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Washington Wants Out. Iran Isn’t Opening the Door

Gary Wilson

Eleven days into Operation Epic Fury, Washington faces a problem it created for itself: how to exit a war it cannot win.

Trump’s advisers are privately urging him to find an off-ramp. The Wall Street Journal reported March 9 that officials close to the president are urging him to declare success and begin a controlled withdrawal before the economic and political costs rise further.

Trump’s job approval now stands at minus 10 points, according to a new poll by The Hill–and that survey was conducted before the full weight of energy price increases had registered with voters.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said March 10 that his country was prepared to continue fighting as long as necessary. Negotiations with Washington, he said, were no longer on the agenda.

There is the problem, in plain language. The administration that launched this war needs an exit. The country it attacked is not providing one.

The regime-change war that didn’t change the regime

Trump framed the war as a chance to overthrow Iran’s government from the beginning. In an address broadcast shortly after the Feb. 28 strikes, he urged protesters to seize power, telling them that “the hour of freedom is at hand” and that once the bombing was finished, they should take control of the state.

The protesters he meant included monarchist opposition figures such as Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah, who had been calling for the fall of the Islamic Republic and seeking Western backing.

Trump repeated the point days later. In a March 5 interview with Axios, he declared that Mojtaba Khamenei–the late supreme leader’s son–was “unacceptable” as a successor and said he should be personally involved in choosing Iran’s next leader.

The war’s opening move pointed in the same direction. The CIA had spent months tracking Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei before the strike that assassinated him Feb. 28, along with several other senior officials.

Iran’s Assembly of Experts named Mojtaba Khamenei anyway, amending the constitution to permit his appointment.

The exit ramp requires Trump to declare victory. The regime-change war did not change the regime. Those two facts are not reconcilable.

A fractured command

The clearest sign of strategic incoherence is not what Trump says in public–it is the visible friction within the U.S. state apparatus.

On March 6, only hours after Trump told reporters the campaign would end “soon,” a Pentagon-run social media account posted a chilling graphic of a missile launch under the words “No Mercy,” with the caption: “We Have Only Just Begun to Fight”.

This wasn’t a simple communication breakdown. It reflects a tactical split inside Washington. While the president is searching for a political off-ramp to stabilize the domestic economy and contain the oil shock, Pentagon messaging points in the opposite direction, signaling that the campaign could expand. For them, the assassination of Iran’s leadership was not a “surgical strike” to force a deal, but the opening salvo of a long-term regional war to reassert U.S. imperialism by force.

The split emerged after the opening plan failed. Washington’s strategy was a decapitation strike: assassinate Iran’s leadership, cripple its missile forces, keep the Strait of Hormuz open and force a rapid political collapse. That did not happen. Iran continued striking U.S. bases across West Asia. Shipping through the Strait was disrupted almost immediately. Oil briefly surged toward $120 a barrel.

Only then did Trump begin publicly insisting the war would end “very soon” or was already “very complete.” The statements helped calm markets and signal that the conflict would not become a prolonged disruption of global oil flows. Pentagon messaging pointed in the opposite direction, emphasizing that operations were continuing and that further strikes remained possible.

That contradiction reflects the new reality inside Washington. The war itself was not the point of dispute. The argument began only after the plan for a rapid victory failed. Trump is now trying to restore confidence that the Strait can reopen and the oil shock will ease. The Pentagon’s public line points the other way: The war is still active, and escalation remains on the table.

The call to Moscow

On March 9, Trump called Vladimir Putin to discuss the Iran war. The call was initiated by Washington.

The Kremlin’s readout said Putin presented proposals for a “quick political and diplomatic settlement,” aimed at preventing the war from spreading and lifting sanctions on Iran.

That Washington is now consulting Moscow for a diplomatic exit is itself a measure of how the war has gone. Washington launched this campaign with the expectation that overwhelming military force would quickly suppress Iran’s missile capabilities and prevent Iran from shutting the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has struck more than 27 bases across West Asia where U.S. troops are deployed. U.S. bases in the region have taken sustained, serious hits. The U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia has been abandoned.

