The United States has finally entered Israel’s escalating war against Iran, launching targeted strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities to obliterate Tehran’s nuclear threat, a goal once more effectively achieved through the 2015 Iran deal.

President Trump warned Iran that there will be peace or a tragedy far greater than what Iran has witnessed in recent days, signaling that there were “other targets” if Iran wished to escalate.

Yet even this one-ended strike may not fully eradicate Iran’s indigenous nuclear capabilities. It certainly hasn’t ended Iran’s attacks on Israel , and now opens up risks to American troops and assets in the region. In fact, Iran’s possible responses from here on are varied and unpredictable. But we know the costs — particularly economic — are escalating, and could be devastating for all parties involved and worldwide.

Israel is already bearing massive economic costs. Estimates suggest that a month-long war could cost Israel around $12 billion , with daily military expenses averaging $725 million . If Iran targets more civilian infrastructure, these costs could escalate sharply.

Over 5,000 Israelis have already been evacuated from their homes due to missile strikes. Labor shortage s are worsening as tens of thousands of reservists, many from critical high-tech and industrial sectors, are mobilized. By the end of 2024, the Gaza war had already drained Israel of over $67.5 billion , excluding significant civilian and infrastructure damages and broader economic losses, which remain difficult to quantify.

A swift military victory might mitigate some economic impacts, but a prolonged war could severely impair Israel’s economic growth, strain fiscal stability, and potentially harm its international credit rating.

Even before the Israel strikes, Iran faced a daunting infrastructure crisis, urgently needing over $500 billion in investments to address critical economic shortfalls exacerbated by U.S. sanctions. Israeli attacks have deepened this crisis, destroying vital civilian and energy infrastructure. The direct costs of reconstruction alone could reach tens of billions of dollars, adding enormous strain to Iran’s already battered economy and limited fiscal resources.

My estimate draws on the latest 2023 Iranian household expenditure survey, revealing that over 80% of Iranians fail to meet the 2,100-calorie daily requirement and suffer from food insecurity. A prolonged war would only exacerbate this humanitarian crisis, pushing the country toward a potential national catastrophe.

Iran could retaliate by launching cyberattacks on critical U.S. infrastructure, such as power grids, water systems, pipelines, financial networks, and other essential services. The economic consequences of such cyber retaliation could range from hundreds of billions to over a trillion dollars.

Further, if Iran targets energy infrastructure in the Gulf states or blocks the Strait of Hormuz , it could disrupt over 20% of global oil and LNG supplies, potentially driving oil prices to as high as $150 per barrel. A Bloomberg analysis warns that sustained prices at this level could shrink global GDP by nearly $1 trillion annually, fueling global stagflation. For the United States, this would severely undermine efforts to control inflation and economic stability.

Netanyahu’s ambition to topple Iran’s regime is unlikely to succeed without direct U.S. involvement, including the deployment of hundreds of thousands of ground troops. If Washington intervenes in this way, it risks plunging itself into yet another open-ended war, requiring another $2 trillion to $3 trillion and thousands of lives lost.

Even if Israel achieves its immediate military aims by decapitating Iranian leadership, neutralizing military capabilities, and potentially fracturing Iran without Tehran’s painful retaliation, such a victory would likely prove hollow. The resulting chaos would unleash waves of insurgency, refugee crises, and regional instability surpassing the turmoil that followed the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Given the decentralized nature of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), even a fragmented Iran could remain a persistent threat. Remaining IRGC forces and proxies could continue attacks against Western and Arab economic targets across the region, imposing ongoing risks to American interests and causing substantial losses for U.S. allies.

The regional economic fallout could be existential for Gulf allies such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain. Due to rising tensions, the IMF has already revised its 2025 economic growth forecast for the region from 4% down to 2.6%. A sustained two-to-three-year decline in growth, coupled with vanished foreign direct investment and delayed mega-projects critical to Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, could cost these economies anywhere between $730 billion and $1 trillion.

As one Gulf official noted , a prolonged conflict could erase years of economic progress by disrupting national development strategies and severely damaging investor confidence. The appearance of a fragmented Iran might seem advantageous at first glance, but the ripple effects would ultimately burden U.S. taxpayers and businesses, drawing America into an extended regional quagmire.

