Trump between choking Iran economically and falling back into the deal trap

As mid-August arrives, the Trump administration’s strategy toward the war with Iran has entered a new season of volatility, this time determined by the shifting fortunes of rival factions competing to persuade the American president of what he should do. This week, the balance has tilted away from the deal-making camp and toward the national security team, bringing with it a strategy of maximum economic and military pressure, while retaining diplomacy as a secondary instrument rather than a refuge from decisive action. For all the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app. The fortunes of the camp that pushed last week for declaring victory and seeking an exit from the war through opaque understandings with Iran – perhaps secret, perhaps born of a need to capitulate – have declined. Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and Vice President JD Vance invested heavily in persuading Trump that diplomacy could extricate him from the Iranian corner. Tehran itself helped weaken their hand when it refused to make concessions and insisted, in effect, that Trump change his behavior rather than the Islamic Republic change its own. Pete Hegseth has returned to the forefront representing the military establishment and the national security camp, which includes Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the National Security Adviser. The qualitatively new development is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent throwing his weight behind this camp. Military readiness is now being paired with economic readiness aimed at moving beyond conventional sanctions toward a strategy of financial isolation and strangulation that could prove the most painful Iran has faced since the war began. The movement of the aircraft carrier George Washington toward the Middle East to replace the Abraham Lincoln confirms that the Pentagon is not preparing to disengage. Hegseth’s declaration that the US Navy can maintain the blockade of Iran indefinitely puts the military instrument at the service of economic strangulation. Bessent, for his part, is promising unprecedented economic measures. These are not signals of managing the end of the war, but of an attempt to change its terms. Bessent has a legislative foundation on which to build. The Senate has overwhelmingly approved the sanctions legislation associated with Lindsey Graham targeting Russia and Iran, while a battle awaits it in the House. Its significance extends beyond Iran itself to the countries and entities that provide Tehran with financial and commercial lifelines. China sits at the heart of this equation, not only because of its economic ties with Iran, but because pressure on Beijing transforms American sanctions from a direct blockade into a blockade of Iran’s escape routes from that blockade. The broader economic plan is also moving toward targeting the unconventional mechanisms Tehran uses to circumvent the financial system, including cryptocurrencies, networks of intermediaries, companies, and front entities. The objective is not simply to add more names to sanctions lists. It is to reduce Iran’s ability to move money, gain access to it, and deploy it to finance the state, the Revolutionary Guard, and its networks abroad. China will be the hardest test. Excessive American pressure on Beijing carries strategic costs for US-Chinese relations, but exempting China from the equation would hollow out a significant part of the strangulation strategy. The message Washington seeks to convey to Beijing is that continuing to rescue Iran economically can no longer be separated from America’s confrontation with Tehran, particularly after Iran refused to give Trump what he needs to justify a return to negotiations. More important than sanctions is the continuation of the naval blockade of Iranian ports. Any breach in that blockade will serve the Revolutionary Guard’s strategy in the Strait of Hormuz. Any American willingness to lift it will be read in Tehran as evidence that holding the global economy hostage to the strait succeeded in forcing the American president to yield. Lifting the blockade in exchange for Iranian promises would therefore hand the Islamic Republic back the very leverage Washington is trying to wrest from it. Iran is not in the position of a victor capable of imposing its terms, but it has demonstrated an ability to obstruct and to prevent the United States from converting its military superiority into political victory. The paradox is that a war that did not begin over the Strait of Hormuz has become hostage to its fate, while the issues the confrontation was originally launched to address have been deferred. Iran will signal that it is ready to resume negotiations. It may try to revive the memorandum of understanding in which the Witkoff-Kushner-Vance camp invested so heavily. The problem is that this memorandum has become something of a trap for Trump, because it allows Tehran to manage the clock without relinquishing its nuclear program, missiles, drones, or proxies, while presenting a partial opening of Hormuz as though it were a strategic concession. Iran’s battle is not confined to diplomacy. The Revolutionary Guard is fighting in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen to preserve the geopolitical architecture it has built over decades. In Iraq, the Quds Force clings to armed factions as instruments of influence and decision-making, confronting attempts by the state to reclaim its authority and rebuild its Arab relationships, including with Saudi Arabia. Iran-aligned weapons in Iraq are not a footnote in Tehran’s strategy; they constitute one of the regime’s own lines of defense. In Lebanon, the battle is more direct. The Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah are working to prevent the state from establishing a monopoly over arms and to obstruct a process that could consolidate Lebanese sovereignty and lead to negotiations with Israel under American sponsorship and with Arab and European support. Keeping Hezbollah underground does not necessarily save it. It may instead drive it toward a fate resembling that of the Houthis, when a proxy becomes an instrument of attrition and ultimately fuel for confrontation. Yemen is the most dangerous test. The Houthis possess an Iranian arsenal capable of threatening navigation through Bab el-Mandeb, and they have demonstrated again this week their ability to strike ships. If they succeed in closing the strait or severely disrupting it, the Trump administration will face a decision sanctions cannot answer: Will the United States use its military power to keep the passage open, or allow Iran to replicate the Hormuz experience at Bab el-Mandeb? This is where the illusion that diplomacy alone can manage the confrontation collapses. The record of the Witkoff-Kushner team on Iran, Gaza, and Ukraine offers little persuasive evidence that partial deals produce strategic solutions. Kushner’s expected visit to Israel and Egypt will officially focus on Gaza, but Israel will inevitably want to know which direction Trump intends to take in the next phase of the Iran war. Time is also pressing on the American president domestically. Congress’s return from its summer recess will bring the war, its costs, and Iran policy back to the center of the political battle, while the midterm elections approach and Republicans need a strategy they can explain to American voters. The image of a divided administration and a president oscillating between decisive action and a deal has become a political liability, not merely a foreign-policy problem. The camp that sees no realistic prospect of a genuine deal with Iran over the next few months has the upper hand today. Scott Bessent’s role has therefore grown beyond the Treasury Department. His task is to provide Trump with an exit from negotiations that yielded him no victory and transform that departure into a pressure strategy the president can present as a decision of strength rather than an admission of failure. The Gulf states prefer economic strangulation to another destructive military war, and understandably so. But they do not make the American decision. Donald Trump alone decides whether the blockade continues or is lifted, whether pressure expands or contracts, and whether force is used or withheld. He cannot hide indefinitely behind the advice or objections of allies, nor behind the promises of intermediaries. Iran is betting on his volatility. The deal-making camp is betting on his attraction to declaring a quick victory. The national security team is betting on his ability, this time, to resist both temptations. The test is not how many new sanctions are imposed or how many aircraft carriers are deployed. The test is whether Trump turns economic and military pressure into a coherent strategy – or once again gives the Revolutionary Guard the time it needs to turn negotiations into an instrument for exhausting the United States rather than exhausting Tehran. Read more: Erdogan on the AK Party’s quarter-century transformation: Exclusive to Al Arabiya English Has Iran defeated the Gulf states? How I read the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement Advertisement Advertisement