Ceasefire? Withdrawal? Ground troops?···‘Final ultimatum to Iran’ D-1, where is Trump’s ‘exit’ - 경향신문

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The deadline for U.S. President Donald Trump’s ‘final ultimatum’that he will reduce Iran’s power plants to rubble if the Strait of Hormuz is not opened within 48 hourswas just one day away on the 22nd (local time). U.S. Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz issued a warning, saying, “The President is not playing around right now.”

However, in the United States that day, reports emerged simultaneously that President Trump was probing ceasefire talks and that he was preparing a Hormuz military operation that would take weeks. It is seen as President Trump, who is urgently seeking an exit strategy, weighing all possible options.

At present, the paths available to President Trump are roughly three: ceasefire talks, unilateral withdrawal, or escalation including the deployment of ground troops. Yet none appears likely to serve as an ‘exit.’ A ceasefire deal seems unlikely. The situation has gone too far for a unilateral pullout following a premature declaration of victory. Deploying ground forces would lift this war into an entirely different dimension, delivering irreparable shocks not only to the Trump administration but also to the global economy.

Leon Panetta, the former U.S. Secretary of Defense who oversaw the operation to kill Osama bin Laden, told the Guardian, “President Trump is in a dilemma,” adding, “it is of his own making.”

The U.S. online outlet Axios reported that President Trump’s aides have initiated preliminary discussions for ceasefire talks with Iran, and that his son-in-law Jared Kushner and envoy Steve Witkoff are taking part.

The Trump administration is said to have set out six demandsincluding abandoning missile development over the next five years, dismantling nuclear facilities, renouncing uranium enrichment, and prohibiting support for proxies such as Hezbollah and the Houthi rebelswhile identifying which senior Iranian figure would be optimal for talks and how to make contact.

However, the ceasefire conditions set by the United States are on a level similar to the demands discussed in prewar nuclear negotiations. Earlier, Vali Nasr, a Johns Hopkins University scholar on Iran, said at an Asia Society seminar that “if the United States and Iran return to the negotiating table, Iran will now come to the talks leveraging not just its nuclear program but the global economy as a whole.”

Black smoke billows from a Shahran fuel storage facility in northwestern Tehran after an airstrike. Reuters Yonhap News

In response to the U.S. ceasefire proposal, Iran’s government has reportedly put forward six counterdemands, including guarantees to prevent a recurrence of war, closure of U.S. military bases in the Middle East, and payment of war damages, according to Mehr News and others. A U.S. government official told Axios that regarding Iran’s demand for compensation, “President Trump does not see that as something that can be on the table.” The official, however, left room for considering a partial lifting of U.S. sanctions that froze Iranian assets.

The Economist noted, “Some diplomats still think the United States and Iran can clinch a ceasefire, but their number is dwindling.” It added, “With Iran having been blindsided twice while negotiating with the United States, simply getting both sides to the same table is such a high hurdle that, for now, this looks like the least likely option.”

The only way President Trump could extract himself from this impasse is to unilaterally declare victory and withdraw. The Trump administration has been building a case for an ‘early end to the war,’ repeating the claim that “Iran’s military capability has been decimated and we have achieved all our war aims.”

President Trump also sounded as if he were trying to step back, saying, “I wonder what would happen if, after the war is wrapped up, the countries that use the Strait of Hormuz are made to take direct responsibility for that area.” The Economist called it a “quintessentially ‘Trumpstyle’ solution,” pointing out that “packaging an inconclusive military operation as a decisive victory is the same playbook used during last June’s airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.”

Given that U.S. gasoline prices are up 34% from a month ago, this is also the most rational option if President Trump needs time to stabilize the shock to oil prices before the midterm elections this coming November.

But in that case, the war would end with Iran still holding 440㎏ of 60% enriched uranium and having seized effective control over the Strait of Hormuz. The Economist noted, “For nearly half a century, ensuring the flow of oil in the Persian Gulf has been a central pillar of America’s Middle East policy,” adding, “Ending the war this way would effectively mean abandoning that principle.”

The large-scale movement of U.S. forces to the Middle East is fueling speculation that the deployment of ground troops may be imminent. Following about 2,500 Marines of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit stationed in Okinawa, Japan, roughly 2,200 Marines of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit and three warships have also departed from California for the Middle East.

CBS also reported that the 82nd Airborne Division in North Carolina is preparing for deployment to the Middle East. This elite unit can be sent anywhere in the world within 18 hours and is a penetration force specialized in seizing enemy command centers and critical facilities.

The Trump administration appears to be weighing a ground deploymentdespite support at home being only 7%because it has concluded that airstrikes alone cannot finish the war. To recover·remove highly enriched uranium and open the Strait of Hormuz, ground operations are unavoidable. The U.S. Marine Corps could help by seizing military bases along Iran’s coast to preempt missile·drone attacks and by taking control of Kharg Island, Iran’s oil export hub.

However, this would be an extremely risky operation, raising fears of heavy casualties. Joe Kent, former director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center who resigned in opposition to the Iran war, told the Washington Post, “Sending ground troops to Kharg Island could effectively hand Iran hostages.” Above all, ground operations and strikes on Iranian power plants could trigger indiscriminate Iranian attacks on energy·desalination facilities across the Gulf, expanding the war beyond control.

For this reason, Fortune reported that another scenario being discussed to reverse the situation without deploying ground troops is to blockade the Gulf of Oman to cut off Iran’s oil exports. Richard Haass, a former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, argued in a Substack post that rather than attempting the lowfeasibility operation of opening the Strait of Hormuz, the United States should meet blockade with blockade, saying, “By cutting off Iran’s main sources of revenue and applying political pressure on the regime, it should be compelled to accept a ceasefire.”