mean nothing.

At the center of that conversation sits Israel and its regional conflicts. For decades, the international community has treated it as a problem to be managed rather than resolved. Endless rounds of talks have produced interim agreements, temporary arrangements, and partial understandings—but never a final settlement.

A serious diplomatic framework emerging from this war would have to revisit that question directly. The creation of a fully independent Palestinian state alongside Israel remains the only solution that has ever commanded broad international support. Yet the political will to implement it has repeatedly evaporated.

If negotiations are underway, that issue cannot remain permanently deferred. The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is not merely a local dispute; it is one of the central fault lines shaping politics across the Middle East. Any attempt to build a durable regional peace that ignores it is unlikely to succeed.

Closely tied to this question are the territories whose status remains unresolved: Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and contested areas along the Lebanese border. These places have served as flashpoints for decades. Any genuine regional settlement would have to address their status within a broader framework of security guarantees and internationally recognized borders.

Another possibility— periodically proposed in diplomatic circles—is the internationalization of Jerusalem, under UN jurisdiction.

Few cities in the world carry the symbolic weight of Jerusalem. It is sacred to multiple faiths and claimed politically by competing national movements. For that reason, some have argued that the city might ultimately function better as an international district rather than the exclusive capital of any single state.

Under such a model, Jerusalem would be administered under a United Nations mandate, with protections for all religious communities and guaranteed access to holy sites. In a more ambitious version of the idea, the city could become a permanent international hub for diplomacy, hosting major UN institutions – such as the Security Council and the General Assembly – as well as global forums. Jerusalem is uniquely positioned to support major business time zones around the world. It is a natural site for a reformed and transformed United Nations.

It is time to revisit the overall structure of the United Nations, which has been completely unable to address these regional conflicts and Israel’s continuous defiance of its resolutions. I will save it for another blog, but I believe the UN should be transformed into a United Unions (with 12 Unions [US, Russia, China, India, EU, CANZUK, AU, AL, UNASUR, ASEAN, MEDIA, etc] at the Security Council, and all its agency activities distributed to 12 Union Capitals around the world). The UN is too large, too bureaucratic, and too ineffective. It’s time for a major change.

The symbolism of Jerusalem would be powerful: a city that has been fought over for centuries can become a center of international governance.

History shows that seemingly impossible proposals sometimes become feasible in the aftermath of major geopolitical shocks. The creation of the United Nations itself was born from the devastation of World War II.

A broader regional settlement would also have to confront the nuclear question.

For decades, diplomats have discussed the possibility of the overall region becoming free of nuclear weapons. The idea appears regularly in international forums but has never been realized. The region today exists in a strange strategic imbalance: some states operate under strict nuclear restrictions while others are widely believed to possess nuclear capabilities outside the formal non-proliferation framework. It is patently unbalanced to ask Iran to abandon any nuclear ambitions without Israel having to do the same.

Any long-term security arrangement would eventually have to address that imbalance. A credible regional denuclearization framework—if it could be negotiated—would require unprecedented transparency, verification mechanisms, and security guarantees from the world’s major powers.

None of this would be easy. In fact, most of it would be extraordinarily difficult.

But the alternative is to repeat the same pattern that has defined regional diplomacy for generations: end the war, patch together a temporary arrangement, and leave the underlying conflicts unresolved until the next explosion.

Moments of crisis sometimes create narrow openings for structural change. Political leaders who were unwilling to compromise in normal times may become more flexible when confronted with the costs of prolonged instability.

If negotiations follow this war, the real question will not simply be how to end a particular confrontation between Iran, Israel, and the United States.

The real question will be whether the moment is used to rethink the regional order itself.

History rarely offers such opportunities. When it does, the decisions made in those moments can shape the geopolitical landscape for decades to come.