Predicting the trajectory of US-Iran relations is always a challenge. For months now, Washington has oscillated between threats and negotiations with Tehran — naval deployments in the Gulf followed by indirect talks in Oman and Vienna. What remains uncertain is not capability, but intent: What precisely is the US seeking to achieve in Iran, and at what cost?

President Donald Trump’s posture indicates a renewed Middle East focus, even as strategic orthodoxy over the past decade has urged prioritisation of the Indo-Pacific. The rationale appears straightforward. Iran’s regional reach had, until recently, stretched from the Levant to the Red Sea. Hezbollah kept pressure on Israel’s northern frontier; Hamas reached a level of military sophistication that proved deeply disruptive, and the Houthis demonstrated the ability to threaten maritime routes far beyond Yemen. After October 7, 2023, a sustained Israeli campaign, with US political and military support, has diluted parts of that network. But it has not erased it.

This is the dilemma confronting Washington. A return to the “old ways” of coordinated proxy pressure would force America into repeated crisis management in a theatre it once sought to de-emphasise. From that perspective, firm signalling toward Iran is intended less as regime change........

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