Gulf Conflict Must End in Negotiated Compromise as Military and Economic Pressure Stalls, Analysis Shows

The ongoing military confrontation in the Gulf involving the United States, Israel, and Iran is unfolding as an unconventional conflict that cannot be resolved through total military victory, making a negotiated compromise inevitable. According to an assessment by Samir Habashneh, a Jordanian politician and former interior minister, neither Washington nor Tel Aviv has realized its initial strategic aims, while Tehran shows no signs of capitulation despite mounting regional costs.

Historically, major wars conclude under one of two primary scenarios. The first involves an overwhelming victory where a defeated power is forced to accept unconditional terms dictated by the victor, as demonstrated by the Allied triumphs in the First and Second World Wars. Alternatively, conflicts end through mutual exhaustion under a framework of "no victor and no vanquished," in which both combatants commit their full capabilities without achieving a decisive breakthrough and ultimately settle to preserve core interests.

The protracted Iran-Iraq War serves as a prominent modern example of a settlement driven by mutual depletion. That eight-year conflict concluded without either government fulfilling its core strategic objectives, as Baghdad failed in its ambition to annex Arabistan, and Tehran proved unable to dismantle the ruling Baath Party regime in Iraq.

A review of modern American military engagements indicates a recurring pattern where vast military superiority has failed to yield intended political goals. While the United States has avoided outright destruction on the battlefield, its declared war objectives have repeatedly remained unfulfilled across several major international interventions over recent decades.

In the Vietnam War, the United States suffered the loss of nearly 60,000 military personnel before signing the Paris peace accords to secure an exit. That conflict concluded with a decisive Vietnamese victory that led to the reunification of the country strictly on Vietnamese terms, symbolized by the historic evacuation of American personnel by helicopter from Saigon.

A similar trajectory marked the US intervention in Afghanistan, where years of intensive aerial bombardment ended with an abrupt and chaotic evacuation from Kabul airport. Furthermore, the 2003 invasion of Iraq ended up inadvertently advancing Iranian regional influence, effectively handing Tehran the geopolitical foothold in Baghdad that it had failed to secure during its eight-year war with Iraq.

The current Gulf confrontation departs significantly from these established historical frameworks. An initial phase of the US-Israeli campaign against Iran lasted just under two weeks with the explicit objective of dismantling the Iranian nuclear programme. However, the operation halted abruptly following a directive from the US president, leading American warships to withdraw and Israeli aircraft to leave the airspace over Tehran without discharging their payloads.

Although both sides subsequently claimed victory, the primary military objective of neutralizing Iran’s nuclear infrastructure was never achieved. Months of tense quiet followed until major hostilities reignited without warning, precisely when American and Iranian diplomats were engaged in Omani-mediated negotiations scheduled to resume the following day.

That second wave of continuous round-the-clock bombardment by US naval forces and Israeli combat aircraft over Iranian cities was also paused suddenly. The theater has since devolved into an intermittent war characterized by recurring threats and tit-for-tat exchanges, where every American strike is met with an Iranian counterstrike in a contest resembling a cockfight.

While Iranian counter-operations may generate comparatively less destructive impact on the battlefield, they illustrate that Tehran's political resolve and defensive capabilities remain intact. Meanwhile, Israel has largely been kept aside from this immediate direct exchange of military wills between Washington and Tehran.

Alongside military operations, US President Donald Trump has maintained an economic blockade and introduced what he characterized as unprecedented and devastating sanctions against the Islamic Republic. However, economic restrictions are far from novel for Iran, which has operated under extensive international sanctions regimes for more than forty years.

Comparisons are often drawn between the current measures against Iran and the international blockade imposed on Iraq following its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. That embargo resulted in catastrophic humanitarian consequences, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths from severe shortages of medicine and food while forcing ordinary citizens to sell personal assets to survive everyday life.

Yet, Iran’s geographic and geopolitical reality is fundamentally distinct from 1990s Iraq. Iraq was a smaller nation hemmed in by hostile neighbors such as Syria and Iran, with its sole maritime lifeline through the Jordanian port of Aqaba tightly restricted. In contrast, Iran is geographically several times larger and shares extensive, non-hostile borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Iraq, the latter effectively serving as an open conduit for cross-border commerce.

In addition, Iran commands approximately 700 kilometers of coastline along the Caspian Sea, giving it direct maritime access to regional partners, most notably Russia. Given these strategic terrestrial corridors and strong diplomatic relationships, economic blockades and limited military strikes are unlikely to force Iranian capitulation, leaving a negotiated compromise as the only realistic conclusion to the Gulf war.