A renewed push by Donald Trump to force Iran to the negotiating table has raised optimism in some quarters that Washington and Tehran could soon agree to end the devastating month-long regional war .
Three days after threatening to wipe out Iran's power stations, the US president performed an about-turn on Monday with an offer to postpone the strikes. Officials from the two countries had held "very good and productive conversations" about ending the war, he claimed in a Truth Social post, fuelling speculation about the prospects of an imminent ceasefire and what a détente could look like.
But with thousands of US marines en route to the region and key Israeli war aims not met, doubts remain about the motives behind the apparent olive branch offered by the market-conscious US president. For its part, Iran has - at least in public - refused to play ball , repeatedly denying Trump's claims about peace talks and issuing its own set of maximalist conditions for ending the war.
Though how and when the war will eventually be resolved is highly uncertain, it is possible to sketch out paths for how events could play out in the coming days and weeks. The New Arab takes a look at four possible scenarios. The war ends with a stable ceasefire The most optimistic near-term outcome would involve both sides drawing a permanent line under the long-standing dispute over Iran's nuclear programme under sustainable ceasefire terms. Israel and the US as well as Iran would guarantee not to restart the war later on down the line and the status of the now-disputed Strait of Hormuz would be settled, allowing shipping through the strategic waterway to gradually return to normalcy.
But given the reported gap between the two sides' positions, prospects for such a scenario remain dim. According to news reports, Trump remains committed to all of his pre-war demands, including those long ruled out by Tehran such as suspending its ballistic missile programme and ending its support for regional allies. Meanwhile, Iran has levied its own audacious conditions for ending the war, including bringing the Strait of Hormuz under its effective control and demanding reparations be paid for its wartime losses. Concessions are inevitable if the war is to end, though where they will be made is impossible to tell.
But even under the best set of circumstances, a period of prolonged disruption is now a reality. Even if the war ended tomorrow, the International Energy Agency now estimates it would still take six months to restore Gulf oil and gas flows given the damage done to infrastructure and the dislocations in global shipping. For some sites – including Qatar's critical Ras Laffan gas complex – returning to normalcy will be a process measured in years, rather than months. Unstable ceasefire An alternative ceasefire scenario would end the high-intensity kinetic warfare but fail to settle the immediate causes of the conflict. An ambiguously worded truce, unaddressed grievances or a unilateral Trump exit from the war would at best leave open the possibility of a resumption of the conflict. Under such conditions, the conflict is perhaps more likely to enter a lower-level, attrition phase, characterised by sporadic strikes and drone attacks in a similar vein to the post-"ceasefire" periods in Lebanon and Gaza.
Despite producing a period of relative calm, it's difficult to see how such a ceasefire would restore stability either to the region or to the global economy. There would be few guardrails to a frustrated, far-right Israeli government and a new, more hardline Iranian leadership continuing tit-for-tat attacks or later resuming full-scale hostilities. Shipping in the Gulf would be unlikely to return to normal, with insurers still balking at the potential threat of Iran's drone arsenal. War continues at current intensity Under this scenario, the parties to the conflict are neither willing to negotiate a ceasefire nor escalate the war further. Maintaining the current trajectory would see the further destruction of Iranian military targets without – according to recent US intelligence estimates – seriously threatening the regime. Energy infrastructure in the Gulf would continue to incur damage from Iranian missiles and drones, lengthening the amount of time it would take to restore oil and gas flows following the war. While Iran is widening the number of countries whose ships it allows to transit the Hormuz strait , it is unlikely to be enough to moderate the shock to energy markets, which analysts say could trigger a global recession if the war does not end in the coming weeks.
Such a status quo is unlikely to be sustainable for long. Diminishing interceptor stockpiles in Israel and the Gulf will only increase the efficacy of Iranian missile attacks, provoking harsher Israeli action and raising pressure on GCC states to respond militarily. Meanwhile, Trump will increasingly find himself boxed in by the growing fallout on the global economy, forcing him to either curb his maximalist ceasefire demands or to take an even stronger course of action. Escalation The worst possible near-term outcome would see both sides further intensify their attacks, potentially triggering a period of uncontrolled escalation. One possible route to this scenario was spelled out by the US president on Friday when he threatened to destroy Iran's power plants. In its response, Iran said it would mount full scale attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure and widen its targets to include desalination plants - a catastrophic outcome for the water-insecure Gulf states. Such a turn of events would almost certainly force the GCC to respond militarily, entering the war alongside Israel and the US.
An assault on Iran's civilian infrastructure is just one of several options reportedly being discussed by US officials that could touch off a new escalatory phase of the conflict. The deployment of ground troops – either to seize strategic islands in the Gulf or to occupy sections of Iran's coastline – has been widely floated in the US press, and one that Iran has vowed to meet with escalation of its own.
Among the cards left to the Iranians is the Red Sea, which has become the one remaining lifeline for Gulf energy exiting the region. The Houthis have until now stayed out of the conflict, but should Israel and the US further escalate, the group could resume their attacks on shipping off the Yemeni coast and target Saudi Arabia's Yanbu oil terminal. For the global energy market, a closure of the Bab al-Mandeb strait combined with the disruption at Hormuz is the worst-case scenario and is a significant point of leverage for Tehran.