ANOTHER WEEK, another deadline, another delay. On Sunday Donald Trump repeated his ultimatum for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face attacks on its power plants. “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell,” he wrote, in what was surely the first profanity-laden presidential threat issued on Easter Sunday. The deadline, already pushed back twice, had been set for 8pm Washington time on Monday. Mr Trump has now (without explanation) delayed it another 24 hours, until Tuesday evening.
Then came the weekly hint of diplomacy—timed, as always, just before the markets opened. On Sunday night the administration told a journalist that it was making one more push for a ceasefire. The latest proposal, to be negotiated via Pakistan, would start with a temporary truce lasting two or three weeks. America wants Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz during that time. They would use the lull to discuss a permanent ceasefire.
As with past announcements of peace talks, there is little optimism about this one. Iran wants a permanent end to its conflict with America and reckons that control of Hormuz will help it achieve that goal. It will not want to reopen the strait, and give Mr Trump a respite from soaring energy prices, in exchange for nothing more than a brief truce. State media reported on Monday that Iran had rejected the proposal. When asked about the talks at a press conference later that day, Mr Trump said only that “we have an active, willing participant on the other side. They would like to be able to make a deal.”
After more than 15,000 American and Israeli strikes in Iran and upwards of 5,000 Iranian missile and drone attacks on Israel and Gulf states, the damage across the region is already vast. Yet each side insists it is resilient, and winning: the narrative war has overshadowed the real one. With the fighting now in its sixth week, however, it is increasingly clear that the costs are real—and if Mr Trump makes good on his threats, it will be impossible to pretend otherwise.
The narrative battle was on full display over the weekend, when America staged an operation to rescue the two crew members of an F-15 fighter jet that was shot down over Iran. By any reasonable measure, it was a success. America cobbled together a rescue mission deep in enemy territory and brought back its airmen without losing any of its soldiers. It was an embarrassment for Iran, which had deployed paramilitaries to hunt for the Americans and offered a bounty to civilians who located them.
Yet Iran sought to portray the operation as a failure on America’s part, because it lost a number of aircraft. Two were shot down; the rest got stuck in the sand and had to be blown up by American commandos to prevent them from falling into Iranian hands. Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, posted a photo of one scorched plane on social media. “If the United States gets three more victories like this, it will be utterly ruined,” he wrote.
The costs to America were not trivial. It lost an A-10 ground-attack plane, two C-130 cargo planes, four MH-6 helicopters and the F-15 itself, at a combined cost of around $300m. But that is roughly 0.03% of America’s annual defence budget. The Pentagon can probably afford more such victories.
Still, the costs of the war are indeed mounting. It has drained America’s stockpiles of everything from air-defence interceptors to “stand-off munitions”, sophisticated missiles that can be fired from outside hostile territory. The Pentagon has lost several aerial-refuelling tankers and an E-3 AWACS radar airplane, one of fewer than 20 in its arsenal. Defence sources in the region say serious damage has been inflicted on air bases used by American troops, such as al-Udeid in Qatar and Prince Sultan in Saudi Arabia. None of this has stopped America’s war machine in Iran—but it will be a constraint on America’s ability to fight future wars.
Gulf states have put on a brave face, but they are suffering. In the past few days Iran has struck oil refineries in Kuwait and Bahrain and a petrochemical plant in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. The extent of the damage is unclear. Police have arrested Gulf residents for sharing photos of the aftermath of Iranian strikes, even on private WhatsApp groups, and many of the attacks on oil and gas infrastructure have taken place in remote areas. But it will probably take months to resume full production after the war ends.
The damage goes far beyond energy. The conflict has scared off both visitors and residents. Many hotels and restaurants are operating at perhaps 15% to 20% of capacity. Thousands of migrant workers have been laid off. Even as the soaring price of jet fuel pushes up airfares, state-run carriers in the Gulf are selling tickets at a discount in a bid to woo jittery travellers. Iranian threats to strike American firms have emptied entire neighbourhoods. Saudi Arabia, for example, recently evacuated the towers in its financial district.
Most Gulf states have deep pockets. Qatar plonked down an estimated $200bn to host a football tournament in 2022; it can afford to repair its natural-gas facilities or subsidise struggling businesses. Dubai has already earmarked 1bn dirhams ($272m) to support its economy. If the physical damage can be fixed, however, the reputational damage will linger: the Gulf no longer looks like an oasis of stability.
Then there is Iran. In some ways, Mr Trump’s fixation on power plants has been a distraction. Since he issued his first ultimatum on March 21st, America and Israel have bombed Iran’s largest steel mills, its biggest petrochemical plant, one of its most prestigious universities and its main natural-gas field, just to name a few. Iran’s foes have not yet made good on their most apocalyptic threats—but they are slowly pummelling some of Iran’s vital infrastructure. It could take a year, for example, to resume steel production, one of Iran’s biggest sources of non-oil export revenue.
Iran’s economy was a mess even before the war. Annual inflation has now topped 50%. Food prices are climbing faster still. As business slows, some firms have begun to fire or furlough employees. Unlike Gulf states, Iran has few resources with which to offset the damage.
The question now is how much worse things will get. Should Mr Trump go ahead with widespread attacks on power plants—which would probably qualify as a war crime—the damage would be enormous. Iran has threatened to retaliate with similar strikes on vital infrastructure in the Gulf. A successful attack on water-desalination facilities could render entire cities unliveable. Even if the president reverses himself yet again, the cost of the war will continue to mount.