US-Iran Conflict Becomes Trump Era's Forever War
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- Trump returned to the White House pledging to avoid another Middle Eastern 'forever war,' but the US-Iran confrontation is now better understood as a new kind of indefinite conflict fought through air strikes, cyber operations, sanctions, maritime confrontation and proxy warfare.
- US and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding on June 17 that briefly stabilized markets and eased regional tensions, before US strikes resumed and Iran retaliated against American and Gulf allies.
- Iran's Houthi proxies declared themselves ready to close the Red Sea at the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, threatening an alternative oil transit route used particularly by Saudi exports.
- Strikes that initially targeted military infrastructure have expanded to energy facilities, desalination plants essential to Gulf freshwater supplies and transport infrastructure including bridges, prompting military analysts to question whether coercive signaling is giving way to broader military aims.
- Strait of Hormuz provisions in Article 5 of the MoU envisaged Iran facilitating safe passage of commercial shipping, but a US-backed temporary corridor near the Omani coast became a fresh source of escalation after Tehran objected.
- Strategic objectives of the US, Iran and Israel remain fundamentally incompatible — Washington seeks to constrain Iran's nuclear program and regional influence, Tehran treats those as core to its security and deterrence, and Israel views a stronger Iran as an unacceptable threat.
Why it matters: Trump's presidency may come to symbolize the normalization of an enduring US-Iran conflict without a clearly defined beginning or end, with attacks increasingly reaching civilian infrastructure like desalination plants and bridges across the Gulf. The structural incompatibility of US, Iranian and Israeli strategic objectives means diplomacy is managing war rather than resolving it — and the greater danger may be the gradual acceptance of indefinite confrontation rather than another Iraq-style occupation.
