Can America restrain its own president?

Donald Trump has restarted America’s war against Iran without answering the question that should have been answered before the first bomb fell: what political result can the US military campaign realistically aim for? The current phase of this war is not merely a return to a dead end. It begins from a worse position, against a more defiant adversary, with fewer military options, lower diplomatic credibility and greater danger to American troops and allies.

The earlier phase was supposed to demonstrate overwhelming power. Instead, Tehran learnt how to survive it and retaliate successfully. Iran has seen Washington’s weapons and the pressures shaping Trump’s decisions. Its leaders know that to thwart the US, all they need is to keep Hormuz unsafe, threaten US bases in the Gulf, raise energy costs and credibly threaten their allies in the region. Unlike the US, Iran has a clear strategy.

For the US and Trump, renewed bombing is a military exercise at great cost but no clear strategic outcome. The war began around claims about Iran’s nuclear programme and the danger it allegedly posed to Israel. It has now become a battle over who controls shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump says the US must keep the strait open, but it was open before he chose war. So, the US is losing lives, weapons and diplomatic capital trying to recover a position its own intervention destroyed.

Iran is injured no doubt, but it is still prepared to take risks. Its attacks have widened — from military facilities earlier to vital infrastructure now — in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Jordan. Damage to Kuwaiti power and desalination plants shows how quickly the war can derail daily civilian life across the Gulf. A few successful strikes can disrupt shipping, frighten insurers and force a strategic reckoning by America’s Gulf partners — is hosting the US worth it?

The funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was revealing. The enormous crowds across several cities was proof that a majority of Iranians support national resistance to the US. They have rallied under the flag when their country is under attack. The war has strengthened national unity and redirected public anger towards Washington. The funeral would have given the new leadership confidence that a resolutely defiant Iran has popular support. It also created a powerful demand for revenge, narrowing room for diplomacy and strengthening the hand of hardliners who argue that compromise only invites greater US pressure.

Washington is reinforcing that argument by expanding attacks beyond military sites. Bombing roads, bridges, hospitals, power systems and water facilities cannot be presented as precision pressure. Civilians experience it as collective punishment. Trump’s threat to destroy power plants and bridges unless Iran negotiates makes the coercive purpose plain to the world. Not only is it unlawful and morally indefensible, it is also strategically foolish. Broken water systems, destroyed transport links and dead civilians only deepen rage and legitimise Iran’s retaliatory tactics.

Air power can destroy infrastructure, but it cannot compel this large and proud country to surrender. Iran has more than 90 million people, difficult terrain and dispersed capabilities. If bombing cannot force capitulation, Washington has to either contemplate a suicidal ground invasion and occupation or make a strategic retreat.

America’s military advantage is also degrading. The 40-day war from late February to mid-April consumed large quantities of Tomahawk and JASSM missiles as well as Patriot, THAAD and naval interceptors. It will take years to rebuild those stocks. Every expensive interceptor used against an Iranian drone is unavailable for another strike. On the other hand, its ‘client’ state Ukraine is desperate for air defence systems, while American planners identify China as the central long-term challenge. A pursuit that drains scarce weapons in a war without a defined endpoint is ill-advised, to say the least.

Trump’s economic calculus is no better. Iran was already imposing costs by choking Hormuz, and now the danger is spreading to the Red Sea shipping corridor. The Red Sea connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean via the Suez Canal and the Bab al-Mandab Strait. This corridor handles 12-15 per cent of global maritime trade and nearly 30 per cent of global container traffic. Iran’s allies the Houthis have threatened to blockade Saudi Arabia and shipping through Bab al-Mandab and the oil export hub of Yanbu, a port city on the Red Sea coast of western Saudi Arabia.

Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab are two vital arteries of global trade, and simultaneous blockades have potentially catastrophic consequences — not just for Gulf oil exports but also food imports for the entire Gulf region. Americans are not insulated from its inflationary after-effects. Restarting the war has only redoubled the domestic pressure that drove Trump to accept a ceasefire, and now mutual mistrust is at its all-time high.

Is there a way out? A temporary ceasefire proposed by mediators could stop the immediate cycle, but a durable settlement requires Washington to abandon the fantasy that negotiations are a ceremony of Iranian surrender. The US could pursue a limited bargain featuring secure navigation through Hormuz, protection of civilian shipping and verifiable restraints on Iran’s nuclear activities for reciprocal restraints on attacks and phased sanctions relief for Iran.

The Gulf states of Oman and Qatar, European governments and the United Nations should have roles in monitoring and guaranteeing such an outcome. Diplomacy will look untidy because real diplomacy requires both sides to receive something they can defend at home.

A harder question is whether US can restrain its own president. Constitutionally, it can. Congress holds the powers to declare war, authorise the use of force and sanction funds for war efforts. But if the president is determined to follow his own whims, he can exploit legal ambiguities, describe offensive action as self-defence and claim that each pause resets the sixty-day clock.

The US Congress must then do more than express disapproval. It can pass binding legislation prohibiting funds for offensive operations against Iran, except to protect US forces from imminent attack. It can attach that restriction to essential defence appropriations, demand public legal justification, subpoena officials and hold continuous hearings on targets, casualties, costs and objectives. Impeachment remains the ultimate remedy for grave abuse, but it is politically improbable unless members of his own party break from him.

The public also has a role. Elections can change Congress, and sustained opposition can raise the cost of disobedience.

America does have mechanisms to stop this president. What it lacks is not constitutional authority but the political courage to stop Trump from taking his country down a road on which every additional mile makes turning back more costly.

Ashok Swain is a professor of peace and conflict research at Uppsala University, Sweden. More by the author here