Iran won the war against the United States and Israel, Nate Swanson writes in a new essay, but it could still “lose the peace” by overplaying its hand in negotiations set to take place over the next two months. Swanson, who predicted how this conflict would escalate even before it started, argues that the most important thing to watch now is how a deal addresses freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran can use the waterway either “as a tool to make money or as a security guarantee,” he writes. “But it probably can’t do both.”
Read Swanson on Tehran’s fragile victory, and check out several other Foreign Affairs essays, also published this week, that grapple with the war’s consequences for the region and the world. Ian Bremmer and Firas Maksad argue that the war is “the greatest foreign policy failure of both of Trump’s terms.” Dana Stroul explains how the conflict exposed “serious shortcomings” within the U.S. military. And on this week’s podcast, Narges Bajoghli and Vali Nasr discuss how new leaders are changing Iran’s approach to foreign and domestic policy. Start reading and listening below.
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