The administration told the public Iran was running out of missiles. Iran’s IRGC aerospace commander announced March 9 that from this point forward the IRGC would launch missiles only with warheads exceeding one ton–and that the frequency, scale and scope of strikes would also increase.

Iran has also shifted its targeting emphasis, a senior Iranian official told Drop Site News, reducing strikes on most U.S. bases in Arab countries while expanding operations against Israel. The official said Iran’s military leadership regards the first phase of its campaign–degrading U.S. radar systems and depleting interceptor stockpiles–as largely complete.

The Oman deception

Iran’s refusal to negotiate does not exist in a vacuum. It is a direct response to a calculated act of deception.

On Feb. 27–the day before strikes began–Oman mediators announced a diplomatic breakthrough. U.S. and Iranian officials, it was reported, had reached a tentative agreement. The following morning, U.S. and Israeli aircraft launched nearly 900 strikes in the first 12 hours of Operation Epic Fury.

Tehran has not forgotten the sequence. The “breakthrough” was announced while strikes were already being loaded. Iran concluded that Washington negotiated in bad faith, used the diplomatic process as cover, and launched a war it had already decided to fight. Araghchi’s March 10 declaration that negotiations are no longer on the agenda is a recognition that under U.S. imperialism, treaties are merely tactical pauses in a permanent war of aggression.

Oil and the political clock

Before the strikes, Brent was trading at about $73.

Oil markets panicked in the first days of the war. Brent crude surged as high as $120 a barrel before retreating after Trump claimed the fighting would end “very soon.” By March 10, Brent had fallen back to about $90 a barrel.

There’s still a $17 increase. It is the war premium. It is already embedded in fuel, freight, food and fertilizer costs workers across the United States and around the world are absorbing right now. Diesel has risen 22% since the campaign began. Shipping costs from Asia to Europe have jumped roughly 45%.

Workers filling their gas tanks will not experience $90 oil as a diplomatic achievement. They will experience it as a price increase with no end in sight. Kuwait has said it may halt oil production within days because export routes through the Gulf are disrupted and storage tanks are filling.

Oil facilities shut down under wartime conditions do not restart quickly. The longer they stay offline, the longer the restart takes. Higher oil prices spread the cost of the war through the entire economy.

The exit that isn’t there

The Wall Street Journal’s account of internal deliberations captures the trap precisely. Some Trump administration officials said that as long as Iran continued attacking U.S. bases and regional targets, the United States could not easily withdraw. Trump himself said he was prepared to keep targeting Iran if the country continued blocking the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran has said clearly it will keep blocking the Strait until attacks stop. The attacks cannot stop until Iran stops blocking the Strait. Washington launched this war with a plan for how it would end. Eleven days later, that plan is not working.

Inside the administration, the argument is now over how to proceed. Pentagon officials and senators who backed the war are pressing for escalation. Trump has political interests in ending it. Iran has no incentive to help either side.

Washington launched a regime-change war. Eleven days later, Iran has a new supreme leader and its missile forces are escalating in tonnage and frequency. The strategy that was supposed to deliver a quick victory has produced the opposite: a war that Washington cannot easily end.

The war was Washington’s choice. Iran has set the terms for ending it.

[Gary Wilson is a retired computer network engineer and long-time socialist agitator currently working as co-editor of Struggle-La Lucha. Courtesy: Struggle La Lucha, a US based socialist publication.]

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Mojtaba’s Message to Trump: ‘Bring It On!’

M.K. Bhadrakumar

March 15, 2026: There is an English proverb, ‘The darkest hours are just before the dawn.’ Maybe, hope should linger on that the cruel, senseless bombing of Iran by the US and Israel is leading to what strategists call the ‘endgame’.

