(This story from May 2 has been repeated without any changes to the text.)
Author: Matt Spetalnick
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With a conflict that has raged on for more than two months without a decisive military or diplomatic victory, President Donald Trump faces the risk that his standoff with Iran will drag on indefinitely and leave the United States and the world with bigger problems than before he launched the war.
With both sides ostensibly confident of having the upper hand and widely differing positions, there is no obvious way out even if Iran submits a new proposal to restart negotiations. Trump quickly rejected the offer on Friday.
For the President of the United States and his Republican Party, the implications of the ongoing gridlock are grim.
The unresolved conflict could mean the global economic fallout, including high U.S. oil prices, will persist, putting further pressure on Trump, whose poll numbers are falling, and dimming prospects for Republican candidates ahead of November’s congressional midterm elections.
unfulfilled goals
Those costs underscore a deeper problem: The war failed to achieve many of Trump’s stated goals.
There is no doubt that wave after wave of U.S. and Israeli strikes have severely weakened Iran’s military capabilities, but many of Trump’s oft-shifted war goals—from regime change to cutting off Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon—remain unfulfilled.
Concerns about a more protracted standoff have grown since Trump canceled negotiators’ trip to Islamabad last weekend and then rejected Iran’s war proposal, which has been suspended since April 8 under a ceasefire agreement.
Tehran has proposed putting discussions on its nuclear program on hold until the conflict officially ends and an agreement is reached on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. This is impossible for Trump, who demands that the nuclear issue be solved from the beginning.
Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported on Friday that Tehran had submitted a revised proposal through Pakistani mediators, providing a glimmer of hope as global oil prices fell sharply since Iran effectively closed the strait. Trump told reporters he was “not happy” with the offer, though he said he was in contact by phone.
Failure to seize important oil shipping lanes from Iranian control after the conflict is over will be a major blow to Trump’s political legacy.
“He will be remembered as an American president who made the world a less safe place,” said Laura Blumenfeld, a Middle East expert at Johns Hopkins University in Washington.
White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said Iran’s “desperation” was growing due to military and economic pressure and that Trump “holds all the cards and has enough time to reach the best deal.”
Resumption of hostilities?
A White House official who asked not to be named said that with the next step uncertain and no clear ending, Trump raised the possibility of a long-term naval blockade on Iran in private meetings, which may last for several months, aiming to further squeeze Iran’s oil exports and force Iran to reach a denuclearization agreement.
At the same time, he opened the door to the resumption of military operations. Axios reported on Thursday that U.S. Central Command has prepared a “short but forceful” series of strikes and options to take over parts of the strait to reopen shipping.
European diplomats say their governments’ relations with Trump are strained by the war and expect the current situation with Iran to continue.
“It’s hard to see how this is going to end anytime soon,” said one person who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Iran remains provocative.
It exerts powerful leverage over the United States and its allies, triggering an unprecedented energy supply shock by cutting off shipping in the strait. Before the war, tanker traffic flowed freely through the strait, carrying a fifth of the world’s oil.
Analysts say Iran will be emboldened knowing it will have such weapons even after a war.
“Iran has realized that it can close the strait at will even when it is weak,” said Jon Altman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “This knowledge makes Iran even more powerful than it was before the war.”
Uranium stocks remain
Trump came into office promising to avoid involvement in foreign interference, but he also failed to achieve the main stated goal of attacking Iran on February 28: cutting off its path to developing nuclear weapons.
It is believed that stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, still buried after US and Israeli airstrikes last June, could be recovered and further processed into bomb-grade material. Iran says it wants the United States to recognize its right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes.
White House spokesman Welsh said Trump had “met or exceeded” all military goals, including actions to “ensure Iran never possesses a nuclear weapon.”
Another of Trump’s declared war goals – forcing Iran to stop supporting puppet groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and Hamas in Palestine – also remains unfulfilled.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denied in congressional testimony that the conflict had become a “quagmire,” despite Trump’s initial prediction that it would be over in four to six weeks.
Given the depth of the differences, restarting peace talks is unlikely to lead to a quick resolution.
While Trump has said he will only accept long-term solutions to the Iranian threat, he has at times shown signs of seeking to withdraw from the unpopular conflict.
U.S. officials told Reuters that, at the request of Trump aides, intelligence agencies were studying how Iran would respond if Trump declared unilateral victory and withdrew troops.
Independent analysts said Tehran would interpret this as a strategic success for itself in surviving a military attack.
Meanwhile, European and Gulf Arab diplomats have expressed concern that Trump could end up agreeing to a flawed deal that would allow a wounded Iran to continue to pose a threat.
The risk of “freezing conflicts”
With negotiations stalled, some analysts say the war could turn into a frozen conflict with no permanent solution in sight. That could prevent Trump from drastically reducing military forces in the Middle East.
The United States has paid new strategic costs.
They include rifts with traditional European allies, which were not consulted before Trump entered the war.
He harshly criticized NATO partners for not sending naval forces to help open the strait and in the past week talked about a possible troop withdrawal from Germany, Spain and Italy.
Trump also must deal with a more assertive Iranian leadership, dominated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which took over after U.S. and Israeli attacks killed several figures, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The president’s calls at the start of the conflict for the Iranian people to overthrow their rulers went unheeded.
At home, Trump faces pressure to end a war that has dragged his approval ratings to the lowest level of his term — 34 percent, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll — and with gasoline prices soaring above $4 a gallon ahead of midterm elections that put Republicans at risk of losing control of Congress.
The second White House spokesman, Tyler Rogers, said that Trump is committed to maintaining his party’s majority in Congress and that high oil prices are only a “short-term disruption” that will be overcome as the conflict subsides.
However, Iranians are focused on Trump’s domestic troubles and may be preparing to wait for him to step down, but the question remains how long they can avoid economic disaster.
Sina Toossi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, a Washington think tank, wrote on X: “Iran is not dividing or collapsing, it is just buying time.”
(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick; Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal and Humeyra Pamuk; Writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Don Duffy and Rod Nickell)