What emerged from the war was not peace, nor even a credible settlement, but merely a pause shaped by the exposed limits of American strength
By Murad Sadygzade, President of the Middle East Studies Center, Visiting Lecturer, HSE University (Moscow).
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/authors/murad-sadygzade/Telegram
Tehran, Iran, April 8, 2026 © Morteza Nikoubazl / NurPhoto via Getty Images
In
Washington, the two-week ceasefire with Iran has been hastily presented
as the beginning of de-escalation and as proof that pressure had once
again created the conditions for diplomacy. Yet once the political
packaging is removed and events are viewed in their true strategic
dimension, the picture looks very different.
What really happened
is a forced interruption, reached under pressure and surrounded by
incompatible interpretations in Washington and Tehran. The temporary
nature of this pause, its mediated character, and the striking
divergence in how its meaning is understood all indicate that this is
not the end of a war, but a breathing space within an unfinished
conflict whose core political contradictions remain unresolved.
More
importantly, in the eyes of many outside observers and much of global
public opinion, Iran now appears to be the clear winner of the present
battle. It absorbed the blow, answered with force and dignity, refused
capitulation, and most importantly, gradually shifted control over the
very logic of a war imposed upon it. The US and Israel had expected to
define the rules of the conflict and then present any compelled Iranian
retreat as proof of their own victory. What happened in practice was the
opposite. Iran not only refused externally imposed terms, but also
raised the cost of war to a point where the American military campaign
became a political liability for the US itself. That is why this moment
is increasingly perceived as a sign that even under conditions of
overwhelming technological and military superiority, the US can no
longer automatically convert a campaign of strikes into the submission
of its opponent.
Why Washington backed off
From the
outset, the operation rested on a familiar formula of coercion. The US
and Israel proceeded on the assumption that a series of destructive
strikes combined with intimidating rhetoric would compel Iran to accept
external demands. This logic has long been a hallmark of American policy
in the Middle East. First a condition of maximal pressure is created,
then the adversary is left with a choice between submission and
devastation, after which any tactical retreat is presented as evidence
that Washington has imposed its will. But Iran once again exposed the
central weakness of that model. A large state with internal
mobilization, a resilient political system, and a strong historical
consciousness cannot necessarily be broken by a single cycle of
punishment, even when that punishment inflicts enormous damage. Iran is
not invulnerable, but it has shown itself to be extremely hard to break.
Its leadership remained in place, the state system did not
disintegrate, its capacity to retaliate was not reduced to irrelevance,
and its influence over the strategic environment around the Persian Gulf
and the Strait of Hormuz, by all indications, remained intact.
For
that reason, Donald Trump’s sudden reversal in the final hours before
the expiry of his own ultimatum should not be read as the confident
gesture of a victor, but as the compelled maneuver of a leader urgently
seeking an exit from an increasingly dangerous configuration. Shortly
before the pause was announced, American rhetoric had already escalated
to threats against civilian infrastructure if Iran did not ensure
passage through Hormuz on Washington’s terms. Such signals were widely
taken as evidence that the crisis had approached an extremely dangerous
threshold. The subsequent pivot toward a temporary halt in attacks and
toward negotiations means that pressure had begun to work not only
against Iran, but against the American side itself. Continuing the war
threatened Washington with multiple layers of cost. Military uncertainty
remained high, allies were uneasy, markets were reacting nervously, and
the prospect of a prolonged conflict without a swift and convincing
outcome was becoming increasingly real.
The gravity of the situation for the US was determined not only by
external pressures, but also by domestic risk. For Trump, a protracted
war with Iran would inevitably have become a test of internal political
resilience. Any major Middle Eastern escalation quickly turns into a
question of domestic stability for an American administration. Rising
oil and fuel prices, volatility in financial markets, possible strikes
against American facilities and military bases, the danger of new
casualties, mounting criticism from parts of the political class and
expert community, and the risk that a promised quick victory might
instead become an expensive and unpredictable campaign all created an
acutely toxic political environment. For a president determined to
appear strong and effective, there are few more dangerous outcomes than
being seen as the leader who dragged the country into another war
without any clear path to a strategic result. Inside the US, such a
scenario could quickly have produced accusations of recklessness, loss
of control, and the transformation of theatrical bravado into a costly
impasse. This, in all likelihood, was one of the central reasons why the
White House was compelled to move from maximalist rhetoric to a
ceasefire.