War and peace are often two sides of the same coin in such complex situations. History is replete with the phenomenon of an acceleration of the war just when the aggressors realised that the war cannot be won. Some sequencing of the strange happenings this past week may be in order.

It all began last Monday late in the evening when US President Donald Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin with the intent to seek the latter’s help to bring about a ceasefire in the Gulf war. Separately, Trump told the media that he’d be “willing to talk with ‌Iran, but that depends on the terms”. Trump claimed the war was going to “end soon”.

As he put it, “We took a little excursion because we felt we had to do that to get rid of some people. And I think you’ll see it’s going to be a short-term excursion. I think the war is very complete, pretty much… We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough. We go forward more determined than ever to achieve ultimate victory.”

Trump was effectively reacting to the formal announcement in Tehran that the Assembly of Experts elected Ayatollah Mojtaba Khomeini as Iran’s new Leader.

Several hours before Trump called him, Putin had already congratulated Mojtaba on his appointment. Interestingly, Putin was the first foreign leader to congratulate Mojtaba. Moscow must have had a ‘premonition’, thanks to the dense security exchanges with Tehran.

Putin’s congratulatory message was exceptionally warm and friendly and had a rare personal touch. In all probability, Putin had occasion to meet Mojtaba during his visits to Tehran. Importantly, Putin went out of the way to state, “On my part, I want to confirm our unwavering support of Tehran and our solidarity with our Iranian friends. Russia has been and will remain the Islamic Republic’s reliable partner.”

All in all, Monday’s developments raised expectations that there could be light at the end of the tunnel.

Quite possibly, by the time Trump’s call came through, Kremlin would have been aware that the same day, Washington was also in touch with Muscat to relay a message to Tehran for resumption of talks.

In fact, on Tuesday, Ali Larijani, Iran’s national security official set out for Doha. Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi wrote on X that “we discussed recent developments, especially the Iran-U.S. talks. Regional peace and security is our priority, and we urge restraint and wise compromise.”

After receiving the letter from Washington, Larijani also met with Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq for nearly three hours. Neither Iran nor Oman offered any details on what was discussed in Larijani’s meeting, which were obviously very substantive and profound. The intriguing part is whether Larijani had any mandate to negotiate. He possibly didn’t have such a mandate — although he’s favourably regarded by Americans as a ‘westernist’.

Larijani has political ambitions but lacks popular support. Basically, the US strategy will be to create dissensions within the Iranian power structure taking advantage of any power vacuum.

At any rate, Mojtaba’s defiant statement on Thursday needs to be understood. Mojtaba, who has the solid backing of the IRGC did not visualise a normalisation with the US. The core of Mojtaba’s message to Washington was ‘Bring it on!’ Tehran has since added to its demands war reparations and international security guarantee (involving big powers) against any more US-Israeli adventurism.

To be sure, Trump is furious, as the trajectory of the war is in a state of Zugzwang (being forced to make a move), as chess players call it. Trump and Netanyahu stare at two choices — retreat in humiliation and concede Tehran’s demands — recognition of its rights, reparations, and binding security guarantees — or perish in a quagmire.

It may seem such a high bar hopelessly complicates diplomacy but this is where the old English proverb gives hope that these darkest hours could presage that dawn is approaching. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has since stated that the Strait of Hormuz is open to everyone except the United States and its allies. That is to say, it is no longer a global issue, but strictly intended to punish the two notorious aggressors. Of course, that leaves the Americans and Israelis isolated. Clearly, there are no takers for Trump’s call to send warships to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Araghchi also signalled that there are currently no concrete initiatives aimed at ending the conflict with the US and Israel. Meanwhile, Araghchi separately also urged BRICS to wet its toes in the running stream; he held phone conversations four times in the past ten days with his Indian counterpart S. Jaishankar, who also spoke later with his Saudi and Emirati counterparts.

Jaishankar since disclosed that Delhi is holding consultations with other BRICS members (read Russia and China) at the level of the ‘sherpas’ who are preparing the BRICS Summit to be hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi later this year.