If Israel’s military campaign fails , Tehran will likely emerge emboldened, not weakened. Already, Israeli attacks appear to have fueled Iranian public support for nuclear armament, potentially paving Iran’s path toward a nuclear weapon.

Despite its heavy cost, Iran retains the right under Article X of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to withdraw, allowing it to restart its nuclear program without oversight from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Such a scenario would likely trigger a chain reaction of nuclear proliferation across the region and beyond, from Berlin and Warsaw to Ankara, and from Riyadh to Seoul and Tokyo, unraveling decades of non-proliferation efforts.

Imagine a nuclear-armed Middle East, with European and East Asian nations scrambling to develop their own deterrents. What began as a targeted Israeli strike could spiral into a global security nightmare. The economic implications would be staggering: higher energy prices, soaring insurance premiums, investor uncertainty, and massive military build-ups, all severely undermining American strategic and economic interests.

A new arms race extending from the Gulf to the Pacific could destabilize the global economy and dramatically weaken America’s strategic posture. No American president, not even during the Cold War, has ever had to confront the simultaneous unraveling of the global nuclear order across multiple continents. President Trump would inevitably be the first.

It is unclear whether the Trump Administration could even restart the talks after this weekend’s strikes. But rather than sinking billions into another costly war, Washington could offer sanctions relief and regional economic engagement in exchange for Iran returning to strict compliance at lower levels of enrichment than those prescribed by the 2015 JCPOA or even denuclearization. Such a deal could expand it into a de facto non-aggression pact between Iran and Israel, something that was previously unthinkable.

My recent research highlights that the U.S. can indeed secure a stronger and more comprehensive deal through licensing bilateral trade up to $25 billion annually and providing avenues for American companies to access Iran’s largely untapped $4 trillion investment market by 2040. Such an agreement could stabilize the region through mutual economic engagement rather than military escalation.

The alternative is unspeakable: a trillion-dollar regional disaster, a shattered nuclear agreement, a nuclear-armed Iran, and the disintegration of alliance networks that have historically underpinned U.S. dominance in the Middle East.

In a startling turn of events in the Israel-Iran war, six hours after Iran attacked the Al Udeid Air Base — the largest U.S. combat airfield outside of the U.S., and home of the CENTCOM Forward Headquarters — President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire in the 12-day war, quickly taking effect over the subsequent 18 hours. Defying predictions that the Iranian response to the U.S. attack on three nuclear facilities could start an escalatory cycle, the ceasefire appears to be holding. For now.

While the bombing may have ceased, calls for regime change have not. President Trump has backtracked on his comments, but other influential voices have not. John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, said Tuesday that regime change must still happen, “…because this is about the regime itself… Until the regime itself is gone, there is no foundation for peace and security in the Middle East.” These sentiments are echoed by many others to include, as expected, Reza Pahlavi, exiled son of the deposed shah.

Yet for many Iranians, regime change would represent a profound betrayal of their long-held democratic aspirations through peaceful protests. It also raises several uncomfortable but necessary questions: What person or what organizations are ready to govern the day after, and is there a viable roadmap for what comes next?

The answer, according to leading Iran scholars and analysts, is bleak.

“Absolutely no one,” says Hamid Dabashi, professor of Iranian Studies at Columbia University.

“The monarchists and the Mojahedin are positively despised by the overwhelming majority of the Iranian population with no grassroots support,” he adds. “Despite a significant opposition to the ruling regime, it is still widely and passionately popular among many others.”

The vacuum left by the regime’s collapse would not be filled by democratic forces, but likely by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the military organization dedicated to regime control and survival, or violent power struggles.

And yet, external promoters of regime change — from exiled elites to Western think tanks — continue to push a fantasy of democratization-by-collapse. They fail to answer the most basic questions: Who forms the interim authority? What coalition can command legitimacy across Iran’s deeply diverse and fractured society? How is order maintained in the days and weeks following the fall of the current regime?

Without consensus on even the basic norms of democratic governance, the opposition remains paralyzed and ill-prepared to step in if the regime collapses.

As foreign intervention again becomes a tool of Western policy, more Iranians are invoking the legacy of Mohammad Mosaddegh, the democratically elected prime minister overthrown in a CIA- and MI6-backed coup in 1953. That act of foreign interference cleared the path for decades of autocratic rule, first by the Pahlavi monarchy and eventually by the Islamic Republic itself. If the lesson of Mosaddegh means anything today, it is that externally engineered regime change often backfires and ends in more repression.