Iran’s losses have hardened it
From a military
standpoint, the US and Israel undeniably inflicted serious damage on
Iran. Infrastructure was struck, losses were significant, economic
pressure intensified, and social strain inside the country increased.
But war cannot be measured simply by the number of destroyed targets. In
the end, war is judged by whether force achieves the political outcome
for which it was launched. And the internal political collapse that the
architects of the campaign may have hoped for did not occur.
Iran,
by contrast, responded not only militarily, but politically and
psychologically. External pressure on this scale almost always produces a
double effect. It heightens fear, exhaustion, and anger, yet it can
also sharply strengthen a sense of historical community, especially when
society perceives events not as pressure on a government alone, but as
an attack on the country itself, on its sovereignty, and on its right to
independent existence. That is precisely what appears to have happened
here. Even if anxiety, confusion, and fatigue accumulated within Iran,
the war simultaneously fostered internal consolidation, mass
mobilization, and a strengthened conviction that national survival
itself was at stake. This is one of the most important reasons why Iran
now appears, in the eyes of many external observers, as the winner of
the current phase. It turned its own resilience into a political
resource, while its adversaries, having begun the war from a position of
strength, ultimately found themselves searching for a formula to stop
it.
This does not mean that Iran is free of internal problems. It
remains a complex country marked by serious social, economic, and
political contradictions. But the scale of the attack altered the
hierarchy of threats within the country. When a state is subjected to
direct strikes, when threats are made against its infrastructure, and
when external aggression becomes openly demonstrative, internal
dissatisfaction recedes behind the logic of national survival. In that
sense, the US and Israel achieved the opposite of what they may have
intended. Instead of loosening the internal fabric of Iranian society,
they contributed to tightening it. The more the war came to be seen in
Iran as an assault on the nation as a whole, the less likely internal
political fragmentation became, and the greater society’s willingness to
see resistance as the only dignified response.
The outcome for
Iran is far from pure triumph. Yet politically it is of enormous
importance. Yes, the losses were severe. Yes, economic pressure has not
disappeared. Yes, the risk of renewed escalation remains. But in
international politics, what matters is not only who suffered more
destruction, but who could not be broken. Iran has not been reduced to a
passive object of someone else’s will. On the contrary, it has managed
to seize the political initiative. If one side begins a war in the
expectation of forcing capitulation and ends by turning to mediation and
bargaining over the parameters of negotiation, then its original design
has already failed.
Ripples across the world
The
regional consequences of the war were equally revealing. The conflict
very quickly ceased to be merely about the US, Israel, and Iran. It cast
doubt on the entire security architecture of the Middle East, an
architecture that for decades rested on the American military umbrella.
For a long time, Arab monarchies were offered a relatively simple
formula. The US would provide security, and regional partners would pay
for it with contracts, political loyalty, and a partial limitation of
their own autonomy. But a large war with Iran showed that this structure
no longer appears either unconditional or reliable. Any major
confrontation with Tehran automatically turns the bases, ports, energy
infrastructure, and shipping routes of Washington’s allies into zones of
heightened risk. That is why the reaction of Gulf markets to the
ceasefire looked almost euphoric in its relief – enormous relief that
the region had, at least temporarily, stepped back from the edge of
catastrophe.
A similar mood is evident among America’s European allies. Formally,
no one is abandoning the alliance with Washington, but throughout this
war there were clear signs of cautious distancing. Europeans were far
more inclined to welcome a halt in hostilities and a return to diplomacy
than to turn the American campaign into their own common cause. The US
failed to sell the Iran war project to its allies, and thus failed to
reinforce that its military superiority is bolstered by international
consent.
At the global level, the consequences also extended far
beyond the regional theater. Any crisis around the Strait of Hormuz
immediately affects the world economy, maritime logistics, insurance
markets, energy prices, and the broader psychology of financial systems.
The very reaction of markets to the halt in hostilities showed that
this war was a systemic danger. This is especially painful for the US
because it undermines one of the central pillars of America’s image in
the world. For decades, it has sought to present itself not merely as a
global source of order. Yet with the Iran war and its consequences,
American power increasingly came to be seen as a producer of chaos,
which then attempted to repackage a temporary pause as a diplomatic
success.
What are the chances for a lasting peace?
