Now Is Not the Time to Just Settle in Iran

By Mike Nelson

Thursday, October 08, 2026

 

Time magazine ushered in October by releasing the transcript of its wide-ranging interview with President Donald Trump, which formed the basis of its cover story on the commander in chief. The display makes Trump—unsurprisingly, given the demands he has placed on Americans’ attention spans—the sole record holder for having appeared on the magazine’s cover more than anyone else in history. The interview itself was in keeping with this phenomenon, with readers left to process Trump’s wild fluctuations among tirades about his ongoing gripes with the media, claims of preternatural ability to comprehend the frontiers of AI because of his uncle’s accomplishments, and his boasts about the progress of his varied construction projects.

 

But buried among the more buzzworthy quotes and tidbits were some insights into the president’s thinking on more critical matters—most prominently on the ongoing war with Iran. While many have focused on the president’s continued hyperbole regarding potentially “annihilating Iran,” or his inapt comparisons between the Middle East conflict and Vietnam, more important was the conclusion of the Iran portion of the interview.

 

Well, last on this question, over the weekend you rejected a ceasefire proposal from the Iranians. Can you just tell us why you did that?

 

Because things that I wouldn’t have approved a year ago I wouldn’t have today.

 

Can you give us an example?

 

I mean, it was—they made an offer to open up the Strait. You know, you saw some aspects of it, not all. But it’s just, it’s just, it’s not good enough. Nearly.

 

It is not correct, as some administration critics claim, that Iran is winning the current conflict. Likewise, those who confuse the impressive tactical achievements with strategic goals are also incorrect when they claim the U.S. is winning. Rather, just as negotiations can result in a win-win scenario, wherein both parties benefit from the arrangement, it is possible for conflicts to be lose-lose—and without a refocused effort by the administration, that seems to be the most likely outcome. The degree to which the results may be disadvantageous to U.S. interests is clear from a consideration of the conditions antebellum.

 

The president’s answers here suggest that he correctly views the conflict as much more than just a matter of reopening traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and that the administration is viewing the end of the conflict in terms of the many regional and multidimensional points of conflict between the United States and the Iranian regime.

 

Using the president’s temporal framing, a year ago the Iranian regime was arguably at its weakest in terms of regional power and, inversely, the United States enjoyed the diminished capacity and reduced influence of our greatest enemy in the Middle East. Currently, that is not the case, and appreciating how American interests have been affected since the beginning of Epic Fury will help frame suitable conditions for its conclusion.

 

The Iranian nuclear program was dealt its most significant blow by Operation Midnight Hammer, which set back Iran’s progress on weapon development by years. Iran’s vaunted regional proxy network had been seriously degraded, and the linkages to Tehran tested.

 

In Lebanon and Gaza, Israel had done yeoman’s work removing layers of Hezbollah and Hamas leadership and disrupting their communications, logistics, and fighting formations. The remaining leadership of both networks expressed frustration and betrayal that Iran had not done enough to support them after they had been loyal surrogates.

 

In Yemen, the Houthis who had once threatened shipping in the Bab al-Mandab Strait  (one of three strategic chokepoints in the Middle East) had ceased this activity after the second Trump administration’s initial use of military force, Operation Rough Rider. Commerce was flowing freely through all three chokepoints. Iran was, however, building its arsenal of short-range missiles and drones—a concern in terms of their number relative to interceptor missiles throughout the theater.

 

Now, after seven months of America shifting among combat, concession, and coercion, progress has either been reversed or at least diminished in each of these areas. Although preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons underpinned the administration’s justifications for the war, the American strikes have done almost nothing new to disrupt Iran’s remaining nuclear infrastructure and have likely hardened Iranian determination to acquire the bomb. Judging by Trump’s own comments contrasting Iran with North Korea, the message to Iran could not be clearer–America is unlikely to strike a country with a nuclear deterrent. Iran has begun moving assets and material into Pickaxe Mountain—an underground facility that we have not struck. Based on recent congressional testimony from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, it is unclear if we have the capability to destroy it. Iran is currently considering a withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which would seem to be an overt communication of a desire it had previously kept covert, albeit obvious.

 

Iran’s relationship with its proxies, frayed a year ago, is being rebuilt. Despite the administration specifying that severing these links was a key goal of our campaign, we have helped strengthen them. We have assisted Iranian protection for Hezbollah, both by admonishing Israel for striking the network, and by including Hezbollah in the ceasefire of the June memorandum of understanding at Iran’s insistence.

 

The Houthis have entered the conflict on Iran’s behalf, targeting both Saudi oil infrastructure and resuming attacks in the Bab al-Mandab—with a slightly enhanced position after their seizure of the Hanish Islands. Iran continues to disrupt traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, although to a lesser extent than in the spring, resulting in prolonged declines in shipping and high energy prices.

 

While the early days of Epic Fury did destroy many of Iran’s missiles and drones and the industrial capacity to produce them, Iran has retained a larger supply of these and has started rebuilding their capabilities. Meanwhile, the United States has expended critical amounts of our force-protection munitions, thus having the opposite effect on our intention to decrease Iranian strike assets relative to our interceptors—a problem that may be exacerbated as Iranian missiles and drones are produced cheaper and with a shorter delivery timeline than our Patriots or THAADs.

 

The current state of affairs does not reflect what the United States must accept. The early days of the war resulted in truly overwhelming kinetic effects but did not translate into strategic progress. Now, however, Iran is showing signs of increased stress as a result of the better plan of continued economic leverage, including long-term imposition of the American blockade against Iranian shipping. America has blunted the impact of Iran’s major point of leverage, both by escorting shipping through the strait and by diverting traffic via points of embarkation elsewhere in the region, resulting in an almost full return to prewar levels of energy shipping across the region as a whole. It is a sign of the regime’s savagery and desperation that it may have shifted to more dramatic and impulsive forms of resistance—with hints of Iranian fingerprints near an air base in England and influencing attacks against Israelis over the skies between Dubai and Tel Aviv.

 

The answer to this current dilemma is not, as some critics advise, to concede defeat and walk away from the conflict, or more aggressively, from the region. Doing so would not improve any of the adverse developments listed above and would likely result in greater Iranian progress in each. Regardless of whether one believes initiating hostilities was wise or disagrees with the means by which the administration has conducted the conflict thus far, these are the circumstances in which we currently find ourselves, and navigating out of them requires decision, direction, and determination—all of which have been lacking to date. The president’s comments to Time offer a glimmer of hope, though they must be taken with a grain of salt. The administration should recognize it entered a regional conflict with regional effects, and while high gas prices are the factor currently felt most prominently by American voters, we would do well to remember where we were in terms of strategic position a year ago, what we want regional stability to look like after the conflict, and not become fixated on simply opening the strait.

 

It is unlikely we will achieve progress across every dimension. And it is to our great shame that we will likely desert, yet again, the Iranian people yearning for freedom after loud pronouncements of support. But we should demand progress across many of them, and avoid, as the president said, agreeing to conditions we would not have accepted a year ago.