Beyond the leadership vacuum lies an even more volatile threat: the fragmentation of the Iranian state. Iran is a multi-ethnic society, and the sudden collapse of central authority could trigger a surge in secessionist movements among the Kurds, Balochis and Azeris. These groups have legitimate historical grievances, but they also risk becoming pawns in a larger geopolitical struggle.

“This is quite serious,” warns Dabashi. “These groups have legitimate grievances against the central government that have been put to illegitimate ends by Israel financing and arming them. They will remain legitimate only so far as they demand and exact their rights within the Iranian polity — the instant they raise the Israeli flag, get weapons from them, and side with the invaders of their own homeland they become illegitimate bandits.”

Neighboring countries will not stand idly by. Turkey, Syria and Iraq are likely to resist any Kurdish independence efforts, while Pakistan will fiercely oppose Baloch separatism. Azerbaijan’s meddling in Iran’s Azeri-populated regions could provoke confrontation. In the wake of its victory against Armenia in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, Baku’s irrendenstist rhetoric has sparked fury across Iran. On November 10, 2022, a private Azerbaijani TV channel sent a message to Iranian Azerbaijanis: “Your path is the path of justice. In this path, we stand by your side. We are with you until the end.” Images of the Khudafarin Bridge connecting the Azerbaijan border with Iran through the Araz River were shown in the background.

These dynamics raise the specter of regional war fueled by proxy militias, with Iran as the battlefield.

As noted earlier, the one force poised to fill the void is the IRGC. With a nationwide infrastructure and command over both military and economic assets, the IRGC may emerge as the de facto ruling power.

“IRGC at its core is a guerrilla operation,” Dabashi says. “One consequence of this Israeli invasion might in fact be a military coup in Iran by the IRGC rather than a democratic government.”

Thomas Warrick, former senior adviser in the U.S. State Department, concurs.

“The most likely ‘winner’ if the present government collapses would be a military dictatorship (‘election by coup’) by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is the best-armed, and far away the richest actor in Iranian politics,” says Warrick, who also served as deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism policy. “They would likely install a figurehead religious leader to give their rule the mantle of legitimacy. But the level of internal repression would likely increase. This is not the only possible outcome, but it is the most probable unless outside forces intervene — which is unlikely at the moment.”

That scenario would amount not to liberation, but to a change in autocrats, from clerics in robes to generals in fatigues, propping up a new Ayatollah not only dependent on the IRGC for his security but also for his position.

And the international community must be prepared for any such possibilities. There is no historical precedent, Dabashi warns, for violent regime collapse in Iran or the broader Middle East leading directly to democratization.

“You cannot bomb, destroy and slaughter people to democracy,” he says.

Nor can Iran count on popular mobilization for change. The Arab Spring uprisings in 2010 and 2011 were characterized by protests and armed rebellions, and led to the overthrow of regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. Yet the 2009 Iranian Green movement prompted by allegations of election fraud against reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi was quashed by Iranian security forces. Subsequent movements such as the 2019 Bloody November movement protesting the rise in fuel prices and the recent (and ongoing) Mahsa Amani protests have been met with more heavy-handed crackdowns and large-scale killings, to include executions, by authorities.

Iran is fertile ground for popular mobilization as a means of regime change. Yet, while the regime is unpopular, high inflation wreaks havoc among families and cultural warfare divides the theocracy and the people, such mobilization still faces a multi-layer security apparatus dedicated to regime perpetuation and political repression. Until there are visible signs of fractures in the Basij, the Iranian Army and/or the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the current regime is unlikely to change.

Still, many Iranians long for change. As Massoumeh Torfeh, an Iran specialist at the London School of Economics, notes, “Regime change is a deeply misguided idea. It may be what 80 percent of Iranians desire, but without a credible opposition or a unifying leadership figure, there is no viable alternative on the horizon” — at least before the passing of the Supreme Leader, 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

What is needed now is a reassessment of U.S. and Israeli policies toward Iran. Bombing campaigns and regime decapitation strategies have failed time and again in the region, from Iraq to Libya to Syria. Each time, they created new vacuums filled not by representative institutions, but by violence, warlordism and foreign interference. The lessons from these misadventures are clear: the plan for the day after is far more important than the war plans themselves.

