分类： politics

London is stepping forward to organize a virtual international summit this Thursday, launching a diplomatic push to build a global coalition aimed at compelling Iran to reopen the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz. The initiative comes in the wake of former US President Donald Trump’s controversial declaration that Washington would not assist European allies in reopening the waterway, telling the UK and other nations they must handle the task independently to secure their own oil supplies.

Two months have passed since the outbreak of open conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran, and the battlefield dynamic has shifted dramatically from what initial projections predicted. While the US-Israeli bloc scored swift, high-profile gains in the opening weeks of hostilities, the unexpected resilience of Iran’s governing institutions and military has robbed the alliance of its early strategic initiative, leaving it reacting to developments rather than shaping the war’s outcome on its own terms.

Analysts point to a deep, foundational divide in the core strategic objectives of Washington and Tel Aviv as the primary root of this shifted momentum. This conflict, launched under the Trump administration, has already exposed a fundamental contradiction with decades of US policy in the Persian Gulf, rooted in the 1980 Carter Doctrine.

Unveiled by then-President Jimmy Carter in his 1980 State of the Union Address, the doctrine was crafted in response to two seismic regional shifts: the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. Carter made clear that any foreign attempt to seize control of the Persian Gulf, a region central to global energy security, would be viewed as an attack on core US interests and repelled by any means necessary, including full military force.

To operationalize this doctrine, the US permanently stationed its Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf, imposed sweeping economic sanctions on Iran and the Soviet Union, and steadily expanded its military footprint across the region. Since 2001 alone, the number of US military bases in the Gulf has grown exponentially, with roughly 50,000 American military personnel currently deployed across the region. Even with this overwhelming military dominance, every US administration for decades acknowledged that a full-scale war to overthrow the Iranian government would backfire. A direct conflict, policymakers recognized, would risk triggering the exact outcome the Carter Doctrine was designed to prevent: Iran could block access to the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical chokepoint for global oil shipments, effectively ceding control of the Persian Gulf’s energy supply chains to hostile forces. For generations, Washington thus accepted a tentative status quo with Tehran.

For Israel, however, the strategic calculus of conflict with Iran could not be more different. Iran is the leading state backer of the so-called Axis of Resistance, a loosely aligned coalition of anti-Western and anti-Israeli groups including Syria, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas. The coalition’s core stated goals are to oppose US regional hegemony, end Israeli statehood, and support Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories. While the coalition has never possessed the military capacity to deliver on its most ambitious goals, Iran has long provided financing, training, and arms to Hamas and Hezbollah to carry out resistance operations against Israel.

For decades, Washington successfully pressured Israel to avoid large-scale sustained military action against Axis of Resistance members, a compromise that preserved the Persian Gulf status quo and kept global energy supplies flowing. That arrangement collapsed entirely after the October 2023 Hamas-led attacks on Israel, which removed US restrictions on Israeli military escalation. In response to the attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government launched its long-standing “mowing the grass” strategy – a doctrine that calls for degrading an adversary’s capabilities by eliminating frontline leadership, destroying military, political, and economic infrastructure, and establishing a new deterrence balance.

Israel first applied this strategy against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, advancing into southern Lebanese territory to establish a new buffer zone that would strip Hezbollah of its historic strongholds along the Israeli border. The campaign has come at a devastating humanitarian cost: hundreds of Lebanese civilians have been killed, and widespread systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure has been documented. Israel has now extended this same destruction-focused strategy to Iran itself, carrying out a campaign of targeted assassinations of senior political and military leaders and striking infrastructure across the country, including civilian sites.

Beyond the military dimension, the conflict has delivered major immediate political benefits for Netanyahu, who faces national elections scheduled for October 27. The 2023 Hamas attacks were a major political blow to the prime minister, who had built his decades-long political brand as Israel’s unshakable security guarantor. Now, on the campaign trail, Netanyahu can point to gains against Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran to rebuild his credibility. A victory at the polls would not only allow him to retain the prime ministership – it would also put him in a position to secure a pardon from President Isaac Herzog and end his years-long ongoing corruption trial. For Netanyahu, the incentives to continue the conflict are clear, but the short-term political gains carry steep long-term costs.

