I’ve worked on Iran for nearly 20 years. Our options are never great, but I’ve never seen things this bad. For the first time in my career, I’m at a loss. When this war began, I warned that Iran would likely emerge weakened but more aggressive and risk-tolerant—leaving the region trapped in a cycle of military clashes and chronic instability. That has happened. What I underestimated was the leverage Iran would gain through its stranglehold over the Strait of Hormuz. For a moment, the MOU offered a possible way out. It was deeply flawed, but better than the alternatives. Then vague terms and shoddy negotiating caused it to collapse: Iran believed it could retain some control over the Strait; Washington believed the Strait would reopen to international shipping. But the fundamental problem wasn’t the negotiation. It was Trump’s catastrophic decision to go to war in the first place. The result: higher oil prices, economic shocks, depleted US missile-defense stocks, immense regional damage and civilian suffering, alienated allies and very little achieved in return. So what now? We could pay Iran off through sanctions relief, oil exports and access to the international banking system. But after surviving forty days of war, Tehran is angry, distrustful and convinced it holds the stronger hand. Its price is so high – and so humiliating – that Trump will never accept it. We could escalate militarily, which is what the US is doing. But bombing has not produced meaningful Iranian concessions, and Trump appears unwilling to bear the costs of the maximalist alternatives. More pressure means an expensive, dangerous and potentially endless war, with serious risks to US forces and the entire region as we tragically saw this weekend. And it has little chance of success. Or we could encourage the Gulf states to negotiate a regional arrangement. That may ultimately be the most promising path, but the Gulf states are divided, this remains fundamentally a US-Iran conflict, and any agreement will require major American concessions while leaving Iran strategically stronger than it was before the war. So this isn’t very appealing and hard to get to as well. The likeliest outcome is therefore that we are looking at a new normal: recurring US-Iran clashes, periodic American or Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear program, Iranian control over the SOH, higher oil prices and a larger, longer-lasting American military presence in the Middle East. But since the costs of all out escalation are too high both sides try to keep it from going there, though there is always a risk. Iran’s leverage will eventually depreciate as countries build pipelines, diversify energy supplies and establish alternative trade routes. But that could take years. Eventually, exhaustion may produce a deal. Iran may decide that controlling the Strait while living under blockade is unsustainable. Washington may accept that it must offer more. The Gulf states may finally unite around a workable diplomatic framework. But not soon. Trump took a situation in which better options plainly existed, started an unnecessary war and produced a strategic disaster that will take years to unwind. For now, we are all stuck with this mess.