The
current pause looks not like a strategic settlement, but like a tactical
stoppage. The reversal by the White House was simply too abrupt to be
seen as part of a long-calculated design. Only recently, the rhetoric
had approached an almost apocalyptic register, and suddenly Washington
was speaking of a workable basis for future agreement. Such contrasts
usually mean that the original scenario either failed or became too
dangerous to sustain.
The negotiation process itself is of
particular importance. Its structure points to a difficult and complex
bargaining process. The American side seeks to present events as the
result of successfully applied pressure, while Tehran emphasizes that a
ceasefire does not cancel its sovereign claims and does not amount to
recognition that the aggressor was right.
There already seems to
be struggle over the interpretation of the pause itself. Iran has
reportedly submitted to the US, via Pakistani intermediaries, a 10-point
peace plan that has to be the basis for any lasting peace it will
accept. This plan includes several conditions that Washington has
already rejected in the past. But even the fact that such a plan is
formally under discussion shows that the US is now compelled to discuss a
framework for halting the conflict, while Iran is in a position to
advance conditions of its own.
The mediated character of the
negotiations suggests that direct trust between the sides is almost
entirely absent, and that each fears being trapped within the other’s
interpretive framework. In such a context, a mediator is needed to
construct a formula sufficiently flexible for both sides to accept in
practice without publicly abandoning their own narrative. Washington
wants the pause to be seen as the fruit of force. Tehran wants it to be
seen as the fruit of endurance and successful resistance. This is the
central struggle within the negotiation process.
As for the
conditions of the parties, they arise from opposite strategic
imperatives. The US wants to restore navigational security, reduce
Iran’s capacity for retaliation, and frame negotiations in a way that
can be presented to an American audience as evidence that deterrence has
been restored. The White House also needs to avoid allowing the
conflict to become a prolonged, costly, and politically toxic campaign.
Iran, by contrast, wants to fix in place the fact of its own
steadfastness, obtain guarantees against renewed strikes, prevent the
pause from becoming merely a prelude to a new wave of pressure, and
preserve its right to dictate at least some of the terms of future
discussion. That is why this conflict cannot be quickly dissolved. The
sides are arguing not only over mechanisms, but over the meaning of what
has happened. One side is trying to prove the effectiveness of
coercion. The other has already, in effect, demonstrated its limits.
The Israeli factor
Israel was a direct aggressor and an
active participant in the pressure campaign, yet in recent weeks its
role noticeably receded into the background, because Trump’s sharp
statements and ultimatums effectively overshadowed the Israeli factor in
the international information space. As a result, Netanyahu largely
succeeded in removing himself from the center of critical attention at
precisely the moment when that was most advantageous for him. While much
of the world was preoccupied with the war around Iran, Israel continued
its occupation, destruction, and military pressure in southern Lebanon.
This goes to show how easily, amid a larger crisis, attention to
Israeli actions can be pushed to the margins even when Israel remains
one of the principal sources of destabilization on adjacent fronts.
If
the pause does not in fact extend to Lebanon, then that means that the
war has not really ended – it has merely been partially reconfigured.
One front has been temporarily cooled, another remains active, and the
possibility of their renewed convergence remains. This is the clearest
sign of a tactical pause. Strategic peace presupposes a new order and a
new equilibrium. Nothing of the kind has emerged here. No actor has
renounced escalation as such. No one has definitively accepted a new
regional configuration. The confrontation has been interrupted, but not
overcome.
In the end, the war exposed a structural miscalculation
in American strategy. The US and Israel did not abandon the logic of
coercion, but they were forced to recognize that this particular phase
of coercion had failed to produce the political result they expected.
Washington appears to have underestimated Iranian resilience, the scale
of Iran’s response, the sensitivity of global markets, the anxiety of
its allies, and its own domestic political risks. That is why there
arose an urgent need to shift the crisis into a format of temporary
ceasefire and mediated negotiation. For Iran, by contrast, the story,
despite enormous losses, became a moment of political affirmation.
The
most enduring outcome of these weeks will likely be measured by a
change in global perception. The world saw that Washington is still
capable of driving events to the threshold of a major regional
catastrophe. But it also saw that Washington can no longer turn military
escalation into stable political order with the same confidence and
speed. The world saw that Iran can be gravely wounded, yet is difficult
to break. It also saw that even though the war was imposed by the US and
Israel, Iran responded in such a way that, in the eyes of many
societies, it was Iran that displayed resilience, initiative, and
strategic composure. That is why the present pause is perceived not as a
triumph of American strength, but as evidence of its limits.