What if America ‘loses’ the Iran war?

The fact that the joint US-Israeli attack on Iran has not gone to plan is by now patently obvious – most clearly in President Trump’s insistent pleas with European allies to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Another indication is Tehran’s continued ability to conduct long-range missile and drone strikes, apparently with some precision, as far as Israel. 

Any chance that US planners might’ve thought they had to knock Iran out with a brief aerial Blitz, it now seems to have slipped away as the war settles into the familiar pattern of a long, arduous confrontation with time arguably running in Iran’s favour. Indeed, like the Taliban before them in the Afghan war, the Iranians may quip at the Americans that “you have all the clocks but we have all the time”. 

One ticking pressure on the US is the economic damage from the closure of the Strait. Another is the expenditure of munitions and (temporary?) redeployment of resources from other theatres, such as Marines and missile defence batteries pulled from the Indo-Pacific. And a third is simply the inherent dynamic of modern warfare in a networked world, where the enemy begins adapting and improvising increasingly effectively, and where support from its own allies – Russia and China in this case – begins to tell as the weeks and months go by. Then there are other assets like the Houthis or rumoured terrorist sleeper cells located in the West that Iran hasn’t yet fully activated and which presumably are being kept in reserve for escalation management.

None of this means that the US-Israeli campaign has already definitively failed anymore than it could be said of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to have failed because the initial drive to Kyiv was repulsed in March 2022. In both cases the situation, at present, is indecisive. In both cases, arguably, the attacker is now unlikely to win outright by the full surrender of the other side. But in both cases the attacker may yet – in theory – obtain some kind of “peace deal” which can be presented at home, by both sides, as a partial victory. 

There is much discussion in the public space on the question of US war aims, exit strategies and of course ways to actually “win” the conflict and bring the Iranians to heel. The best theory of victory available so far is simply pulverising the vast majority of Iran’s war-making capacity, from weapons and ordnance stocks to all significant military infrastructure from HQs to bases and to armament production plants. This really would set Iranian military power back decades, and in theory it could still happen, at least to a strategically-significant degree. 

But hardly any of the mainstream conversation really seems to engage with the worst-case scenario in which America might actually lose the war in a clear way which is perceived as such by the whole world. Distressing as it may be for America’s allies and friends – given that this would be a disaster for the entire West – the possibility of American defeat in Iran should be taken into account, if for no other reason than to properly understand what’s at stake so that governments can make informed policy decisions.

What would “defeat” mean in this case, then? Notionally, it would involve an outcome that leaves Iran heavily battered but still standing as a missile and drone power, keeping its nuclear programme, and with demonstrated control over the Strait. In this version of the future, for some reason – political, economic or military – at some point the US president decides to cut his losses and pull out of the war whether or not the Strait is fully reopened, and while Iran can still strike at least across the Gulf. Let’s just assume this is the White House (or indeed Mar-a-Lago) decision.

However, this cannot be done unilaterally: If US forces simply stand down and stop engaging the Iranians, there would be nothing stopping Tehran from continuing to block the Hormuz and bomb the Gulf states as a way to exert its power over the Arabs and force concessions including reparations. This course of action would be absurd. So if the American goal at that point is to actually stop the war altogether, Washington will obviously require Tehran’s assent, i.e. a deal that also makes Iranian forces stand down.

Any deal with an Iran that remains an active threat, still firing missiles and drones (even if just sporadically), perhaps still harassing Strait traffic, and still formally in possession of its enriched uranium stockpile, will be widely seen as a “framework of defeat” for the US. The actual terms of the agreement may add to that perception given that Iran will likely request a significant or even complete US withdrawal from its Gulf bases. “We agree to stop only if you leave”, would likely be the IRGC message. A US president under heavy pressure to terminate the conflict may have no better option than to negotiate on that basis; all alternatives (escalation, open-ended war, etc), at that point, might be worse. 

Staying with this purely theoretical scenario for a while longer, let us consider the colossal implications of such an outcome. The Gulf would come under Iranian dominance, with Chinese (and Russian) backing. In the Pacific, US inability to break a much weaker Iran would change deterrence calculations and likely persuade Taiwan that peaceful reunification is the only rational way forward. Chinese power would replace America’s across the region perhaps without a single shot being fired. 

For Europe, the consequences of an American defeat would depend on US politics in the aftermath of the Iran war. The backlash against foreign involvement could be so strong as to accelerate US isolationism and focus on the Americas, thus hastening perhaps even a de facto US exit from NATO. Coupled with the panic and demoralisation which would ensue among Europeans, the new situation would likely make the Ukrainian war effort unsustainable – allowing Russia to impose harder peace terms and perhaps achieve a new Russian sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.

A more hopeful case can also be made for the eventuality in which a new, more traditional political administration takes over the White House. Instead of further retreating from the world, a future president might look for ways to repair the damage and compensate for the presumed Iran “mishap”. Doubling down on US support for Europe and Ukraine, to keep Russia at bay and shore up the transatlantic strategic space as a base for a future re-assertion of US power across the Middle East, and indeed to backstop Israel, would make grand-strategic sense and thus be rather likely. The main risk with all this, though, is that the sheer scale of the instability and strife that would engulf the period of transition from one US political order to the other, and the ultimate uncertainty about the outcome, will create the conditions not only for major economic disruptions but also for further international conflict. 

What about the domestic scene? As suggested above, the key consequence of any form of US “defeat” in Iran will primarily play out in domestic politics – in America but also in Europe. If the Iran campaign goes the way of Iraq or Afghanistan – i.e. if it comes to be seen as an incredibly foolish, expensive mistake – then this will likely collapse not just Trump but the entire MAGA movement as well as its overseas copycats, irrespective of how they’ve positioned themselves on the war. Only one narrative will emerge from the potential political ruins of the attack on Iran: That MAGA-style populism ultimately means only chaos engineered by demagogues who don’t know what they’re doing. But if anyone thinks that this would open the way for a return to sensible “centrist” politics, think again: It’s far more likely that the pendulum will swing towards more extreme forms of politics as large majorities of people begin seek radical solutions to chronic problems.

A perceived American “defeat” in this Iran war is mere speculation at this point. But “victory” is also not clearly in view either – at least not yet – and the US is now at a point where it feels compelled to ask for help from allies to finish the job. So thinking through some of the potential consequences of the worst-case scenario might focus the minds of policy-makers, certainly when it comes to decisions as to whether and how to support the US-Israeli effort.

Irrespective of higher questions of the war’s legality or strategic wisdom, its reality – the fact that it is now underway – is the only thing that matters for practical policy purposes. However it was begun, a war must be fought to victory, either full or partial; the only alternative is accepting the consequences of defeat. In this case, as explained above, defeat for the US would be ruinous not only for its own power in the world – with security and economic impacts long-term – but it would also put in motion a chain of events that could devastate Europe’s future as well. 

It may not be “fair” to be faced with the prospect of being dragged into America’s war, but weak players are often left only with bad options when the music stops and crunch times arrive. The path to a favourable outcome in Iran for the US and Israel is now narrowing considerably. If it begins to vanish, it will quickly become clear that “their problem” is in fact everyone else’s problem as well, and hard choices about allied involvement will need to be considered. Let us hope it won’t come to that. But let us also prepare.