First, public support for Netanyahu’s government remains contingent on delivering on his maximalist goals: the total destruction of Hamas and Hezbollah, and the collapse of Iran’s current ruling regime. Early 2025 polling shows that support for Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party plummeted immediately when news of a potential ceasefire with Hamas broke. If the Trump administration moves forward with a ceasefire agreement that Iran demands includes a cessation of hostilities against Hezbollah, Netanyahu could see his polling lead evaporate overnight.

Second, international public support for Israel has fallen to historic lows in the years following the 2023 outbreak of hostilities. Recent polling shows that 65% of Democratic voters and 41% of independent voters in the US now sympathize with Palestinians, and even among Republican supporters, backing for Israel is at its lowest point since 2004. The trend is identical across Europe, where 2025 polling records historic low support for Israeli policy. This shift carries major material risks for Israel: the country relies on $3.8 billion in annual US military aid and unrestricted access to American weapons and munitions to sustain its military campaigns. Without this support, Israel would not be able to carry out offensive operations without major economic consequences, and would likely face a severe recession. Given President Trump’s well-documented history of unpredictable policy shifts, this support cannot be counted on as a given.

Third, Netanyahu and multiple senior members of his cabinet are currently under investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity stemming from Israeli military conduct in the Gaza campaign. While the Israeli government has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, an adverse ruling from the court would further erode international support and leave Israel more diplomatically isolated than ever.

Finally, even after two months of intense military pressure that has significantly weakened Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah, the mere survival of these groups against a far more militarily powerful alliance is already being framed as a political victory for their cause. Worse for Israel, the decimation of older leadership has cleared the way for younger, more hardline, more emboldened leaders to take control across the Axis of Resistance. That makes the eventual reemergence of a more militant, revenge-focused coalition far more likely.

The paradox of Netanyahu’s campaign is that instead of strengthening Israel’s long-term security, it has left the country facing a far more complex and dangerous security environment. With backing from traditional allies increasingly uncertain, Israel may end up far more vulnerable to future attacks than it was before the conflict began.

Nearly every strategic objective the United States laid out for its current conflict against Iran has failed to materialize, according to a leading scholar of protracted US military engagements. No popular uprising has unseated Iran’s ruling establishment, hardline leadership has merely reshuffled rather than fallen, Tehran’s missile and drone capabilities continue to strike targets across the Middle East, and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent global energy prices soaring. Most notably, in direct contradiction of former US President Donald Trump’s demand for unconditional surrender, Iran has outright rejected a 15-point US-backed ceasefire proposal. What has caused such a sweeping deviation from Washington’s initial war plans?

In an analysis republished from *The Conversation*, Charles Walldorf, professor of politics and international affairs at Wake Forest University, argues the core issue is what he terms the “trap of asymmetric resolve.” This dynamic unfolds when a militarily dominant power with limited stakes in a conflict enters war against a far smaller, weaker state whose entire governing system hangs in the balance. When the weaker side possesses near-unwavering commitment to victory, overcoming that determination becomes exponentially harder – and often nearly impossible – for the stronger power.

“For Iran, the Islamic Republic’s very existence is on the line, a stakes Washington can never match in this conflict,” Walldorf explains. “That existential threat gives Tehran overwhelming incentives to maintain resistance and deploy highly effective countermeasures to wear down US advances.”

This pattern of asymmetric conflict has repeated throughout military history, dating back to the sixth century B.C., when a massive invasion force led by Persian Emperor Darius I was halted by a much smaller, deeply determined Scythian army. The lopsided standoff ultimately ended in a humiliating retreat for the Persian Empire. In the modern era, the United States has repeatedly fallen victim to this same trap.

The Vietnam War stands as one of the clearest modern examples. Over eight years of brutal conflict, an estimated 1.1 million North Vietnamese fighters and civilians lost their lives, compared to 58,000 US troops. Despite this massive casualty disparity, North Vietnam’s unyielding commitment to unification ultimately overwhelmed US willingness to sustain the war. After years of costly fighting, the US withdrew, and North Vietnam secured full victory over South Vietnam in 1975.

A near identical dynamic played out decades later in Afghanistan. The US ousted the Taliban regime in 2001, installed a Western-aligned government, and built a 300,000-strong Afghan national military backed by unlimited US firepower. Over 20 years of conflict, roughly 84,000 Taliban fighters were killed, compared to just 2,400 US service members. Yet the Taliban’s relentless commitment to retaking power eventually outlasted US political will. The US signed a withdrawal deal in 2020, pulled all remaining troops out in 2021, and the Taliban retook full control of the country within weeks.

