May 8, 2018 was not an ordinary day in the history of US-Iran relations. On that date, Donald Trump, then the 45th president of the United States, announced Washington’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear agreement signed in Vienna on July 14, 2015 under his predecessor Barack Obama.
What appeared to be an internal American dispute over an international agreement was, in reality, part of the political identity that helped propel Trump to the White House.
Iran had featured prominently in his campaign since the summer of 2015, when he described the nuclear agreement as the “worst deal” in US history. It remained central throughout his first presidency from 2017 to 2021 and returned to the centre of his foreign policy after he became the 47th president on January 20, 2025.
Trump’s fixation on Iran has passed through several phases. The instruments changed from rhetoric to sanctions and eventually to war.
After three rounds of fighting, however, one question remains unresolved: what exactly does Trump want from Iran, and what would he consider victory?
Trump’s Strategic Drift on Iran
Trump’s position towards Iran cannot be separated from his desire to distinguish himself from Obama.
His attack on the nuclear agreement was not simply a technical assessment of its provisions. It helped construct a political identity defined in opposition to his predecessor.
The withdrawal came despite International Atomic Energy Agency reports at the time confirming that Tehran was complying with its commitments under the agreement.
This position also created common ground between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had addressed Congress in March 2015 in opposition to the agreement, openly challenging the Obama administration.
Days before Trump announced the US withdrawal, Netanyahu presented what he said was an Iranian nuclear archive seized by Mossad from Tehran.
The two positions converged around a view of the Islamic Republic not as a state whose nuclear programme could simply be contained, but as a threat whose foundations should be weakened.
From that approach emerged the “maximum pressure” strategy.
In May 2018, then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo presented 12 conditions for negotiations with Iran. The demands resembled terms of surrender more than a conventional negotiating agenda.
Washington subsequently restored sanctions on Iran’s oil and banking sectors and, in April 2019, designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation.
The pressure did not remain economic.
On January 3, 2020, Trump ordered the killing of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in an airstrike near Baghdad airport. Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces, was also killed.
Five days later, Tehran retaliated by striking the Ain al-Asad airbase.
The significance of the episode lay in the direct nature of the confrontation. Washington had moved beyond confrontation through intermediaries and directly targeted one of the most prominent figures in Iran’s military establishment.
At the same time, Israel was given broad latitude to pursue an intelligence war involving sabotage at the Natanz nuclear facility and assassinations, including those targeting Iranian military and nuclear figures.
The emerging equation was clear: pressure on Iran’s economy from abroad combined with penetration of its security infrastructure from within.
From Shadow Conflict to Open War
The shift towards open warfare cannot be understood separately from the consequences of October 7, 2023.
The war on Gaza subsequently expanded across Lebanon, Yemen and Syria, placing severe pressure on Iran’s allies and moving the confrontation between Tehran and Tel Aviv out of the shadows and into the open.
Against that background came the 12-day war in June 2025, launched by Israel before Washington joined attacks on the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan facilities.
That was followed by the 40-day war in February 2026.
In both rounds, the United States appeared as a partner in an Israeli war rather than the initiator of a war of its own.
Trump later reframed the confrontation as America’s war against Iran, citing what he described as Tehran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon.
This produced an obvious contradiction.
After the attacks of July 12, 2025, Trump declared that Iran’s nuclear programme had been completely destroyed. Yet a third war, lasting 13 days and beginning on July 12, 2026, was again justified on the basis of the same nuclear threat.
The contradiction leaves a central question unanswered: were these wars driven primarily by US national interests, or by the strategic priorities of Israel?
The author’s assessment is that Washington adopted the definition of the Iranian threat formulated by Tel Aviv.
When a state adopts another country’s definition of the threat, alternatives can disappear from consideration, along with a serious calculation of costs.
By contrast, states acting primarily from their own national interests generally retain alternative courses of action capable of reducing losses and preventing entry into wars they do not know how to end.
Gulf States Pay the Price
The absence of a clear calculation of costs was also evident in Washington’s treatment of Iran’s neighbours.
Successive rounds of conflict were launched without serious consideration for the interests of Arab Gulf states positioned directly across the confrontation, both geographically and economically.
The result was the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which, according to widely cited estimates, roughly one-fifth of global oil trade passes.
The exports of Gulf states became dependent on decisions in a confrontation they had not helped shape, while their security became exposed to Iranian retaliation that reached facilities on their territory.
Neighbouring states that might ordinarily have been treated as partners requiring consultation instead became arenas forced to absorb the consequences.
After three wars, Trump has now returned to what could be described as a policy of making Iran an economic outcast.
Yet the strategic objective remains even less clear.
Is Washington seeking to change the behaviour of the Iranian state by forcing it to abandon uranium enrichment, reduce its missile programme and sever ties with its allies?
Or is the objective regime change itself?
Statements from the Trump administration continue to move between the two aims and, at times, appear to combine them.
Can Sanctions Bring Down the Iranian State?
If regime change is the objective, historical experience offers little support for the assumption that economic pressure alone will achieve it.
International sanctions imposed on Iraq throughout the 1990s under UN Security Council Resolution 661 impoverished Iraqi society but did not remove President Saddam Hussein. His government fell only after the US-led military invasion in 2003.
More than six decades of US pressure against Cuba did not overthrow its political system.
Sanctions have likewise failed to bring down the governments of North Korea and Venezuela.
In many cases, sanctions can instead provide governments with a narrative centred on an external enemy, allowing them to blame domestic failures on foreign pressure while strengthening the position of security institutions over voices advocating negotiation.
Trump’s strategic uncertainty is further deepened by his discussion of potentially resuming war after the US midterm elections in November.
That timing suggests that domestic political calculations are competing with strategic considerations, and may even be taking precedence over them.
The unanswered question therefore remains: what does Trump define as victory?
Is it zero uranium enrichment? The dismantling of Iran’s missile programme? The collapse of the political system? Or simply an image of victory that can be presented to American voters?
Is Washington Fighting According to Israel’s Definition of Victory?
The three wars against Iran can be viewed as the result of a strategy lacking credible alternatives and an adequate understanding of wider regional interests.
They also emerged from the aftermath of October 7, when Israel redefined its security strategy as an open confrontation with what it calls the “Iranian axis”.
The danger in borrowing another state’s definition of victory is that doing so can also mean inheriting its wars.
The author argues that Israel’s strategic narrative continues to shape the American definition of victory, whether Trump consciously recognises this or not.
Trump may also view Iran through the logic of a political “project” that he personally must be seen to win. If he cannot claim victory himself, the argument suggests, he may be unwilling to leave the issue unresolved for another administration to claim success later.
That possibility leads to a more dangerous scenario.
A ‘Scorched Earth’ Strategy Before Trump Leaves Office?
A “scorched earth” approach towards Iran’s political system cannot be ruled out, according to the analysis.
Under such a scenario, Trump would seek to close the Iran file before it could pass to the next US president.
The objective would be to leave Iran’s political system so weakened that it could no longer rebuild its capabilities, creating conditions in which internal conflict or even political collapse became realistic possibilities.
Such an outcome would fit a definition of victory centred not merely on restricting Iran’s nuclear or missile capabilities, but on preventing the Iranian state from recovering after the confrontation.
This scenario would necessarily involve concentrated attacks against what remains of Iran’s centres of power, beginning with the Mount Pickaxe facility and extending to security centres and other strategically vital sites.
The key difference, however, could be the method.
Future attacks may not necessarily take the form of conventional military strikes. They could instead be designed to deny Iran a clear basis for retaliation by creating uncertainty over what happened, how it happened and who was responsible.
If that approach is adopted, the final phase of Trump’s Iran strategy may not be aimed merely at containing Tehran or extracting concessions.
It could instead seek to ensure that the confrontation is settled, or Iran is left too weakened to recover, before another American president ever has the opportunity to inherit the file.
