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Donald Trump said America was "keeping it the status quo" with Iran and declared the war with Tehran was "militarily, effectively over" in comments to the press on Monday.
If, by status quo, the president means the circumstances of the past few months, then he’d be referring to a Strait of Hormuz that remains heavily restricted, intermittent attacks on oil tankers, the indefinite presence of American aircraft carriers and warships in the Middle East, and a naval blockade of Iran’s ports.
Tehran’s security chief reaffirmed just days ago that he expects Washington to meet a series of Iranian demands before Hormuz is reopened, and Gulf energy infrastructure remains under threat.
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America’s war aims in Iran have never exactly been crystal clear, but, by almost any measure, the status quo looks suspiciously like failure. If you could go back to February and tell U.S. lawmakers—or indeed any American—that this is where we’d be after eight months, would anyone have considered it a price worth paying?
(Almost) Nobody Wants This
Commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains roughly 65 percent below prewar levels, according to UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), even as the U.S. continues to maintain a highly costly naval blockade of Iran. Ships are still being attacked; on Saturday, Iran's Revolutionary Guards claimed two oil tankers struck mines and caught fire, and UKMTO recorded a strike on a separate tanker over the weekend.
Ordinary Americans continue to pay the price—AAA figures for November 10 put gasoline at $3.98 a gallon and diesel at $6.16, roughly 30 and 65 percent higher respectively versus last November—but they’re not the only ones.
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The International Energy Agency now officially considers the Iran war the largest oil supply disruption in history, resulting in a wave of economic pain felt almost worldwide. According to European energy regulators, the conflict has added an estimated €18 billion to €33 billion to Europe's gas import bill, while Asian liquefied natural gas prices averaged almost 80 percent higher year-on-year between March and October.
Washington's Gulf allies aren't faring much better. Trump claims they would prefer America to refrain from launching further attacks on Iran, and who can blame them?
Energy exports form the bedrock of their economies, and plans to diversify away from hydrocarbon production rely on the Gulf’s reputation as a safe hub for international business and investment. Yet Saudi Arabia's vital East-West oil pipeline, which allows crude to bypass Hormuz, was attacked again on Monday, and Saudi air defenses were intercepting missiles launched by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels over Riyadh early Tuesday morning. Other Gulf states remain horribly exposed to attacks on their infrastructure. Absent a robust ceasefire agreement—which Iran has previously stipulated must include the Houthis—the "status quo" constitutes perpetual uncertainty.
Israel can at least point to the destruction of much of Iran's military infrastructure as a strategic gain, but for America and the rest of its allies, eight months of fighting have produced little other than misery.
Fold Your Hand
Someone might want to tell the Iranians that Trump considers them "militarily, effectively over."
The Islamic Republic has endured devastating airstrikes, the destruction of much of its conventional military infrastructure, the assassination of its supreme leader and other senior officials, and an extraordinarily punishing economic blockade. But Tehran knows nothing if not how to endure hardship.
Far from capitulating, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei reiterated last week that Washington must fully accept and implement seven conditions before the Strait of Hormuz can reopen. Those demands include lifting American sanctions and the ongoing blockade of Iranian ports, releasing frozen assets, withdrawing U.S. forces from the region, and even paying compensation for war damage.
Then on Monday, he delivered a social media post that could have easily belonged on the @realDonaldTrump Truth Social feed, were roles reversed.
"The war on Iran has already wrecked the U.S. government. But Washington flails like a desperate gambler. FOLD YOUR HAND. STOP manufacturing FAKE NEWS about imaginary talks. Stop denying the West Asian NEW ORDER. Time to SURRENDER to the seven conditions Iran has repeatedly set out," Rezaei wrote. Quite a turnaround from the UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER Trump vowed Tehran would experience in March.
As with the U.S. president, Rezaei’s social media tirades aren’t reflective of reality; Iran’s economy is suffering, its military has been badly damaged, and its demands remain unfulfilled. But the regime has survived, and after eight months of fighting, retains the means to dictate its own terms for peace and frustrate Washington.
Money for Nothing
All this comes at an extraordinary cost to the U.S., and more specifically, the Republican Party, which now appears to be eating its own.
Trump’s camp lost both chambers of Congress in a disastrous midterm election last week. The very next day, Vice President JD Vance openly blamed the Iran war for the defeat, an opinion with which Trump’s own son, Donald Jr., couldn’t resist exclaiming his agreement. On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was today forced to condemn an effort by fellow Republican Thomas Massie to impeach him as "sabotage."
Hegseth estimated that the Iran war had cost the U.S. $37.5 billion, excluding damage to American bases in the Gulf, at a congressional hearing in July. A more recent estimate from U.S. Central Command obtained by CBS News puts the price tag at $47.1 billion as of mid-October, still excluding base repairs.
As of last week, two American aircraft carriers and around 17 warships were operating in CENTCOM’s area of responsibility, according to an assessment by Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, a huge undertaking that the Congressional Budget Office reckons will cost between $2 billion and $3 billion every month that the standoff continues.
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This has implications beyond the bottom line: last week, the USS Theodore Roosevelt headed out of the Western Pacific toward the Middle East, just as China's newest aircraft carrier, Fujian, was deployed in the South China Sea, exposing a glaring gap in America's carrier presence in the region where Washington faces its most consequential strategic rival.
For now, the prospect of major strikes seems to be on hold as a group of mediators led by Qatar—whose share of global LNG exports collapsed from 20 percent to just 2 percent thanks to the Iran war—push for a diplomatic resolution.
But Tehran insists that Washington meet its conditions before talks can begin, and a military standoff with no clear end date is hardly an appealing prospect for American taxpayers—or a Congress that is no doubt set to become increasingly hostile to the president’s whims.
We may never be able to return to the status quo ante, but the state of affairs today is equally untenable.
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