This pattern is not unique to the US. The Soviet Union suffered an identical humiliating defeat in its 9-year Afghanistan occupation in the 1980s, despite suffering far fewer total casualties than the Afghan resistance. Post-World War II France likewise lost protracted asymmetric conflicts in Vietnam and Algeria, despite holding massive military advantages over independence fighters.

Today, that same asymmetry of resolve is playing out in the US-Iran war. Unlike the 12-day 2025 limited conflict that targeted only Iranian military and nuclear infrastructure, the current campaign has explicitly targeted the survival of Iran’s ruling government, with targeted assassinations of top leaders and open calls for popular uprising.

Tehran has followed through on pre-war warnings to retaliate across the region. Iran has launched strikes against Israeli targets, US military bases across the Middle East, and aligned Arab Gulf states, while drastically cutting commercial shipping access through the Strait of Hormuz – the world’s busiest energy chokepoint. Iran has taken far heavier losses than the US in the conflict: as of mid-March, more than 5,000 Iranian military personnel and 1,500 civilians have been killed, compared to 13 US service members. Even so, Tehran has refused to back down, declaring on March 10 that “We will determine when the war ends.”

This unyielding resistance has caught the Trump administration off guard. Before the war began, Trump openly questioned why Iran would not cave to US demands, and he has since acknowledged that regime change – a core opening war goal – is now a “very big hurdle.” This disconnect stems from misleading pre-war messaging to the American public: Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed in January that Iran was weaker than it had ever been, with no intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of hitting the US mainland, a crippled nuclear program, and fewer regional allies than at any point in modern history. A March 6 Marist poll reflected this narrative, with 55% of Americans saying they viewed Iran as a minor or nonexistent threat.

As Iran’s resilience has become impossible to ignore, US public opinion has turned sharply against the war. This shifting sentiment poses a unique challenge for democratic leaders, who face electoral consequences for maintaining unpopular conflicts. Today, the Iran war is among the least popular US conflicts since World War II, with consistent polling showing roughly 60% of Americans oppose continued military engagement. This mirrors the collapse of public support that drove past US withdrawals from asymmetric quagmires in Vietnam and Afghanistan.

While pre-war Iran faced widespread domestic protests that weakened public support for the government, a combination of a brutal government crackdown and a “rally around the flag” nationalist response to foreign invasion has muted domestic discontent, eliminating the domestic pressure for compromise that Washington faces.

Looking ahead, the Trump administration has attempted to manage the impact of asymmetric resolve by framing the operation as limited in scope and duration. To calm jittery financial markets and reassure war-weary voters, Trump has repeatedly promised a short conflict and delayed large-scale offensive strikes to make space for negotiations – claims that Iran has not corroborated.

Walldorf notes that history offers stronger powers two clear paths forward when facing a more determined weaker adversary. The first is to give in to the hubris of military power and escalate the conflict, a path that led to decades-long quagmires in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The second is to wind down hostilities, accept limited gains, and seek a negotiated end to the conflict.

Past leaders have overwhelmingly chosen escalation, convinced that a small increase in military force will tip the balance. President Barack Obama fell into this trap when he ordered a surge of 30,000 additional US troops to Afghanistan, incorrectly predicting the deployment would break the Taliban’s resistance. Despite public signals that he wants to exit the conflict, Trump could still take the same path: additional US troops are already deploying to the Persian Gulf, and B-52 bombers have begun flying combat sorties over Iranian territory for the first time in the current war.

History shows that escalating against a determined foe like Iran will come at massive cost to the United States. But the second path – de-escalation and negotiation – remains open to Trump. The president has already chosen this route twice before: he signed the 2020 deal with the Taliban to end the Afghanistan war rather than escalating, and he walked away from the 2025 Yemen air campaign when he realized defeating the Houthi movement would require a costly ground invasion.

Trump could choose the same exit strategy for Iran: declare that core US goals have been met, withdraw offensive forces, and enter sustained, good-faith negotiations to end the conflict. Any deal would require US concessions, such as restoring shipping access guarantees through the Strait of Hormuz or rolling back some crippling economic sanctions on Iran. While Trump may be reluctant to accept these compromises, polling shows a majority of American voters support this outcome. After decades of costly quagmires, Walldorf argues, few Americans are eager to repeat the mistakes of Vietnam and Afghanistan in the Middle East.