On the eleventh day of the war, the conflict with Iran looks closer to a military decision than a political settlement. By most circulating estimates, the US and Israel have dealt heavy blows to Iran’s missile infrastructure, air defenses and military command structure, sharply reducing Tehran’s ability to strike its neighbors as it did in the opening days.
But the key question remains unanswered: is military success enough to end the war?
Here, the ambiguity of US President Donald Trump comes into view. He says the war “will end soon” and suggests he could talk to Iran. Yet he also insists Washington “has won in many ways, but not enough,” warning of tougher strikes if Tehran continues threatening shipping and energy flows.
The contradiction is not just rhetorical. It reveals a real dilemma: a battlefield achievement that still lacks the political formula to turn it into a stable endgame.
Iran, meanwhile, does not appear to be winning militarily. The appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei as a new supreme leader, widely read as a defiant signal, was followed by statements from senior officials pledging to continue the fight and rejecting negotiations.
The regime’s response to the strikes has not been compromise but tighter alignment with the Revolutionary Guards.
Tehran’s calculation is straightforward: political survival matters more than battlefield losses. If it prevents its adversaries from forcing total surrender, endurance itself can be seen as a form of victory.
Oil: Iran’s Most Powerful Card
As Iran loses conventional military tools, oil remains its most potent weapon. The Strait of Hormuz is not merely a shipping lane; it is a critical chokepoint for global energy markets. Any disruption there reverberates instantly through prices, shipping costs, insurance premiums and political nerves in Washington and Western capitals.
That is why markets have quickly become part of the war.
Iran knows it cannot match the United States and Israel in airpower or technology. What it can do is raise the economic and political price of the conflict, for both its adversaries and the world.
As oil prices climb, pressure builds inside the United States and Europe to end the war quickly. Not because Iran has prevailed militarily, but because it has turned energy into a strategic lever.
This is what makes the decision to stop the bombing so sensitive. If Washington halts the war simply because oil prices spike or political pressures grow, Tehran will draw a clear lesson: threatening energy flows ensures survival.
That would be more consequential than any short-term battlefield gain. It would mean Iran, even after losing much of its arsenal, still holds a deterrent capable of helping it rebuild its position later.
If, however, the US and Israel continue the pressure until Iran loses the ability to threaten shipping and disrupt energy markets, the regime would be stripped of its last major lever. Only then would halting the strikes resemble ending a war rather than freezing it.
The “Day After” Question
The central criticism aimed at Trump in Washington and abroad is simple: he lacks a coherent plan for the day after.
Who governs Iran? Who prevents chaos? Who signs ceasefire arrangements and nuclear restrictions? And who ensures the country does not slide into instability like that in Iraq or Syria?
The question is legitimate, but it may not match Trump’s own logic.
The US president does not appear interested in rebuilding Iran or managing a political transition there, as Washington attempted in earlier post-September 11 interventions. His approach seems simpler and harsher: destroy the regime’s ability to threaten US and regional interests.
What happens to power in Tehran afterward may not be a direct American responsibility.
In that sense, Washington does not seem intent on toppling the regime and then inheriting the burden of governing the country. The objective appears to be weakening it enough that it can no longer pose the same threat.
If the regime collapses internally, that would be an added bonus. If it survives but with far fewer capabilities, that too can be framed as a win.
This approach is less about nation-building and more about strategic punishment followed by withdrawal.
But such a method carries risks. There is no strong evidence that the regime is close to collapse despite visible fractures in its leadership. Nor is there an organized alternative ready to take its place.
Pushing Iran toward internal fragmentation or civil conflict could open the door to far wider instability, displacement and regional violence.
For that reason, the absence of a detailed day-after plan may not mean the administration lacks a goal. It may simply mean it has deliberately lowered its political ambitions.
The promise is not a new, stable and democratic Iran—only a weaker one.
Such a gamble will succeed only if Iran accepts the new reality, or proves unable to resist it. So far, Tehran shows little sign of doing so.
Three Possible Endings
The first scenario is a conditional ceasefire after the core strikes are completed. Operations would continue for days or weeks until Washington and Tel Aviv conclude that Iran’s missile, nuclear and military structures have been damaged enough. Indirect channels would then open to impose a ceasefire formula on US-Israeli terms.
This is the most rational outcome. It would allow Trump to claim victory without becoming trapped in a regime-change operation or the occupation of a large, complex country.
The second scenario is a longer war than Washington wants. That would happen if Mojtaba Khamenei rejects any settlement that looks like surrender and continues betting on exhausting markets and raising costs for the Gulf and the wider world.
Iran might not win militarily. But it could pursue a political objective: pushing the US to stop before turning its battlefield gains into a full strategic victory.
The third, and perhaps most likely, scenario is a victory without resolution.
The US and Israel would destroy a significant share of Iran’s capabilities and curb its ability to threaten shipping and its neighbors. Yet the regime survives – more hard-line and more tightly bound to the Revolutionary Guard, convinced that survival requires rebuilding deterrence later.
In that case, the conflict is not solved at its roots. It is merely postponed. What changes is the balance of power, not the conflict itself.
Will Trump Stop the Bombing Now?
The most realistic answer: not yet, but not indefinitely either.
Stopping now under pressure from oil markets and financial panic would allow Tehran to claim it succeeded in setting limits on Washington. Continuing indefinitely without a political horizon could turn military success into an open-ended drain.
Trump is therefore operating in the gray zone between those outcomes: seeking enough strikes to claim a decisive military victory while avoiding the burdens of the “day after” that previous US administrations accepted.
The risk is that this middle path produces only an incomplete victory.
Iran would be weaker but not politically defeated. The war would fade, but its deeper causes would remain.
The coming days will determine not only when the war ends, but also what its ending means: a settlement imposing new realities on Iran, or merely a pause from which the regime emerges wounded yet convinced that oil leverage saved it.
That is the real test facing Trump, not in the number of targets destroyed, but in the kind of ending he ultimately delivers.
