Why the War in Iran Will Drag On

Ending wars is always much tougher than starting them because war is a fight to the death. All those dead people can’t have died in vain, right? People don’t negotiate with their killers. The sunk costs fallacy and escalation of commitment both explain exactly why wars are tough to terminate.

So the safe bet is: the War in Iran Will Drag On. There are many more reason for the war to drag on than sunk costs and escalation. It’s simply a matter of comparing competing objective interests to reach the obvious conclusion. Washington, Jerusalem, Tehran, Moscow, and Beijing are each running cost-benefit math on different timelines, and the overlap is slim. That’s why the war will drag on.

1. Israel’s Netanyahu wants Iran’s government gone, it’s nuclear program stopped and will do all in his own and Israel’s power to cripple Iran.

2. China, while it wants the war to end, also understands that the USA wasting munitions in Iran means those munitions might not be used against China.

3. Russia and Putin likewise know that the more the USA is tied up in Iran the less it will be able to aid Ukraine

4. Mid-term Elections: The many people who want Trump to fail want him to take a hard loss before the Mid-term elections this November. That’s only three months from now. It’s unlikely the Iran war will end victoriously for Trump in the next three months -- especially because he faces serious domestic opposition.

5. Iran, for it’s part, wants to extract a troll tax tariff on transit through the Strait of Hormuz. That will eventually prove unacceptable to every other country. Iran thinks it has the USA over a barrel. It does not. The USA does not need Iranian oil. Neither doe the PRC.

Start with Netanyahu. His incentives? Max out the damage: his political survival is tied to permanently degrading Iran’s capacity to threaten Israel.

Regime change in Iran isn’t a nice abstraction for Israelis: it’s life or death. Iran + Nukes = Israel - Jews. A simple, deadly, obvious calculus. Iran policy is the north star guiding Netanyahu and is what keeps his coalition intact. The Israelis, not just Netanyahu, will do anything to end Iran’s nuclear program. Assassinate scientists. Crater complexes. Foment rebellion. Every month the war goes on, Netanyahu he can point to another facility struck, another proxy destroyed, and kinetic sanction enforcement. Netanyahu is like a pitbull with a raw bone and will worry that bone till there’s no meat left. Ending early with half measures is a bigger risk to Netanyahu than continuing and absorbing international criticism. Consequently, Netanyahu’s bias is to escalate carefully and relentlessly to end at least the Iranian nuclear program and preferably the Iranian government. These are not nice or gentle people: did you think “Never Again” meant unicorns puppies and love?

Now look at Beijing. China publicly calls for stability, but in private? U.S. distraction benefits Beijing. Every Tomahawk fired in Iran isn’t held in reserve for the western Pacific. Every carrier group cycling through the Gulf is a carrier group not free to stage deterrence exercises in the South China Sea. Beijing does not want an oil super-spike that blows up global demand and slams its export machine, but a grinding conflict that ties down American ISR, munitions production, and diplomatic capacity serves a strategic purpose. The longer Washington is pulled into Iran the less energy of all sorts it can devote to the South China Sea and Taiwan to re-orient its force posture in Asia. So China’s stateed preference for peace is sincere but not their expected outcome. China will nudge toward de-escalation and will avoid meaningfully helping the U.S. achieve a clean, quick win that would free up attention that would focus on China.

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Moscow’s position is even more direct. A distracted America is an America slower to replenish Ukraine at scale, slower to coordinate European air defenses, and slower to push secondary sanctions against Russia If Washington gets forced into “choose your priority” budgeting, the Kremlin benefits. A drawn-out Iran fight that never quite tips into regional war pins the U.S. to a two-theater problem, which is precisely the strategic bind Russia wants. For Moscow, time is oxygen. A long war in Iran will likely distract the USA from Ukraine, although Ukraine would try to drive a coalition against Russia and Iran since those two states are cooperating more and more closely.

