Elaheh Sadat Mousavinejad – International relations expert

Every war is narrated twice: once on the battlefield and once in political memory. The second narrative is usually more dangerous, because in it, reality gradually gives way to the illusion that the final outcome was clear, inevitable, and obvious from the very beginning. Those who spoke cautiously in the midst of a crisis speak with certainty after its end, and those who understood the constraints of decision-making are replaced by those who reconstruct the past with a knowledge only available today. The primary error of post-war analyses lies precisely here: equating the rationality of a decision with its final outcome.

The fundamental error of equating rationality and outcome

In foreign policy, states never decide with complete information, a clear horizon, and low-cost options. They are compelled to choose, under conditions of uncertainty, among imperfect, risky, and sometimes irreversible options. Therefore, the correct analytical question is not whether negotiations ultimately succeeded or war led to victory; the correct question is which option had the higher expected utility, given the information available at that particular juncture. The failure of a path does not, by itself, prove that choosing it was irrational from the start; to prove this claim, one must demonstrate that, at that time, with that same limited information, the alternative option had a better prospect. This distinction is perhaps the most important forgotten principle in Iranian foreign policy analysis.

A significant portion of the criticisms directed at the negotiation policy is based on the simple assumption that negotiators believed a stable, reliable, and trust-based agreement could be reached with the United States. If this assumption was flawed from the outset, a large part of those criticisms also collapses. The main issue is not whether decision-makers were optimistic about a final compromise; the issue is whether negotiation, even with a low probability of success, had a strategic function at that juncture?

The hidden function of negotiation

In the realist logic of international politics, negotiation is not necessarily a tool for resolving disputes; it is often a tool for their temporary management. States negotiate to buy time, contain pressures, reduce the likelihood of crisis escalation, and gain an opportunity to rebuild their internal capacities. In this sense, negotiation is neither a sign of trust nor an indication of naivety; negotiation itself is a form of exercising power under conditions of uncertainty.

If Iranian decision-makers assessed from the outset that the probability of a comprehensive agreement was low, but simultaneously estimated that entering into negotiations could reduce the intensity of immediate pressures, limit the possibility of war expansion, protect the economy from further shocks, provide an opportunity to repair infrastructure, and prevent the formation of new coalitions against Iran, then the value of negotiation should not be measured solely by the signing of an agreement; its value should be measured by its strategic function.

The common argument “See, negotiations failed and war broke out again” is not by itself determinative. The final failure of negotiations can only prove the incorrectness of the original choice to negotiate if critics can demonstrate that the alternative option – namely, continuing the war, intensifying confrontation, or abandoning any diplomatic channel – had higher expected utility at that time. This is precisely the point that many ex post facto judgments bypass without actually addressing it.

Predicting the failure of negotiations is easier than proving the superiority of the alternative option. The difficult question is not whether pessimism toward the other side was justified; the difficult question is whether continuing the war, considering all its costs, risks, and secondary consequences, was the better choice. Many analyses collapse precisely at this point, because instead of a genuine comparison of options, they merely use the final outcome to legitimize a pre-existing preference.

Continuing war or diplomacy?

Continuing war does not merely mean the continuation of military engagement. War, the longer it lasts, also transforms the strategic environment, and each additional day creates new costs not only for one side but for all actors. If the scope of conflict were to extend to the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, U.S. bases, or global energy security, the calculations of regional governments would also gradually change. Actors that may have preferred to maintain their distance at the outset of the crisis might, in the face of a direct threat to their interests, be driven toward broader security cooperation with the United States. In international politics, coalitions are more a product of shared threat perception than of friendship.

Simultaneously, the Zionist regime would find greater opportunity in a war of attrition for tactical adaptation, capacity rebuilding, targeting Iran’s allied networks, and benefiting from external support. Time, contrary to popular belief, does not always favor the side that resists; sometimes time serves just as much the side that possesses institutional cohesion, more advanced technology, greater access to external support, and higher capacity for advancing operational objectives.

One might raise the objection that negotiation itself also gives time to the other side. Does diplomacy, especially when it fails to reach a final outcome, not merely grant the rival an opportunity to recover and better prepare? This is a serious objection and should not be overlooked, but the analytical response to it is not to deny the issue, but to compare the options. If both paths – negotiation and continuing war – bought time for the other side, then the decisive question is which path entailed lower costs for Iran, created more flexibility, kept the scope of risk more limited, and provided greater opportunity for rebuilding internal capacities. Strategic rationality in such situations is achieved not by eliminating costs entirely, but by choosing the lesser cost.

The illusion of absolute deterrence and the constraints of the Strait of Hormuz

The same logic applies to deterrence. In the political sphere, it is sometimes assumed that continuing the war could have produced more decisive and sustainable deterrence; but deterrence is not a fixed asset that is acquired once on the battlefield and preserved forever. Deterrence is the result of a continuously shifting balance among military capability, economic capacity, political cohesion, technological innovation, credibility of threats, and the adversary’s perception of this combination of factors. Even victory in a war does not guarantee that the same level of deterrence will remain intact a few years later. International experience has repeatedly shown that no military success produces permanent security.

Therefore, the correct question is not whether continuing the war could have produced greater deterrence; the correct question is whether the potential increase in deterrence was worth the additional costs, collateral risks, and adverse changes in the strategic environment. This distinction is important, because in many political discussions, deterrence is portrayed not as a variable dependent on cost and time, but as an absolute and self-sufficient achievement.

The same consideration applies to the Strait of Hormuz. It is sometimes suggested that Iran could have fundamentally altered the war equation by completely blocking this waterway. But there is a fundamental difference between the ability to disrupt and the ability to achieve complete, sustainable, and low-cost closure. More importantly, any large-scale disruption of maritime traffic would affect not only the global economy, but also Iran’s own trade, exports, insurance costs, regional relations, and diplomatic position. An increase in global oil prices does not necessarily equate to an increase in bargaining power; if export routes, maritime transport, and financial relations are simultaneously constrained, rising prices could, rather than creating an advantage, become a factor in intensifying international pressure and accelerating convergence against Iran. The main point is not to deny the ability to disrupt, but to avoid transforming a tactical possibility into a definitive strategic outcome. The gap between “ability to disrupt” and “ability to impose a favorable outcome” is precisely the gap that many ex post facto narratives ignore.

Ultimately, the main rift in Iranian foreign policy should not be sought between “resistance” and “negotiation.” These two, in many cases, are not inherently contradictory strategies but complementary tools. The real rift is between two ways of viewing international politics: one view sees success in getting predictions right; the other measures it by the quality of calculation made before the outcome becomes clear. The first view, after any crisis, can comfortably say “it was obvious from the start,” but the second raises a more difficult question: if the same circumstances were to recur, with the same incomplete information, the same time constraints, and the same ambiguous horizon, would the same decision be taken again? This question is the true criterion of strategic rationality.

States decide not with certainty but with probability; not between good and bad options, but between costly and less costly ones; not in a world where the future is clear, but in a world where every choice is a form of calculated gamble on the future. The art of foreign policy, in addition to predicting the future, is managing uncertainty. The value of a strategy should not be measured solely by the number of correct predictions, but by the quality of the calculation made before the outcome becomes apparent. The boundary between strategic analysis and ex post facto judgment lies precisely here. The more this boundary is ignored, the more policy becomes captive to narrative and the less it benefits from calculation. In the wake of any conflict, the main issue is not peace; the main issue is calculation.