A ground war in Iran would carry high costs with little strategic return. With oil flows vulnerable and escalation risks growing, the US faces limited options and no clear path to resolution.

A ground attack on Iran, including occupation of Kharg Island or areas along the coast, will not achieve results commensurate with the likely cost in terms of US lives and energy prices. (It also poses risks to the infrastructure and oil facilities of the Arab states that they find unacceptable – although that has been an incidental US and Israeli concern throughout the conflict.)

Cargoes transiting the Strait of Hormuz without Iranian approval will remain sufficiently subject to attack or interdiction by Iran for those cargoes to be un-insurable. There is no military solution to that issue.

The Iranians are convinced they have a higher pain threshold than the United States. They have not lost the will to fight. They probably believe time is on their side. They know that geography certainly is.

Economic pressure on Iran, including loss of oil revenue and key infrastructure, is unlikely to produce strategic benefits in the short time Trump needs the fuel crisis to end. Meanwhile, allowing oil to be exported (mostly because the US has more at stake in its relations with China and other North Asian countries than it has in defeating Iran) will provide much-needed revenue to the Iranians, either through oil sales or through tolls, or both.

Logically, Trump would be more likely to seek an off-ramp than to escalate. Moreover, in addition to press leaks about not reopening the Strait, Trump has backed away from several of the key objectives he mentioned at the outset: regime change; preventing nuclear enrichment; ending ballistic missile capability; and cessation of support for Iranian allies and proxies. He is talking more about cost and burden-sharing. Lately he has taken to underlining the lack of ‘courage’ on the part of oil consuming countries, rather than threatening to go it alone (with Israel) against the Iranians.

Despite tactical losses, therefore, for the Iranians the vision of a strategic victory remains alive.

There are at least two key risks.

One is that the Iranians will strike so hard at non-military US targets in the Gulf (including regional offices and investments of major US companies) that Trump may feel obliged to respond against Iranian energy facilities. That would risk the escalation against Arab oil and other infrastructure, as well as closure of the Red Sea to oil cargoes, that both sides have tried to avoid so far.

Another is Iranian hubris. Especially under a more hardline regime, Iran will try to make the United States (and possibly its Gulf partners such as the UAE, and also Israel) pay a high price for ending the war.

The Iranians believe they are in a better position than Trump to set the terms for ending the conflict. It is likely they aspire to achieve an enduring reset of the thinking behind the strategic architecture of the region in the minds of both the United States and the Arab countries of the region.

But more tangible demands will certainly be presented, including for guarantees against Israeli attacks, an end to sanctions and possibly compensation. And no agreement is likely without considerable US pressure on Israel to accept the outcomes Trump is willing to endorse.

If the demands set by the Iranian side are too high, and with time running out, Trump may yet decide to raise the stakes, including by focusing again on destroying Iranian energy infrastructure, with the dire consequences that would produce.