In both the U.S. and Israel, recent comments from the Israeli defense minister and President Trump seem to indicate a willingness for regime change (even while positions seem to change daily) but they have offered absolutely no evidence that their teams have made serious efforts to develop plans to address “the day after.” This is not George Santayana’s “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Or an oft stated definition of insanity as “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” This is worse. Those senior government officials and influential voices who still call for regime change when an opportunity for a return to diplomacy exists are committing egregious professional malpractice.

Update 6/12 11PM: Israel has bombed numerous targets in Tehran and several other cities housing its nuclear program and bases, killing scientists and top military officials. Iran officials have vowed retaliation; Washington is insisting it was not involved in Israeli attacks. Please see Jim Lobe’s updates here.

Update 6/12 12:45PM: CBS News is reporting that U.S. officials are aware that the Israeli military is fully ready to launch attacks on Iranian nuclear sites. An expected Iranian retaliation would be why the U.S. government announced the evacuations and voluntary departures yesterday.

CBS is also hearing from multiple sources that in the event of such action by Israel, the U.S. could play a supporting role with refueling and intelligence, but not “lead” or help bomb the Iranian sites with American munitions. There has been no “commitment” either way, however.

This led podcaster Saagar Enjeti to charge that this proves that Israel is not acting “independently” of Washington.

“The narrative of an independent Israeli strike is bunk then. This would be a US sanctioned operation and we must stand against it”

Setting everyone on edge and grasping for insight, the Trump administration issued evacuation orders for non-essential personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, and its diplomatic facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait on Wednesday.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also reportedly told FOX News that there would be voluntary departure for dependents of military personnel serving in the Central Command (CENTCOM) area of operations across the Middle East. Fox’s military correspondent Jennifer Griffin quoted CENTCOM on X:

“The safety and security of our service members and their families remains our highest priority and U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) is monitoring the developing tension in the Middle East. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has authorized the voluntary departure of military dependents from locations across the CENTCOM AOR. CENTCOM is working in close coordination with our Department of State counterparts, as well as our Allies and partners in the region to maintain a constant state of readiness to support any number of missions around the world at any time.”

Meanwhile, the UK’s Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), a British maritime security agency, issued its own “unusual” warning, citing “increasing regional tension” that could pose threats to ships in the region.

“UKMTO has been made aware of increased tensions within the region which could lead to an escalation of military activity having a direct impact on mariners,” the advisory said. “Vessels are advised to transit the Arabian Gulf, Gulf of Oman and Straits of Hormuz with caution.”

By Wednesday night, the media was speculating widely that the administration is worried about an imminent strike by Israel on Iran. Asked about the developments at a Kennedy Center event, Trump acknowledged that U.S. citizens were being moved out of the Middle East, saying “it could be a dangerous place. … We’ve given notice to move out; we’ll see what happens.”

“We are watching and worried,” one senior diplomat in the region told the Washington Post. “We think it’s more serious than any other time in the past.”

Observers are also wondering if the last-minute postponement of a Capitol Hill hearing tomorrow featuring CENTCOM Commander Army Gen. Michael Kurilla has anything to do with the news today. According to Stars & Stripes, the hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee was postponed less than 24-hours before its scheduled time on Thursday. Notably, this is a day after Kurilla (under questioning) acknowledged that the military was prepared to engage in an “overwhelming show of force” if Iran gets a bomb and the president directs CENTCOM to do so.

What is going on?

The warnings and evacuation orders came after Iran publicly threatened to attack U.S. bases in the Middle East if they were attacked first. This, after once-hopeful Iran nuclear deal talks seemed to hit a logjam over whether Iran would be able to pursue its right to a civilian enrichment program. Iranian officials appeared to be responding to calls from hawks in the U.S. to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program by force if necessary.

“Some officials on the other side threaten conflict if negotiations don’t come to fruition. If a conflict is imposed on us … all US bases are within our reach and we will boldly target them in host countries,” Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh told reporters on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, President Trump has been quoted saying he is more pessimistic about the talks, but not explaining why.

“I don’t know,” he told the podcast Pod Force One on Monday, when asked whether he thought a deal might happen. “I’m less confident now than I would have been a couple of months ago. Something happened to them, but I am much less confident of a deal being made.”