Without doubt, Russia has taken an active role in support of Iran. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s conversation (“substantive exchange of views”) with the Foreign Minister of Oman Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, who mediated the US-Iran talks in Geneva, must be noted, especially the two top diplomats’s “emphasis on finding ways to bring about the swiftest possible end to the military confrontation”.

The Russian readout underscored, “They reiterated their position in favour of preventing escalation and immediately returning to a political and diplomatic settlement. The parties specifically emphasised the unacceptability of involving third countries, first and foremost the Gulf States, in the conflict which is fraught with the risk of wider military operations.”

It concluded, “Lavrov highlighted Russia’s willingness to assist in identifying compromise-based peaceful solutions founded on respect for the principle of sovereignty and equality of all states, as well as other foundational norms of international law.”

Presumably, back channels are working between Moscow and Washington. There have been media reports also that Mojtaba is in Moscow apparently to receive medical treatment.

Aside Trump’s mood swings, the last serious word from the White House is that the US administration expects the war to be over in up to six weeks. Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council at the White House told Fox News, “It’s not going to last for months. President Trump’s team has briefed us that it’s going to be four to six weeks, beginning two weeks ago, and that we’re ahead of schedule.”

Meanwhile, trust the IRGC to keep hammering Israel and teach it a hard lesson by inflicting as much destruction on it as possible while Tel Aviv’s capacity to interdict incoming Iranian missiles is reportedly getting depleted.

Amidst all this, Pope Leo XIV, in his Sunday noon blessing, has demanded a ceasefire in his strongest comments to date, directly addressing the US and Israel. The Pope said, “On behalf of the Christians of the Middle East and all women and men of good will, I appeal to those responsible for this conflict, cease fire so that avenues for dialogue may be reopened. Violence can never lead to the justice, stability and peace that the people are waiting for.”

Pope’s appeal will resonate in the MAGA camp and make it clear that this is not a “religious war” — rejecting Netanyahu’s narrative. Trump cannot ignore it. Trump hinted yesterday he “may delay” the China visit at the end of the month.

[Ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar served the Indian Foreign Service for more than 29 years. Courtesy: Indian Punchline, the author’s blog.]

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Iran-US Conflict Turns into Prolonged Attrition

M.K. Bhadrakumar

March 13, 2026: The stunning message from the first public message on Thursday by Iran’s new Leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei is that “The Strait of Hormuz must remain closed.” In seven words, he threw the gauntlet at President Trump belying all expectations that he will opt for continuity in policy. Not only is Trump in no position to decide a timeline for the war but Mojtaba effectively announced the next phase — a war of attrition. “The will of the people is to continue effective defence”, he stated.

In sharp contrast with Trump’s style of dictating Americans’ information diet, a significant part of Mojtaba’s statement was devoted to the central role of the Iranian people. For Iran, this war is not an “excursion”; nor is the “win” measured with coffee spoons as in sports, where the score declares the victor in a timeline.

CNN’S Nick Walsh began his brilliant essay today with these words: “The bravado and gamer-style videos of the US government… belie the extraordinary seriousness of an intractable moment: how far do the Americans have to go, not just to declare ‘we won’, as Trump did Wednesday,… but to make Iran behave as if it has suffered a defeat?

“Trump is now caught in the oldest trap of modern warfare — believing a swift, surgical military operation will yield quick, enduring political faults… Whatever force a military fails or succeeds in applying at the start, the people it is attacking have greater commitment to defending their lands and hones.”

Indeed, the world is taking note — including India’s prime minister. After hanging out with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv three days before the attack on Iran and pledging, during a vainglorious speech at the Knesset, to be with him shoulder to shoulder in his forever wars with political Islam, Modi had a rude awakening and dialled up President Masoud Pezeshkian yesterday urging peace, even as Iranian missiles tore into the heart of the state of Israel and Netanyahu went into hiding.