And as for the USA? Mid-term elections approach in just 3 months. An administration facing a contentious mid-term environment needs a “clean win” or, at minimum, the absence of a costly loss. Neither is likely on a ninety-day timeline against a state that specializes in asymmetric warfare. Iran doesn’t fight on Western PR cycles. It fights with deniability, proxies, drones, mines, and plausible-sounding negotiations that buy time. The White House can surge assets, posture force, and hit high-value nodes, but “victory” as a headline is impossible to guarantee fast, and any spike in casualties or prices will be weaponized at home. Which makes the politically rational choice a managed grind: contain, attrit, degrade, and message resilience, not finality.

As to Iran? Tehran wants to monetize geography and pain. The Iranian regime thinks it can exert power in the Strait of Hormuz and tax transit there at will. Iran’s government also understands its in a fight for survival and plays for endurance because it mistakenly believes the USA and PRC need Iranian oil and that Iran can effectively close the straits. Iran’s government thinks it can absorb strikes, regenerate capacity, outsource reprisals, and keep diplomacy muddy enough that escalation ladder rungs are always missing or slippery. It’s quite mistaken, but that mistake will likely take more than three months to reveal itself A long war suits Iran because time compounds uncertainty premiums on its enemies faster than on itself.

It is effectively a race between Iran causing economic pain to tilt the U.S. mid-term elections and the U.S.A. and Israel inflicting damage on Iran prior to those same elections.

Stack all those incentives, and you get stalemate by design, not accident. Israel can and will keep hitting Iran in any way it sees fit at any opportunity it has. Iran can keep regenerating and harassing though that is all. The U.S. can keep containing while arguing at home that it is preventing a broader catastrophe. China can keep urging calm in public while quietly taking cold comfort in Washington’s wasteful war that burns American munitions. Russia will keep grinding in Ukraine while using the Iran war to distract D.C. Each actor gets just enough of what it wants to justify the conflict’s continuation — until the second Wednesday in November. And then, expect all hell to break loose both on the markets and on the battlefield.

Energy is the pacing function. Nobody at scale wants Brent sitting at 150 for a season because that torches consumer demand, shreds margins, and forces central banks into ugly choices. But 90 to 110 with volatility? That’s the uncomfortable middle where everyone can still run their script. Israel gets funding and can keep striking. Iran keeps collecting a risk premium for existing. The U.S. keeps arguing that it is managing, not losing. China keeps exporting, hedging, and buying time. Russia keeps grinding down Ukraine and framing Western policy as incoherent. The pain is distributed, not decisive.

The only thing that ends a long war like this quickly is a shock that realigns incentives. A catastrophic miscalculation that rallies a true coalition for decisive action. A domestic political swing inside one of the principals that makes compromise cheaper than continuity. A technological step-change that collapses the value of a core lever. Short of that, the war extends. Not because nobody can imagine an end, but because too many players can live with the middle.

So if you’re looking for the headline to watch, skip the dramatic clips and measure the plumbing: munitions production rates in the U.S. and its partners, Iran’s regeneration timelines on strike complexes, Israel’s domestic coalition stability, price and insurance behavior through Hormuz, and the spread between what China says about stability and where it quietly allocates naval presence. When those numbers start to point in the same direction, you’ll know the drag is ending. Until then, expect calibrated escalation, periodic “breakthrough talks” that buy time, and a war that persists not out of confusion but because persistence is the point.

This war persists because every principal can afford the middle and fears the edge. Israel buys time to degrade capacity without owning reconstruction. Iran monetizes risk through calibrated disruption without inviting annihilation. Washington manages containment to avoid a politically fatal spike in casualties or prices while husbanding stockpiles for bigger theaters. Moscow welcomes American bandwidth spent elsewhere as Ukraine grinds on. Beijing tolerates low‑grade instability so long as it doesn’t detonate demand, because a distracted superpower in the Gulf is a quieter Pacific. None of these actors gets everything. All of them get enough. Until one of those payoffs flips sign - until oil clears a pain threshold for a full season, or a single strike realigns domestic politics, or an operational surprise collapses a core lever - the rational choice is the same choice you’re seeing now: calibrated pressure, reversible moves, and a conflict designed to endure.

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I will explain all the economic implications of this on Monday. If you would like to read and review my other books, some of which are free, https://amazon.com/author/quizmaster

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