Trump repeated that Iran would be stopped from developing a nuclear weapon either way. “But it would be nicer to do it without warfare, without people dying.”

Now we know Israel would prefer that the U.S and/or Israel destroy Iran’s nuclear program militarily. Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government have expressed growing frustration with Trump’s diplomatic path (the negotiations are headed into their sixth round of talks). Iran lashed out earlier this week when it insisted it knows where Israel’s secret nuclear weapons arsenal is and threatened to strike it if they were attacked, too.

Interestingly, CNN reported Wednesday that in a phone call with Netanyahu on Monday, Trump warned against a military intervention. This might indicate Israel is more committed to action than has even been reported.

From CNN:

During their call, Trump asked Netanyahu to stop talking about an attack on Iran, the source familiar with the conversation said, and halt the leaks and reports about plans and preparations for an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Netanyahu has repeatedly pushed for a military option to stop Iran’s nuclear program. In the conversation with Trump, Netanyahu told Trump that Iran is just trying to buy time and isn’t serious about negotiations, the source said. CNN reported last month that Israel was preparing for a possible strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

No doubt the concern is Israel will go through with something, that Iran will retaliate, and the U.S. will be compelled to intervene on Israel’s behalf, as it did twice since the beginning of the Gaza War in 2023. As Al-Monitor correspondent Elizabeth Hagedorn noted in an X post about the evacuations: “Former US official tells me, ‘This is what we would do if we or Israel were about to go kinetic.'”

Daniel Shapiro, former State Department/DoD official, said something similar on X: “Ordered departure from US Emb Baghdad could reflect a major threat, but also is impactful as a means of signaling possible near-term military action against Iran. It’s a big move, hard to reverse quickly, comes at some cost. So if signaling, you play this card when you mean it.”

This article is being updated as the story develops.

Ukraine’s President Volodomyr Zelensky has agreed to hand over to the U.S. $500 billion worth of his country’s rare earth minerals. On the back of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s comments ruling out NATO membership for Ukraine, this looks like a dreadful deal on the surface. But it may be the best one available.

During his visit to Kyiv on February 12, Treasury Secretary Steve Bessent spoke to the press, beside Zelensky, about a proposed agreement on U.S. access to rare earths. It was a day, in fact, of geopolitical earthquakes in Europe. At a NATO Ukraine Contact Group meeting in Brussels, Hegseth was bluntly ruling out NATO membership for Ukraine or a return to its pre-2014 borders. The latter may be an elegant form of words suggesting scope to negotiate on border changes since 2022.

But the announcement on rare earths and Secretary Hegseth’s comments are part of a bigger jigsaw of geopolitical choreography that President Trump appears to be orchestrating right now. Secretary Bessent said during his presser that rare earths were part of a “larger peace deal that Trump has in mind.”

What might Ukraine gain from giving away its rare earth minerals? Beyond unspecified military support including weapons supplies, the obvious answer is investment in post-war reconstruction. A year ago, the United Nations had assessed the cost of war damages in Ukraine to have been almost — you guessed it — $500 billion. That figure will have risen after another year of destructive war.

Following President Trump’s announcement about turning Gaza into a strip of prime real estate, it is hard to imagine that he does not see huge scope for U.S. contractors to benefit from rebuilding Ukraine. That leaves the separate question of who will pay.

Europe has so far only committed to fund a modest percentage of the reconstruction cost. This revives the question of Russia’s frozen assets. If President Trump is going to take a hard line on forcing Ukraine to accept the borders as they stand when the cannon fire stops, what concession will he drive out of Russia?

As I have argued before, the obvious solution is for Russia to give up its $300 billion in frozen assets in the real estate deal of the century. This would be on the basis that the U.S. would not support Ukrainian efforts to retake occupied territory by force, rendering it a frozen conflict along the lines of Cyprus. But it would give Ukraine the Russian money it has long sought, allowing Presidents Zelensky and Putin both to declare some victory from the deal.

In the geopolitical waltz that is happening right now, Secretary Hegseth’s statements have merely focused attention on a reality that many Western leaders have privately recognized but refused to confront for too long.

American politicians from across the divide have been careful to point out from the beginning the desire to prevent any direct American military involvement in Ukraine. Even under the previous Biden administration, America was at best lukewarm on Ukraine’s NATO aspiration, while successive European leaders insisted on its irreversibility . All progress on peace talks in Ukraine have been held hostage by the NATO issue.

