Marc A. Thiessen: Trump doesn’t need a deal to get what he wants from Iran

Donald Trump is the consummate dealmaker. But even the greatest dealmakers know that sometimes the best deal is no deal. If Iran is not ready to agree to Trump’s terms in the next few days, now will be one of those times.

Right now, the remnants of the Iranian regime are under the misimpression that Trump wants a deal more than they do. On Tuesday, they watched as Trump extended the ceasefire to give the “fractured” Iranian side time to “come up with a unified proposal” and took it as a sign that Trump wants to avoid a return to combat. Iran’s goal is clearly to drag out the negotiations as long as possible, believing the longer major combat operations are suspended, the less likely they are to resume. They are betting that Trump, under political and economic pressure at home, does not want to restart the war.

Trump needs to disabuse them of that notion. He has reportedly told Iran that it has three to five days to make a serious counteroffer. If it fails to do so, he should resume combat operations – starting with strikes targeting Iran’s recalcitrant leaders. If the Iranian regime is really “fractured” between a faction that wants a deal and a faction that does not, there is a simple solution: Kill the faction that does not.

The truth is, Iran needs a deal more than Trump does. The country has been battered militarily by almost 40 days of unrelenting strikes, and now it is being battered economically by Trump‘s naval blockade of its ports, which U.S. Central Command reports has “completely halted economic trade going into and out of Iran by sea.”

About 95% of Iran’s commerce goes through the Strait of Hormuz, according to Miad Maleki, a former official with the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. If Iran cannot get its oil out of the strait, Maleki told me in a podcast interview, it will have to start storing it – and the regime has only about two weeks’ storage capacity. Once that runs out, it’s going to have to halt oil extraction, which will “cause long-term and permanent damage to their oil infrastructure.” Moreover, he said, about 51% of Iran’s oil exports go to support its armed forces, which means the regime will soon run out of money to pay its military – including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps now running the country.

The blockade will also build domestic pressure on the regime. Iran doesn’t produce enough gasoline to meet domestic demand, Maleki said, and depends on imports, which means the country will soon suffer massive gas shortages that could spark unrest.

The Iranian regime is on the ropes, in other words. But it is not yet defeated. While U.S. and Israeli strikes have taken out much of Iran’s offensive military capabilities, the ceasefire took effect when Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of Centcom, still needed about 14 days to finish striking the target list he was assigned at the start of Operation Epic Fury. Indeed, were it not for the ceasefire, the United States would probably have completed that campaign by now.

If Iran continues to refuse his terms, Trump should give Cooper those final 14 days. He should maintain the blockade, strangling Iran economically, while the U.S. finishes the job militarily. Together with Israel, he should eliminate the Iranian leaders resisting a deal. He should execute Cooper’s plan to open the Strait of Hormuz by force to all traffic except Iranian ships. And then he should issue Iran’s remaining leaders a final ultimatum: Capitulate or the U.S. will destroy Kharg Island, through which 90% of Iran’s oil flows – delivering a permanent blow to the Iranian military, which depends on that revenue to sustain its power.

Those two weeks of major combat, combined with the blockade, will dramatically increase Trump’s leverage at the negotiating table. And if Iran is still not willing to meet Trump’s demands, he can declare victory without a deal – and give the Iranian people the green light to drive the weakened regime from power.

In a Truth Social post Tuesday night, Trump said a deal with Iran might not be possible unless the U.S. resumes bombing – “their leaders included!” He’s right. So, give the regime its 72 hours – then end the ceasefire, resume combat and eliminate the leaders who are standing in the way.