Loss of control in the Gulf?

The US can only end the war against Iran at the cost of a strategic defeat – therefore, uncontrollable escalation is looming

Tomasz Konicz / 26 March 2026

Does it even make sense anymore to take note of the statements of the – well – President of the United States? Since the beginning of the Iran War, Trump has shifted his position almost hourly: from threats of escalation to declarations of victory, from speculation about withdrawal to insults directed at NATO allies. Virtually anything can be attributed to the president by citing this or that statement.

The stream of mutually contradictory signals from the fascist borderline personality¹ in the White House, whose erratic behaviour and pathological narcissism reflects the swelling irrationalism of capital brought about by the crisis, could simply be traced back to the fusion of psychopathology and fascist ideology in the – well – person of Donald Trump. Truth, reality, space-time, past or future – none of these seem to offer any reference point for his political reflexes anymore. All that remains is the “now-time” of the crisis, marked by intensifying shocks that fascism triggers and/or reactively amplifies. The talk of “alternative facts”², which defined the beginning of the Trump era, has now reached its full expression.

Link: https://wertkritikinenglish.wordpress.com/2026/03/27/loss-of-control-in-the-gulf/

Yet in at least one respect, there may well be a certain calculation behind the contradictory background noise that Trump is emitting: the alternation between threats of escalation and declarations of victory, the ambiguity regarding the end of the war followed by assurances of an imminent victorious peace – all of this reflects the strategic trap into which the imperialist dilettantes in the White House have maneuvered themselves. Washington is losing the race against time. Trump is caught in a trap, as he cannot currently end the war without losing it geopolitically.

At the same time, he cannot continue the war for long without losing it economically. Through martial threats of escalation, Iran is to be pressured into lifting the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, while Trump’s claims of victory are meant to calm financial markets and the global economy, which are already on the verge of another crisis.

If Trump were simply to declare himself the winner and end the fighting, he would be handing Iran an incredibly effective lever of power with global reach – one that the regime in Tehran did not possess before the outbreak of the war: de facto control over the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20 percent of global oil production is transported. The regime would permanently transform this strait into a toll station, which is already effectively the case. This would allow Tehran to generate billions in additional revenue every year.

As things stand, the United States has indeed achieved many tactical military successes, but strategically it would have lost the war – the global economy would be dependent on Iran’s goodwill. This is to say nothing of the initial goal of “regime change”³. Trump’s pathological narcissism may be capable of many things, but to turn such a defeat into a victory is simply impossible.

The Iranian regime is well aware of its strong strategic position⁴ and is making demands of the United States accordingly: reparations, security guarantees, the withdrawal of US military bases from the region and the formal recognition of Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz. If the conflict continues to escalate, which Tehran is currently pursuing through the use of cluster munitions against Israel, the regime could also hope for a surge of solidarity among the population, should Israel’s right-wing government deliberately attack civilian targets as part of its retaliatory measures. Iran is playing for the very thing Washington does not have: time. The elections in November, the onset of stagflation, a looming global economic crisis and the crisis potential in the fragile financial markets would turn a prolonged war into an economic fiasco.

Iran is not only able to block fossil fuels, but can also cut off essential supplies of fertilisers and raw materials for the IT and AI industries (helium). At the same time, it is impossible to overthrow the regime simply through a bombing campaign. Even securing control over the Strait of Hormuz would require a large-scale deployment of ground forces.

This strategic trap into which Trump has now maneuvered himself illustrates not only his intellectual shortcomings, but also the deficiencies of authoritarian systems. At the start of the war, Trump called the very existence of the Iranian regime into question, yet at the same time, he failed to take any measures to secure the Strait of Hormuz, as he was hoping for a quick end to the war, similar to the intervention in Venezuela⁵. That an Iranian regime fighting for its survival would block the Strait of Hormuz is common knowledge in military circles. This information has certainly reached the White House – but Trump is surrounded by a circle of opportunists and yes-men⁶ who function merely as mouthpieces for the president. If the president now hopes for a repeat of the Venezuela scenario, his subordinates will share this view and reinforce it.

The whole thing is reminiscent of the beginning of the Ukraine war, when Putin was fed correspondingly optimistic assessments by the Russian intelligence service FSB beforehand, because the Russian president firmly believed Ukraine could be taken over in a swift military operation, practically overnight⁷. A few weeks after Putin’s Ukrainian fiasco, the FSB was purged – and the Russian president remains in office. A similar situation is unfolding in Washington, where Trump is now blaming his far-right “Secretary of War”, Pete Hegseth, for the war⁸. And a swift end to the Iran war will likely only be possible if Trump makes substantial concessions.

The negotiations between the United States and Iran are therefore accompanied by a rapid mobilisation of intervention forces by Washington: marines specialised in amphibious operations, as well as paratroopers, are being deployed to the region. At the same time, both sides maintain their rhetoric of economic warfare during the negotiations (see “Kriegswirtschaft vs. Wirtschaftskrieg”)⁹: Trump constantly claims that the negotiations are going well to relieve pressure on energy prices and financial markets, while Tehran categorically denies that any talks are taking place in order to sustain that pressure.

Since the total number of US ground troops will, for the time being, be around 10,000, targeted attacks are likely if the negotiations fail this Friday. Even reliably securing the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranian Gulf coast would require the deployment of around 100,000 troops. Therefore, the most likely scenario seems to be an attack on Iran’s oil terminal on Kharg Island, through which more than 90 percent of Iran’s oil is exported. Occupying the island would deprive Iran of nearly all its oil revenues. At the same time, Washington could further undermine China’s supply of fossil fuels, since both Venezuela and Iran export their oil almost exclusively to China. Trump could thus pursue one of his typical deals: Kharg in exchange for Hormuz.

Such an escalation, involving the deployment of ground troops, could also lead to a loss of control over the dynamics of the war. The use of US ground troops on the Gulf islands off the coast of Iran would likely result in heavy losses, since they could be easily targeted from the mainland. Sophisticated weapons systems are not even necessary for this, since the Gulf Islands – the occupation of an island chain in the Strait of Hormuz is also being considered – lie less than 30 kilometers from the mountainous Iranian mainland, while US troops would have to be supplied via the Persian Gulf. This scenario would be highly favourable to the kind of asymmetric warfare practiced by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

At the same time, Iran would expand its attacks on the infrastructure of the Gulf states, which are already on the verge of officially entering the war – Saudi Arabia, alongside Israel, is seen as the main proponent of this war. This could affect not only gas and oil production, but also desalination plants, which supply a large portion of the region’s drinking water (more than 90 percent in some Gulf states!). The consequences of such a loss of military control, in which the logic of escalation is pushed to its extreme, would be nothing short of apocalyptic, both regionally and globally. The Gulf despotisms, dependent on desalination, could not be supplied by water tankers either – after all, Iran is blocking the relevant strait.

The consequences of a loss of control are becoming increasingly clear: water crises in the Gulf and Iran, global economic collapse and an inflationary shock, massive disruptions to distribution and production chains (especially in the IT industry) and a global food crisis, particularly in the periphery of the world system. The current Iran war would thus become a global crisis catalyst¹⁰, not only economically but also ecologically.