With that now in the parking lot, it’s time to focus on the practicalities of ending the war in terms that strengthen Ukraine for the future.

The issue of Ukrainian rare earths is not new , having bubbled to the surface by Sen. L indsey Graham (R-S.C.). Rare earths appear to be a core strategic priority for President Trump, seen also in the context of his statements on Greenland and Canada, both countries rich in mineral resources.

At over $11 trillion, the value of Ukraine’s minerals is significant and $500 billion appears a relatively small percentage of the whole. But it is in fact a huge sum for a small, hugely indebted country like Ukraine. To put that number into context, it equates to more than two and a half times the size of Ukraine’s economy, and almost three times the value of American military and financial aid to Ukraine since the war started.

Ukraine exported a meagre $4.2 billion in metals in 2023 , so it would take almost 120 years to pay back America, losing a vital source of export revenue in the process, which it cannot afford. So this deal is more likely about offering concessions to large U.S. companies to exploit certain fields over the longer term. But around one half of Ukraine’s minerals have also been swallowed up by Russia’s armed forces since 2014, and as they have ground westward over the past year.

Deep into the final act of this tragedy, Ukraine is now scrambling to hold on to every last mine that it can and, indeed, retake key mines back from Russia. In recent days, the Ukrainian army has launched a fierce counter-attack around Pishchane in Donetsk, the site of its most important mine for coking coal, vital for its ailing steel industry. The clock is ticking down on Russian efforts to reach the settlement of Shevchenko, where around one-third of Ukraine’s so-far untapped lithium is located. Where will key pockets of Ukrainian rare earths sit before a ceasefire line is finally, and mercifully, drawn?

In the big and ugly scheme of things, we are now at the stage of fighting over dollars and cents. Inevitably, President Zelensky is being nudged towards making a bad deal on terms less favourable than those available to him in late March 2022 at a huge cost to his country’s wealth. I suspect that history will record February 12, 2025 as being the beginning of the end of this act in his stoic political career.

For President Trump, however, if a ceasefire does indeed break out in the coming weeks, he may simultaneously have brokered peace and secured valuable assets for the United States. European leaders will not, I suspect, be cheering from the rafters.

“My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier,” President Donald Trump promised the American public in his inaugural address on January 20, 2025. About three weeks later, it’s safe to say that no one will remember Trump as a unifier, but he still has a chance to claim the peacemaker title.

Of course, Trump is not talking much like a dove these days. He’s already threatened several U.S. neighbors in service of territorial aggrandizement, mused about making war on Mexican cartels, and proposed occupying the Gaza strip with U.S. troops after its residents are ejected. But at the same time, he’s still pushing for peace talks in Ukraine, signaling openness to a new nuclear deal with Iran, and has mentioned reopening talks with North Korea.

Ultimately, whether Trump can be a peacemaker will largely come down to the president himself, specifically his ability to keep his administration focused and his willingness to persevere through arduous talks and criticism, rather than giving up and reverting to belligerent posturing. Pessimism seems warranted.

As a president and candidate, Trump’s record at making peace is poor. It’s true he didn’t start any new wars last time he was president, but he came close with Iran and engaged in a tempestuous “ fire and fury ” exchange with North Korea before engaging in unsuccessful talks. He also didn’t end any wars or bring deployed U.S. forces home, despite gesturing at exiting Syria and drawing down in Europe. As a candidate last year, Trump was critical of the Biden administration for carrying out the withdrawal from Afghanistan he negotiated — his signature peacemaking achievement.

Still, Trump appears serious about striking a peace deal with Russia over Ukraine, even if he couldn’t manage it in a day as he promised. He hasn’t said much about North Korea lately, but past statements about “falling in love” with North Korea’s dictator suggest he views some sort of deal with Pyongyang as unfinished business. More surprisingly, Trump has lately said he’s open to a new nuclear deal and broader détente with Iran. He underlined this by suggesting that he’d turn his administration’s Iran file over to Steve Witkoff , a fellow real estate mogul who seems to value deal-making, and by publicly blocking Iran hawks like former Secretary of State Pompeo and his deputy Brian Hook from this administration.

