Defeating Iran’s regime requires patience, but shouldn’t take ‘forever’ By Jonathan S. Tobin

U.S. Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit board M/V Blue Star III, a commercial ship suspected of attempting to transit to Iran in violation of the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, as part of “Operation Epic Fury ” April 28, 2026. Credit: U.S. Marine Corps.

JNS : Given enough time, a combination of economic and military pressure may be enough for Trump to topple the Islamist terrorists. The question is whether he has it.   Americans don’t like war in general. But if it has to be done, it had better be quick.

The joint U.S.-Israeli effort against Iran may only be two months old, but that is already too long for many people, most of whom never wanted armed conflict with Tehran in the first place. And that is proving to be politically problematic for President Donald Trump and the Republicans.

The Iran war is just one reason for the polls predicting defeat for the GOP in the midterm elections in a year when the incumbent party typically loses. There’s no question that the rise in gas prices, combined with the general unpopularity of foreign entanglements, is a drag on the chances of Trump’s party avoiding an electoral disaster this fall.

While his opponents have accused the president of having no strategy for victory and the president has been characteristically inconsistent, as well as vague when discussing his intentions, the path to success against Iran appears to require the sort of patience that the electorate may not possess.

Iran isn’t winning
And that’s the conundrum at the heart of the current impasse between Washington and Tehran, and Trump and the voters.

Contrary to his critics, Iran isn’t winning. The combined efforts of the United States and Israel have done enormous damage to the Islamist terror regime’s military assets, ballistic-missiles and what’s left of its nuclear program. Even if the conflict were to end today, Iran’s capability of inflicting harm on the West and American allies in the region has been greatly diminished. But that isn’t enough—and Trump knows it.

As he has repeatedly said, Iran must surrender its enriched uranium that has been buried in the rubble of the nuclear facilities that were bombed last June. It also needs to end its missile program and stop spreading terror around the region via its proxies—namely, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. Yet given the fanatical nature of the regime, and its theocratic and terrorist leaders from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), there’s little reason to believe they will do any of that. What’s more, by obstructing the passage of shipping through the Straits of Hormuz, Iran has been able to exert some leverage due to the impact on the supply of oil to Europe and the price of gas in America.

Considering that Trump’s critics in Europe and his Democratic political opponents at home are effectively cheering for the Iranians to hold fast and prevent Trump from being able to credibly claim victory in the conflict, Tehran has seemingly every reason to persevere until the United States gives up. Its leaders have played the waiting game before with Western nations and always got the better of them.

That seems like a formula for a defeat for the joint U.S.-Israel effort and, more importantly, as far as Trump’s political foes are concerned, also one for the president. That’s why so many in the American press and elsewhere have interpreted Trump’s acceptance of a ceasefire, albeit while still enforcing a blockade of Iranian ports, as a sign that the administration is weakening and will eventually concede failure at some point before rising gas prices turn a midterm setback into a rout.

Yet that assumption doesn’t take into account what Trump is obviously attempting to do.

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