Mohammad Yaghi writes:

War between the United States, Israel, and Iran has now moved from threat to reality. What had been framed as coercive diplomacy backed by calibrated force has crossed into open interstate confrontation. Yet the underlying logic that produced this outcome has not changed. The road to war was not paved by a sober calculation of costs and benefits, but by an illusion of control: the belief that Washington could coerce Iran into submission through threats, deployments, and limited strikes without triggering a broader regional conflagration.

In a single press conference aboard Air Force One, President Trump advanced mutually contradictory claims. He asserted that the United States had brought peace to the Middle East after 3,000 years of conflict by destroying Iran’s nuclear programme, while simultaneously giving Iran ten days to conclude a nuclear agreement. If the nuclear programme had already been eliminated, the rationale for negotiation was unclear. If peace had already been secured, the logic of threatening renewed war was equally incoherent.

Let us not be distracted by President Trump’s appetite for headlines, which often produces contradictory statements, and instead focus on a single question: how did coercion evolve into open war?

Following the twelve-day Israel–U.S. war on Iran, I argued that the United States was unlikely to wage another war unless it is prepared to pursue regime change. Such an objective would require the deployment of tens of thousands of troops on Iranian soil—something the Trump administration has shown no willingness to commit to.

However, when Trump claimed concern for the Iranian people and declared that “help” was on its way, he simultaneously positioned aircraft carriers, destroyers, submarines, and strategic bombers in the region—the largest U.S. military buildup there since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. As a result, it became evident that Washington’s objective was to coerce Iran into accepting an agreement it would otherwise reject.

By manufacturing an atmosphere of fear, the Trump administration sought to compel Iran to accept its terms for “peace by force,” that is, “peace by subjugation”: dismantling its nuclear programme, limiting its missile capabilities to short range, and abandoning its regional alliances. Had fear succeeded, it would have amounted to a clean political victory for Trump. When it did not, the logic escalated toward direct military strikes designed to compel compliance; and as events now demonstrate, that logic has crossed into open confrontation.

Yet this strategy rested—and continues to rest—on a precarious assumption: that Iran would deliberately confine the conflict to a limited war in order to preserve its regime. But what if Iran chooses a comprehensive regional war instead? Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had warned shortly before he was killed on February 28, 2026 in a joint U.S.–Israeli strike: “The Americans should know that if they start a war, this time it will be a regional war.” Hezbollah, the Houthis, and several Iraqi military groups have likewise made clear that they would not remain neutral in any war aimed at Iran. Miscalculation is not a stable strategy; it is a slippery path. [Continue reading…]