On Israel and Palestine, Trump says he is pursuing peace, but that is not obvious. Yes, his support for the ceasefire plan the Biden administration structured for Gaza was critical in getting the Israeli government to finally agree. And Trump outwardly shares the Biden’s administration’s faith that an Israeli-Saudi normalization can pacify Israeli-Palestinian relations. But it’s difficult to call this a peace plan, especially after he proposed removing Palestinians from Gaza entirely before redeveloping the area into the “Riviera of the Middle East” — hardly a peaceful overture given that it would require the forcible relocation of two million people.

As with the Abraham Accords his last administration brokered, Trump seems more interested in generating benefits for U.S. clients — Israel and Saudi Arabia now — than achieving anything for Palestinians.

Each of these endeavors — Ukraine, North Korea, Iran and Israel — presents unique political challenges, but they face a common set of domestic obstacles.

One is public opinion. Conventional wisdom in U.S. politics is that making peace is riskier for politicians than starting wars. But while being dovish is rarely a big advantage, peace accords can pay electorally, and generally the public will not punish their pursuit.

Various commentators insist that Trump won the election due to his promise to end wars abroad — or at least that Kamala Harris lost it due to her comparative hawkishness, but there is little evidence for this. Very few voters ( four percent in exit polls) said foreign policy was decisive to their choice, and those voters were closely split between the candidates. Voters do seem to have preferred Trump on foreign policy overall, but evidence suggests it was due to an aura of strength and change , not his specific proposals. Indeed Trump’s voters seem to disagree with his desire to cut a deal with Iran, his views on NATO, and his statement that he might not defend Taiwan, but they did not punish him for any of it.

The election data thus echoes decades of public opinion research suggesting foreign policy generally lacks salience and presidents have substantial rope to pursue their preferred policies. So public opinion will not much constrain Trump’s pursuit of peace deals.

The main resistance to Trump’s peace agenda, if it lasts, is likely to come from inside the Beltway, from Congress along with commentators, think tank analysts, and foreign lobbies. Recall that opposition from these quarters to the Iran deal is what brought President Barack Obama’s aide Ben Rhodes to coin the phrase “the Blob,” now a short-hand for the protectors of the U.S. foreign policy status quo.

Trump is not immune to elite criticism — he certainly reacts to negative press — but his political success makes him acutely aware of the limited real or lasting effects of the Beltway debate on his ability to push through his preferred policies. Of course, Obama did get his Iran deal and Trump negotiated exit from Afghanistan under similar attacks.

Congress will have little ability to stop any peace deal Trump signs, which are likely to be structured as executive agreements, not treaties the Senate must approve. Opposition in Congress could still lead to difficulties, if for example Democrats decide to hold up appointments or spending to block or shape a Ukraine deal. For now, at least though, the Republican majority is loyal to Trump and disinclined to assert their powers over foreign policy.

Heavier establishment opposition to peace deals might come from the more traditionally hawkish parts of the Trump administration, starting with national security adviser Mike Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and even Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (whose inexperience makes him harder to read ). But Trump’s second term advisers seem to have been chosen because they are likely to be pliant — unlike John Bolton, Rex Tillerson, and Jim Mattis, who all thwarted Trump in various ways.

If the public, Congress and Trump’s staff are all willing to go along with pushing peace deals, it should be smooth sailing, right? Not quite. Even getting warring sides to the table can take months of talks or more and then negotiations can go on indefinitely. The Korea Armistice talks took two years. The Iran deal took over a year of intense haggling. The exit agreement with the Taliban took about a year and a half to conclude. Even a Ukraine-Russia ceasefire, let alone a true peace deal could take years.

Trump seems ill-suited to tolerate this kind of patient diplomacy. He’s often called a transactionalist, but he’s mostly been a shallow one; more interested in the publicity and spotlight associated with making a deal than its substance. That is not fatal to a peace agenda, but it raises doubts about commitment and endurance. Will Trump stick with peace talks as he did with the Taliban? Or will it be more like the North Korea talks — pomp around merely having talks with little of the staffing and compromise vital to success?

The rash pronouncements of Trump’s first weeks may prove typical. Impulsive ultimatums and radical proposals — like threats to invade Mexico or endorsement of throwing Palestinians out of Gaza — may alienate stakeholders in the U.S. and abroad, shattering coalitions needed to advance his peaceful objectives. At a minimum, the neo-imperialist start to his term raises doubts that he can stay focused on the peaceful legacy he claims to seek.