From Mojtaba’s statement, his strong ties with the Axis of Resistance, the IRGC and his particularly close relationship with Hezbollah, his ascendance signals a pivotal moment, marking the confrontation entering a phase of attrition, shifting from temporary military escalation to a sustained pattern of operations, deterrence and endurance.

Mojtaba’s pointed reference to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is the salience of the new phase to hurt the US economy where it hurts most. But he added, “One point I must emphasise is that, in any case, we will obtain compensation from the enemy. If it refuses, we will take from its assets to the extent we deem appropriate, and if that is not possible, we will destroy its assets to the same extent.”

The concept of justice and resistance that gave underpinning to the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution is roaring back to the centre stage. Mojtaba’s vision combines traditional Shia narratives, anti-imperialist narratives, and grassroots mobilisation. The three central tenets of the resistance are the struggle against “imperialist arrogance”, cultural resistance, and autonomy.

Lest we forget, Mojtaba played a key role in the election of Mahmoud Ahmedijead as president (2005-2013) who not only championed a conservative, populist “principlist” agenda that emphasised Islamic values, but aggressively defended the country’s nuclear program. Make no mistake, if push comes to shove, under Mojtaba’s watch, Iran will not hesitate to take the trajectory toward the atomic bomb.

Trump’s art of the deal laced with deception has become distinctly passé. The big question is, whether Mojtaba will want to inherit at all the framework agreement negotiated at Geneva in which Tehran displayed an incredible attitude of compromise.

Let us run a fine comb through the accord negotiated at Geneva. Oman’s foreign minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi in a landmark interview later with the CBS News’ Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan, revealed the the contours of the breakthrough reached at Geneva:

• Iran will never, ever have a nuclear material that will create a bomb — a pledge anchored on zero stockpiling, making the enrichment argument itself irrelevant;
• Iran’s willingness to agree to zero accumulation, zero stockpiling, and full and comprehensive verification by the IAEA;
• Agreement that any enriched uranium will be down blended to the lowest level possible, to a neutral level, a natural level, which means converted into fuel — and that fuel will be irreversible; and,
• Full access to IAEA to sensitive sights like Isfahan, including for US inspectors at some point in the process.

In Minister Albusaidi’s assessment, “the big picture is that a deal is in our hand”, if only the negotiators are allowed to move forward to the technical talks scheduled for Vienna in the following week with the head of the IAEA; “there is really, really, a real chance here, a very historic opportunity to really crack this issue diplomatically.”

But history repeated itself. The US and Israel jointly launched an aggression against Iran the day after the Omani minister spoke with the decapitation of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. How could Mojtaba, who lost his father, mother, wife, sister, niece, and brother-in-law in the same attack — but escaped death after suffering injuries — possibly forget and forgive?

No doubt, Trump blew it by abjectly surrendering to Netanyahu’s burning desire to destroy Iran and erase it from the geopolitics of the Middle East. A war of attrition is the last thing Trump expected to happen. As days turn into weeks and America loses more planes, as the destruction of trillions of dollars worth military assets piles up, and dead bodies of soldiers return in ever greater numbers in coffins, Trump will have to answer some very difficult questions to save his presidency.

And, to be sure, Netanyahu will have to live in constant fear of retribution, too. Mojtaba pledged that Iran will never abandon its pursuit of justice for the blood of martyrs, and “revenge is not limited to the martyrdom of the revolutionary leader” — his father.

Mojtaba hinted at the possibility of opening new fronts. In his words, “There have also been studies regarding the opening of new fronts where the enemy has limited experience and is highly vulnerable. Activating these fronts will depend on the ongoing war situation and the interests of the country.”

In a defiant message Mojtaba added, “We consider the countries of the resistance front to be our best friends. The cause of resistance is an inseparable part of the values of the Islamic Revolution. The solidarity of these countries makes the path to breaking the Zionist plot shorter.”

[Ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar served the Indian Foreign Service for more than 29 years. Courtesy: Indian Punchline, the author’s blog.]