Bret Stephens
Deal or No Deal With
Iran
May 26, 2026
Credit...Majid
Saeedi/Getty Images
It isn’t hard to see the
case for striking a deal with Iran, one that will turn the current shaky
cease-fire into a long-term truce.
The global economy needs
an end to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz lest energy prices rise even
higher. The military option for trying to force the strait open is
time-consuming and risky. Iran could retaliate by striking important energy and
desalination infrastructure in neighboring states, causing an environmental
catastrophe. Negotiation is the only plausible way to get Iran to relinquish
its stock of highly enriched uranium, most of which is believed to be buried
deep within the nuclear complex in Isfahan. The United States is running low on
critical munitions, particularly missile interceptors, which are needed to
protect U.S. assets and maintain deterrence against other threats worldwide.
And President Trump
promised voters a relatively brief “excursion” in Iran, not another forever war
in the Middle East. For him to break that pledge now would also mean breaking
faith with millions of MAGA voters who long ago grew tired of presidents who
seemed to care more about policing the far-flung corners of the world than
about taking care of America itself.
Powerful arguments. But
they must be weighed against the risks, three in particular.
First, an agreement that allows the
regime to emerge from the war as the perceived victor instantly magnifies our
overall geopolitical risks.
China will take note not
only of our munitions shortage (which it could have learned of before the
current war simply by reading The Times) but also of the fact
that the president lost his appetite for war after just 39 days and 13 military
fatalities. U.S. allies in the region will take similar note: Why would the
Saudis or Pakistanis want to incur the domestic risks of recognizing Israel by
joining the Abraham Accords, as Trump is now imploring them to do, if Israel
and the United States look like the weak horses against Iran in the struggle
for regional hegemony?
Worse: Iran’s
new-generation leaders will draw the lesson that closing the Strait of Hormuz
is a card they can play at will, knowing they have a greater tolerance than
their adversaries for the pain it might impose. That means they’ll use it or
threaten it to extract an ever-increasing list of economic and strategic
demands. A deal to end the current blockade is merely an enticement for the
next blockade and the one after that.
Second, the adage,
familiar to this administration, that the Iranian regime has never won a war or
lost a negotiation happens to be true. That’s not just because the regime has a
genius for bargaining, though it does. It has an equal genius for bending and
breaking rules and agreements whenever it suits its needs.
That was true with the
much-vaunted Iran nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, some of
whose terms — such as Iran’s obligation to be open about its past nuclear-weapons work — the regime was violating long before Trump pulled
the United States out of it in his first term. It was true of Iran’s
obligations as a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, whose terms
Iran was also violating through what the International Atomic Energy
Agency described last year as an “insistence on a unique and unilateral approach
to its legally binding obligation.”
Why should anyone expect Iran to act
any differently now? The risk of a resumption of the war might be an inducement
for the regime to negotiate in something like good faith. Yet Trump has
already threatened to restart high-intensity fighting on at least seven different occasions since the current cease-fire began — and backed down
every time. The closer we get to the midterms, the more political incentive
Trump has to avoid conflict.
The Iranians know this,
which is why they’ll play for time with a carefully balanced set of tantalizing
promises and extraneous demands, whether about Hezbollah or the financial
payoffs they’ll insist upon in exchange for easily reversible concessions. Moving
along this road guarantees that Trump will find himself agreeing to the same
kinds of terms he once denounced when they were made by Barack Obama or Joe
Biden.
Finally, Trump will get
no political relief in the midterms if his signature presidential act for 2026
is a failed war. Not many like paying more for gas, but many are also willing
to swallow the cost for a worthy objective — such as removing a potent and
rising menace to America’s security and our vital interests. But economic pain
in pursuit of strategic futility is an unforgivable political blunder. Trump is
on the cusp of it now.
So what should the
administration do? Heed the words of Robert Frost: “The best way out is always
through.”
Though it’s easy to
miss, given the information blackout that (at least until this week) Iran
imposed by shutting down the internet, the regime itself hangs by slender
threads: a worthless currency, a mostly bankrupt state, a badly wounded
military, all-but-undefended airspace, and a leadership whose final claim to
legitimacy is that it has stood up to the Great and Little Satans and, so far,
survived.
Trump can still deny them that claim.
The United States struck some targets in Iran on Monday. Now Trump can announce
that we will destroy a facility of military significance to the regime pending
a material Iranian concession, and make good on the
threat. The next day, two targets, and so on.
If Iran opts to retaliate against our Gulf allies, then it’s past time they
start behaving like cooperative allies, by either joining the fight or at least
not obstructing it.
Trump need not be defeated in this
war, but he’s close. Should he lose it, what remains of his presidency will go
down with it.
