Hitting Iran's power plants would invite reckless escalation

In the space of a weekend, Donald Trump went from saying his war goals in Iran had been achieved and he’d soon be winding down, to issuing a 48-hour ultimatum for Tehran to either open the Strait of Hormuz or see the U.S. bomb its power plants, starting with "the biggest."

The U.S. president has a decidedly mixed record on carrying through with threats — and this time was no different. On Monday he moved his deadline back by five days, saying on social media that he was in "VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS REGARDING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST." We’ll see. Trump said the U.S. was in talks with a top official, which Iran’s state media denied, and that a deal might leave him in joint control of Hormuz. Neither side’s statements can be taken at face value and the threat posed by his ultimatum remains.

The logic behind it is obvious: Having started the war, Trump can now only win it by cutting a deal or continuing until, at a minimum, Iran is unable to endanger tanker traffic through Hormuz. Yet there are no guarantees he would succeed, and the escalatory implications of declaring open season on critical energy infrastructure would be enormous.

There is very little chance of the Iranians backing down on Trump’s terms, which at various times he has characterized as surrender, or that the strait will return to prewar risk levels any time soon. For decades Tehran held the threat of closing Hormuz in reserve, never daring to actually do it, for fear of inviting a U.S.-Israeli attack aimed at ending the Islamic Republic. That came anyhow, and in closing Hormuz they have made a discovery that cannot be unlearned: Geography and developments in modern warfare allow them to control who gets in or out, and that gives them the power to hold the global economy to ransom.

In a war that the U.S. and Israel are winning hands-down in purely military terms, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders now in de facto control of Iran are not about to give up their best card without making demands of their own. Choking Hormuz is the asymmetric power that allows them to pressure the U.S., even as the Islamic Republic’s leaders, air defenses, navy, missile arsenals and command and control are being mauled.

If Trump thinks the threat of hitting Iranian power generation will cause them to cave, he still does not understand his enemy. These are men who used human-wave attacks to thwart a 1980 invasion by Iraq’s better-armed military and continued the fight for six years longer than made any strategic sense. They were bitterly disappointed when then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called time in 1988, in the face of economic collapse and Iraq’s use of chemical weapons to slaughter the teenagers being thrown at it.

Those same IRGC commanders have been fighting a rearguard action against their own population ever since. The Iran-Iraq war meant the unhappiness felt by many Iranians over Khomeini’s hijacking of the 1979 revolution — which began as a joint enterprise of liberals and communists as well as Islamists — could never play out. After the war, a series of moderate presidents tried to prioritize economic development and reintegration with the global economy, but success would have meant meeting U.S. terms for reconciliation, which the hard-liners consistently blocked. When necessary, the IRGC was willing to kill its own citizens by the thousands to have its way.

These men are not going to give up the fight just because Trump threatens Iran’s power generation, a move that would be far more damaging to the general population than to the IRGC. Plus, as the Iranian response to Trump’s threat shows, they believe they can hit back, pledging to strike U.S.- and Israeli-linked water desalination and energy infrastructure across the region and to mine the entire Persian Gulf. If this war and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have taught anything, it’s that they probably can.

Should Trump’s conversations fail and he carry through with his threats, the Arab Gulf states would face the same tipping point that Iran did regarding Hormuz — where it no long made sense to show restraint because the threat they wanted to deter had been realized. Until now, they have held back from responding to Iranian drone and missile attacks. They have done so because they want the war to end without extending to all water and energy infrastructure, a potentially existential threat. Nor have they wanted to precipitate the state collapse of a large neighbor, or to end the war as the focus of a vengeful IRGC.

It’s impossible to predict with any confidence how this conflict will play out, not least because Trump seems to have planned for a speedy victory and is now having to make it up as he goes along. But his choice has become binary. He can either double down on removing the regime and completely destroying its ability to strike back, or else negotiate a settlement with an adversary that — ironically, and despite all of the U.S. and Israeli militaries’ impressive success — has more bargaining leverage at this point than it did before the war.

Despite the five-day delay, the signs do not augur well for a short conflict, or for global markets and economies. The Pentagon’s request to Congress to supply an extra $200 billion for the war effort suggests a time frame of months, rather than days. Likewise, the news that an expeditionary force of U.S. Marines is en route to the Gulf would suggest planning for some kind of ground operation is underway. That isn’t an obvious sign of "winding down." And if the target is Kharg Island, it is both high risk for the Marines involved and, as my colleague Javier Blas points out, no panacea if it succeeds.

An expansion of the energy war between Iran, the U.S. and its Gulf allies remains possible. Should that happen, it must not include Iran’s nuclear power plant at Bushehr. This is a civilian facility, long under international inspection, which poses no proliferation threat because all spent nuclear fuel is sent abroad. Moreover, were the U.S. to strike, it would be the first time in history that a nation has deliberately bombed a working nuclear reactor.

Even President Vladimir Putin hasn’t taken such a step in Ukraine. One has to assume the U.S. would never consider it either.

This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Marc Champion is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe, Russia and the Middle East. He was previously Istanbul bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal.