Whoever believes that major wars are decided in a single moment, through one decision, one signature, or one speech that ends everything, is mistaken. The conflict raging between Washington and Tehran, and its extensions into the Strait of Hormuz, oil markets, and maritime corridors, is no longer the kind of conflict that closes with a single moment. Rather, it is a conflict in which three separate decisions are intertwined, held in the hands of three different players, meaning it is not enough for one of them to decide the war is over for it to actually end.
اضافة اعلان
When US President Donald Trump speaks of the war ending after the midterm elections, he is speaking the language of a politician who measures time by ballot boxes, not the language of the battlefield. Trump does indeed possess the tools of American de-escalation, such as halting operations, opening a channel for negotiation, and softening rhetoric, but these tools produce a ceasefire, not an end to the war.
The war does not end when American planes stop flying overhead, but when each side becomes convinced that continuing has become costlier than settling, and this is a conviction that cannot be imposed from an Oval Office in Washington.
The logic governing Iran's decision-making is entirely different from American logic. Tehran is not betting on a military decision, but on its ability to keep going. Every missile it launches, and every oil tanker it targets in the strait, carries the message that the cost of the war falls on everyone, not on Iran alone. And with every American statement about "near-total" control of Hormuz comes a more complicated reality on the ground, whose bill is paid, indirectly, by countries in the region that did not start the war in the first place.
As for the party that may hold the strongest veto over any settlement, it is Israel. No matter what formula for de-escalation Washington and Tehran reach, Israel will not consider the war over if it believes the agreement leaves Iran room to rebuild its military or nuclear capabilities in the future. Herein lies the deepest contradiction of this war: Washington is searching for an exit whose political and economic costs it can bear, while Israel is searching for a security guarantee that extends at least a decade into the future. This gap in time horizons between the two allies may prove harder to bridge than any negotiating knot with Iran itself.
What makes this war different from those before it is that it is no longer confined to the skies over Tehran or isolated military bases. Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab, shipping and maritime insurance lines, and the price of a barrel of oil have all become parallel battlefields. Every escalation in targeting tankers means a jump in global energy prices, and every price jump turns into domestic political pressure, whether in Washington, which faces voters watching their fuel bills, or in Tehran, which sees its economy reeling under the weight of sanctions and a naval blockade.
The war itself has three scenarios, not one. The first is open-ended attrition, in which mutual strikes continue without a clear military decision, while the conflict turns into a slow war of economic and maritime attrition. No one declares defeat, but no one achieves victory either. This scenario is the most likely if the gap remains unbridged between what Washington wants (a face-saving de-escalation) and what Israel wants (a long-term strategic guarantee).
The second scenario is a fragile truce that turns into a new round. The two sides agree to a temporary ceasefire, similar to what happened and then collapsed in Islamabad previously, but it collapses again once one side, usually Israel, feels the agreement fails to achieve its security objectives.
The third scenario is a gradual negotiation toward a broader settlement. It begins with the silence of weapons before the silence of political disagreement: major strikes stop, an indirect negotiating track opens over Hormuz and the nuclear file, and partial understandings gradually take shape, eventually turning over time into a comprehensive agreement. This scenario is the hardest to achieve, but it is the only one that gives all three parties what they want, even if only partially.
In the end, I would say that the war does not end on a specific date on the calendar, but when three separate decisions reach a point of convergence: when Washington becomes convinced that de-escalation is cheaper than continuing, when Tehran becomes convinced that negotiation does not mean surrender, and when Israel becomes convinced that the proposed settlement genuinely protects it, not just on paper.
