Winds of war: Has Washington stopped believing that an agreement is a goal?

There is a moment when a country stops asking how to reach an agreement and begins asking what the Middle East will look like even if there is no agreement. It is possible that this is the moment in which the United States currently finds itself.

For years, the assumption was that it was possible to pressure Iran in order to improve the terms of negotiations. However, it seems that a different assumption is taking shape in Washington: Tehran is not negotiating to reach a stable settlement; it is negotiating to buy time, preserve its capabilities, and arrive at the next round stronger.

If this is indeed the new perception, the significance is dramatic. The rounds cease to be a way to prevent war and become a mechanism that allows Iran to survive. This is perhaps the reason why, in parallel with the military threats, a civil nuclear agreement was also quickly signed with Saudi Arabia.

There is no proof that the agreement is a preparation for an attack, but it is possible that it expresses a deeper change: the United States is no longer building only a strategy of pressure on Iran; it is building the Middle East after the failure of that pressure.

Iranian threats have also changed.

The Revolutionary Guards are no longer talking only about attacking American bases. They are threatening to shut down the electricity, transport, and energy arteries of the Gulf states.

At the same time, the Houthis, Iran's proxies, are threatening to expand the damage to shipping lanes in the Red Sea. This is no longer a threat to one ship or one base. It is an entire concept. One can call it in the words of the Houthis, the "siege within a siege equation."

If the United States and its allies try to strangle Iran economically, Iran will try to strangle the regional and global economy. If they pressure Iranian oil exports, it will pressure the Strait of Hormuz. If they isolate it, it will try to isolate the Gulf states. This is not just a war over territory, but a war over the flow of energy, trade, and money.

This is also the reason why the campaign is no longer being conducted only around the Strait of Hormuz. Hormuz is the battle for the present, but Mount Makush is the battle for the future. The big question is not whether Donald Trump will attack another target. The question is whether Washington has decided that the problem is no longer the number of Iran's centrifuges, but the very assumption that it is possible to reach a settlement with it that will end the conflict.

If this is indeed the turning point, we are not watching another round. We are watching an American attempt to change the rules of the game upon which the Middle East has been based for the last decade.