A high-stakes confrontation stretching from Washington to Tehran, with the Gulf caught in the middle as global powers recalibrate their strategies.
The predicament facing U.S. President Donald Trump today in his confrontation with the Islamic Republic of Iran is no longer confined to the nuclear issue, the postponed decision on a military strike, or even the Strait of Hormuz alone.
The bigger predicament is that this war, both in how it began and how it is now being managed, appears to be a strange and unfinished one. Washington entered it with incomplete intelligence and military confidence, only to discover that Iran has no intention of fighting the battle in the arena desired by the United States or Israel, but rather in arenas it considers weaker, easier, and closer at hand: the Arab Gulf states.
Iran is incapable of directly retaliating against the United States and equally incapable of delivering a decisive blow to Israel without paying an existential price. It has therefore decided that revenge will be carried out in the Gulf. This is not a temporary tactical calculation, but rather part of a mindset that has shaped Iranian doctrine for decades — one that seeks the submission of the Gulf Arab states and revenge against them, while remaining haunted by the Iraq War and its repercussions. Nor is it solely about the Iraq War; since 1979, the religious leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran has looked down upon the modern, liberal vision embraced by the Gulf Arab states.
Tehran views the Gulf as a backyard that can be cheaply targeted with drones and missiles, relying on its proxies in Iraq and elsewhere to deliver messages and carry out attacks whenever it finds itself unable to confront major adversaries directly.
For this reason, the Gulf Arab states appealed to President Trump not to rush into a major strike. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and others understand that any large-scale U.S. military operation against Iran could leave them as the primary targets of Iranian retaliation, rather than Washington or Tel Aviv.
These countries requested additional time, not out of naïve faith in any confirmed Iranian flexibility, but to test the possibility of persuading Tehran to step back from its self-destructive course before a regional war erupts. The time required is not open-ended, and no one in the Gulf believes a prolonged respite lies ahead. Still, there is a need to try to salvage what can be salvaged from the consequences of a war that could spiral into a regional conflict — and possibly beyond.
In Washington, some viewed the Gulf request as an opportunity to buy time before launching a major military operation. Some officials even suggested that the Gulf states make the appeal for delay because it aligned with the wishes of the American president, who remains hesitant about making the decision to resume the war.
The Pentagon does not want an open-ended gap between delay and escalation, and has informed the U.S. president that dithering is not a strategy. Trump himself is facing significant internal pressure to make a decision: either move toward military action or withdraw the threat with a clear face-saving exit. As a result, Trump reiterated that the truce or postponement will not last long. The discussion is now measured in days, not weeks, as the military establishment is effectively saying “enough,” while Trump insists that his patience, too, is running out.
The U.S. president now faces a precise equation: shuttle diplomacy and drawn-out negotiations are no longer seen as beneficial, but increasingly as a liability, as time is working against him. The American assessment is that Iran will not concede on the core demands insisted upon by Washington — particularly regarding the nuclear issue — unless it fully grasps the extent of Trump’s military capabilities.
As a result, several options have been placed before him, chief among them what officials in Washington have come to call the “seven keys” — a framework for a cumulative and highly complex operation involving specific targets designed to allow the United States to inflict a serious defeat on Iran, rather than merely carrying out a symbolic or punitive strike.
These goals, as now proposed in U.S. military thinking, include energy infrastructure, communications systems, social media networks, military installations in the Strait of Hormuz, nuclear research sites, Revolutionary Guard leadership centers, and possibly the leaders themselves. This means that, if it occurs, the operation would not be a limited, focused strike but rather a significant shift in U.S. military posture toward Iran, aiming to paralyze the capabilities that enable the Iranian regime to continue threatening, exerting pressure, and carrying out retaliation through missiles, drones, and proxy forces.
But the problem is that the war was not sufficiently studied from the outset in light of clear Iranian threats to expand it into a regional conflict. There is responsibility on American and Israeli intelligence for not fully placing Trump in the real picture, much like President Vladimir Putin’s miscalculations when he entered Ukraine expecting a swift, limited war that instead turned into a historic drain.
Trump now faces a similar possibility, albeit in a different arena: a major strike could achieve military objectives but might also open regional pathways that Washington is not fully prepared to contain.
More critically, the error was not merely in underestimating Iranian military capabilities, but in misreading the doctrine guiding Tehran’s leaders and the form of retaliation they publicly vowed. Did the Trump administration rush into war without considering that Iranian retaliation might not be limited to striking American bases in the Gulf Arab states, but could also target the deep infrastructure of Gulf states allied with the United States?
