Trump Seems Poised to Attack Iran Again. Here's What Could Happen If He Does.
Beware the Law of Unintended Consequences.
READ IN APP Ignore anyone who tells you they’re certain there’ll be a second military clash between Iran and the United States—the first being the June US-Israel strike on Iranian nuclear facilities—or that it definitely won’t happen. People who aren’t senior figures in Trump’s foreign and national security team lack the evidence to make credible predictions. And given Trump’s unpredictability, even his top lieutenants may not know what he’ll do.
What we do know is that the United States has the military muscle to strike Iran—and has shown a willingness to use it, as it did in June. On Trump’s orders, the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and three Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are now in the Arabian Sea, within striking distance of Iran.
The Lincoln has 65 aircraft on board, including F-35 Lightning II and F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets and anti-ship missiles. The destroyers carry anti-ship cruise and ballistic missile defenses as well as Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles.
Yet this formidable firepower matters only if Trump actually orders an attack. And here, there’s room for uncertainty because Trump has made threats on which he didn’t always act. On January 13, Trump urged Iranian protesters to “take over your institutions” and assured them that “help is on its way.” When Iran’s leaders intensified the repression—killing several thousand—he did nothing.
This is hardly reassuring: Trump may attack Iran this time around, with potentially grave—perhaps even unmanageable—consequences.
Iran has warned that an American military strike will spark “a regional war.” Qatar and Saudi Arabia, both close US allies, fear that they’d be in Iran’s sights and have already announced that they won’t permit their airspace or military bases to be used for an attack on Iran.
Qatar’s Al-Udeid airbase is the largest the US has in the Middle East. Without it, Trump would struggle to sustain a war if strikes by Lincoln and its complement of destroyers don’t force Iran to accept his two key demands: shutting down its uranium and plutonium enrichment programs and limiting the range and number (3,000-plus) of its ballistic missiles.
Urged by Turkey, Oman, and Qatar, Iran has signaled a willingness to talk about the nuclear program. (Though without ending enrichment entirely: Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty permits nuclear research for non-military purposes.) But it has ruled out limits on its ballistic missile inventory.
Trump could opt for nuclear talks alone and call that a win—or he could use force in hopes of compelling Tehran to also discuss cuts in ballistic missiles.
For its part, Iran could widen an armed conflict with the US by striking Israel. The latter, assuming it doesn’t join the initial American attack on Iran, would surely strike back. Though Iran would get the worst of it, in June, its ballistic missiles did pierce Israel’s much-vaunted air defenses, striking 30 sites. This time, Iran could fire a much bigger barrage. Will the Israelis then intensify their attacks? Or will they urge Trump to end his war?
Here again, there’s room for uncertainty.
Toppling the Islamic Republic of Iran has long been one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s main foreign policy goals, and he knows that it can be achieved only if the United States uses its military power. Trump has arguably been the most pro-Israeli US president. Many ardent American backers of Israel have funded him lavishly, and the BBC reports that Netanyahu, sensing an opportunity, has been urging Trump on.
Yet, after what Israel experienced in June, Netanyahu—already under the gun for having allowed Hamas’s audacious October 7, 2023, attack to succeed and still facing possible prosecution on corruption charges—may not want to roll the dice. And Trump, who seems to mistrust the Israeli leader, may worry that he could drag the US into a full-scale clash with Iran.
Moreover, with his approval plummeting, Trump can’t ignore the political cost of oil price increases, which a war with Iran will precipitate. (During the June confrontation, prices surged from $69 a barrel to $74 within two days.)
Could that happen again? Yes—and the economic consequences could be much worse, particularly because Iran’s location enables it to wreak havoc on the global oil market.
Iran occupies the north shoreline of the Strait of Hormuz (Oman and the United Arab Emirates overlook the southern segment), the corridor connecting the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea via the Gulf of Oman. The Strait is wide and deep enough to accommodate the largest supertankers, and each day, 20-plus oil-filled ships—and many more commercial vessels—pass through it, carrying 20 million barrels of oil, a fifth or more of global consumption.
More than 80% of that oil heads to big Asian consumers like China, India, and Japan. Because of stepped-up production at home and imports from Canada, the US imports only 7%of the oil that transits the Strait of Hormuz, but that figure may offer a misleading reassurance. Oil is a fungible commodity: a reduction in supply in one place will quickly raise prices worldwide. There’s therefore no scenario in which Americans won’t feel the pinch if Iran shuts down the Strait or even reduces oil flows through it.
Iran threatened to do just that in June, and says that it’s now “even more prepared” to respond to an American attack than it was then. To signal its seriousness, Iran announced that its navy would conduct live-fire exercises in the Strait on February 1 and 2 but later attributed that news to erroneous press reports, even though it was carried on its own media, which cited official sources.
The geographical configuration of the Strait is well-suited for the disruption of oil traffic, or worse, a shutdown. It’s only 21 miles at its widest point; and the two-way channels tankers use are only two miles wide. The US has warned that it won’t tolerate threats to the Lincoln battle group, but Iran could disrupt oil traffic without taking that added military risk.
Oil pipelines traversing Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the UAE could reduce the shock, but together they could transport only a tiny percentage of the oil flows blocked by a closure of the Strait—or even a major disruption.
What remains unclear is the goal underlying Trump’s threats to attack Iran. If it’s “regime change,” airstrikes and missile salvos from a carrier battle group won’t suffice: the ships’ weapons stocks will run out before long. Plus, if Iran’s leaders conclude Trump’s objective isn’t an agreement on nuclear enrichment and ballistic missiles but the destruction of the Islamic Republic itself, they may decide on all-out retaliation.
If it’s a nuclear deal Trump seeks, he already had one. The Obama administration negotiated arguably the best one obtainable, the 2015 Joint and Comprehensive Program of Action (JCPOA). It capped Iran’s uranium enrichment at 3.67%, limited the number of centrifuge cascades—machines that spin uranium at high speeds to increase the concentration of U-235, the isotope needed for nuclear weapons—and ended Iran’s plutonium enrichment by banning the reprocessing of spent reactor fuel and limiting heavy water production. The JCPOA’s provisions were backed by in-person and electronic monitoring.
Though the JCPOA was limited to 10 to 15 years—depending on the prohibited activity—there was no reason it couldn’t have been renewed, especially because Iran needed the relief from crippling Western sanctions, which it gained under the deal. But Trump shredded the agreement in 2018, and since then, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimates that Iran’s stock of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) has increased from less than one kilogram to more than 400 kilograms. Moreover, the IAEA has lost the continuous inspection rights it gained under the JCPOA.
Advocates of regime change highlight the Iranian government’s misdeeds. True, it has ill-served its citizens economically—partly because of Western sanctions—and has a record of extreme repression; but even if one believes that warrants an American-engineered regime change (which I don’t given both the risks and our disastrous record in conducting such operations), Trump doesn’t have the forces in place to pull that off and won’t risk a ground invasion.
Besides, even if he succeeds, the result may not be a new, improved political system but prolonged and violent upheaval in a country of 92 million people that’s almost as large as Germany, France, Spain, and Italy—combined.
Moreover, no matter one’s views on Iran’s leadership, it hasn’t threatened to attack the United States or do anything else that would justify a preventive war. Such wars aren’t launched for self-defense against an attack or even one that’s clearly imminent; instead, like the 2003 Iraq War or Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, they are justified by non-existent threats invoked by attackers. It’s not hard to see why they’re prohibited by international law.
If Trump does attack Iran again, he’ll have taken a dangerous step—one that’s unnecessary and therefore avoidable.
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