Are the US and Iran on a collision course for war or a surprise deal?

The unprecedented US buildup near Iran marks the largest regional mobilisation since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. 

While the USS Gerald R Ford, the world’s largest supercarrier, is now operating in the Mediterranean Sea, transiting to join the armada, the most staggering indicator is the surge of six E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control planes - nearly 40 percent of the entire US inventory. 

These “eyes in the sky” provide the over-the-horizon radar essential for coordinating air defences against retaliatory strikes. Deploying this volume of the fleet suggests Washington is preparing for a campaign and bracing for the likely Iranian response. 

Doctrinally, US President Donald Trump has long opposed interventionism, a stance reaffirmed in his May 2025 Riyadh speech. Economically, an all-out war with Iran risks sabotaging his domestic agenda. 

Analysts estimate that a conflict could spike oil prices to anywhere between $90 and $200 a barrel. Furthermore, Trump’s pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war in Gaza suggests a desire for regional de-escalation, rather than for opening an unpredictable new front. 

Yet despite these deterrents, other motivations could push Trump towards a decisive strike. He may view neutralising the Iranian regime as the masterstroke for a total regional realignment. By dismantling the “axis of resistance”, he could clear the path for a new Middle Eastern architecture anchored by a Washington-Tel Aviv-Riyadh axis.

Domestic setbacks may also be the catalyst. On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Trump’s use of emergency laws to impose global tariffs was illegal - a stinging blow to his economic agenda.

'Bad things happen'

Seeking to overshadow this fiasco, Trump may pivot towards a high-stakes military success. Former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told The Wall Street Journal that the ruling could make a US attack on Iran more likely, noting that after a public judicial defeat, Trump could not afford to be seen as “backing down on Iran”.

A credibility trap is also a factor. Last Thursday, amid the naval buildup, Trump warned that Tehran had only 10 to 15 days to reach a “meaningful deal”. 

“Otherwise, bad things happen,” he added. This rhetoric has boxed the administration into a corner; if talks remain deadlocked, backing down would shatter Trump’s “strongman” credibility. 

This tension is felt acutely in Iran, where many recall his January Truth Social posts urging citizens to “take over your institutions”, with the hollow promise that “help is on its way”. 

By convincing an opponent they are willing to 'blow it all up', a leader can force that opponent to back down to avoid destruction

Having previously failed to act, Trump may now feel compelled to use this armada to prove his word has teeth.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his inner circle are equally wary of conflict. Domestically, the leadership is facing a nation simmering with discontent after the suppression of January’s mass protests. 

According to human rights organisations, tens of thousands of protesters have been swept up in ongoing mass arrests. Things got worse after the US and Israel attempted to exploit the protests. Top Israeli officials have continuously encouraged revolt against the Iranian state, even as such instigations discredited the resulting unrest.

The economy - primarily crippled by US sanctions, but also by corruption and mismanagement - is in shambles. 

A credible economic newspaper inside Iran confirmed last week that food inflation has surged into triple digits. Unlike official data, the free-market exchange rate is a publicly visible barometer of this crisis. Indeed, the currency’s free-fall sparked the January uprising - and for Khamenei, war now could be the final catalyst for domestic collapse.

Revolutionary identity

Against this backdrop, logic dictates that the Iranian government should compromise to avoid a war - but the leadership remains defiant. 

Over the weekend, Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, told Fox News that Trump was “curious” about Iran’s position, after he had warned of a limited military strike in the event that the two nations could not reach a deal on Tehran’s nuclear programme. 

“I don’t want to use the word ‘frustrated’ … because he [Trump] understands he’s got plenty of alternatives, but he’s curious as to why they haven’t … I don’t want to use the word ‘capitulated’, but why they haven’t capitulated,” Witkoff said.

After 37 years in power, the supreme leader’s tenacity depends on the ideological cohesion of a core constituency that views him as the region’s flag-bearer of anti-Americanism. Capitulating to Trump would shatter this revolutionary identity and likely trigger an erosion of loyalty within his own ranks. 

In Khamenei’s calculus, the political cost of surrender may outweigh the risk of military confrontation.

Absent a deal, US planners will likely weigh two distinct strike scenarios. The first aligns with Trump’s established aversion to “endless wars”: a doctrine of overwhelming, surgical force designed to achieve immediate objectives, followed by a rapid exit and declaration of victory. 

As Bob Harward, a retired vice admiral and former Centcom official, recently told the Jerusalem Post, a first-wave attack would prioritise neutralising Iran’s strategic missile sites and launchers - the most immediate threats to US assets. If successful, this “decapitation” of capacity would leave the Islamic Republic stripped of its three primary deterrent pillars: proxy networks, nuclear leverage and missile reach. 

By transforming the Iranian state into a strategically exhausted system, Trump could declare a decisive victory and disengage, having achieved “strategic submission” without the entanglement of a ground war.

The second scenario involves a transition from limited strikes to an all-out campaign for regime change. This shift could occur by design, or as a consequence of massive, unexpected Iranian retaliation - particularly if US forces fail to neutralise Tehran’s missile systems in the opening phase. But if Washington goes all-in, it would face the ultimate geopolitical enigma: the “day after”.

Massive stakes

Stabilising a post-Islamic Republic authority would require a massive ground presence - a commitment to another “endless war” that Trump has spent his career disparaging. 

Even if such a force were deployed, it would face an enormous challenge: resistance from a motivated ideological network. As evidenced by reports from rights groups documenting the mass killings of thousands of protesters just weeks ago, regime loyalists appear fundamentally uninhibited by the prospect of killing civilians. 

The heavily armed cadres trained for decentralised asymmetric warfare under the “mosaic defence” doctrine would likely launch a relentless resistance against any successor authority perceived as backed by the US and Israel.

Ultimately, rationality dictates that both sides should reach an agreement to avoid the catastrophic consequences of an all-out war - though as political scientist Robert Jervis argued, conflicts often erupt from miscalculation rather than logic.

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The final details of such a deal may surprise us. Under the weight of consequences, some inevitably unpredictable, both sides may move towards a strategic retreat that previously seemed unthinkable.

In a Friday interview with MS Now (formerly MSNBC), Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi raised eyebrows by claiming that Washington had not demanded “zero enrichment”, and that neither side had proposed a suspension. Instead, negotiations were focused on ensuring Iran’s nuclear programme “is peaceful and would remain peaceful forever”. 

If true, this fundamentally alters the landscape of the current crisis.

Similarly, on the other side of the fence, citing a senior US official, Axios reported on Friday that the Trump administration was “prepared to consider a proposal that allows Iran ‘token’ nuclear enrichment if it leaves no possible path to a bomb”.

In summary, I believe a deal remains slightly more probable than all-out war. The stakes are simply too high for both sides. 

In this endgame, Trump appears to have taken a page from the “rationality of irrationality” playbook pioneered by strategist Thomas Schelling, applying what is famously known as “madman theory”. Schelling’s core thesis is that it can be strategically rational for a leader to appear slightly unpredictable or “crazy”. By convincing an opponent they are willing to “blow it all up”, a leader can force that opponent to back down to avoid destruction.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.