Opinion | Both Iran Hawks and Doves Misjudged Costs of Conflict and Coexistence

Both U.S. Iran Hawks and Doves Misread War and Peace Costs, Fueling Today’s Gulf Conflict

• Iran is nearly four times larger than Iraq and holds almost double Iraq’s population, raising war costs.
• Washington doves long hoped internal reform would tame Tehran without force, a bet that never paid off.
• Hawks, meanwhile, thought limited strikes could curb Iran’s regional push but now face a wider, harder fight.
• The result is a conflict deemed more necessary than doves wanted yet costlier than hawks ever projected.

Two decades of U.S. assumptions about Iran have collapsed into a war nobody wanted on these terms.

IRAN—When missiles and drones arc across the Persian Gulf today, they trace the failure of two entrenched camps in Washington: the Iran doves who believed engagement could out-wait the Islamic Republic and the hawks who swore precision force could cheaply blunt Tehran’s ambitions. Both camps built policy on miscalculations now measured in lost lives, disrupted energy markets and a conflict that U.S. planners admit will be longer and bloodier than either side forecast.

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, long skeptical of both appeasement and blithe militarism, argues that America’s Iran debate locked itself into false binaries—treaty or bombing, containment or regime change—while ignoring the regime’s proven ability to absorb pressure and retaliate asymmetrically. The bill for those blind spots is now coming due.

The Doves’ Gamble on Reform That Never Arrived

Successive U.S. administrations—most visibly under Barack Obama—wagered that Iran’s sophisticated middle class, womens’ movement and tech-savvy youth would either nudge the clerical elite toward pragmatism or sweep it away. The 2009 Green Movement, millions in the streets chanting ‘Where is my vote?’, seemed to validate the thesis. Yet the bet ignored structural realities: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) controls roughly 40 percent of the economy, according to a 2022 Roubini Global Economics estimate, and owns media, construction and energy empires that finance loyal militias. The regime’s capacity to choke dissent proved stronger than civil society’s ability to organise under surveillance.

‘The idea that Iran’s Facebook generation would rescue policy from within was wish-casting,’ says Ray Takeyh, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former State Department adviser. ‘It conflated societal vibrancy with state vulnerability.’ Every cycle of protest—1999 student uprising, 2017-18 provincial unrest, 2022 Mahsa Amini rallies—ended with mass arrests, internet blackouts and public hangings. Meanwhile, Washington’s doves clung to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as proof that diplomacy could tame enrichment; after the U.S. exited the deal in 2018, Iran stockpiled uranium enriched to 60 percent, far above the accord’s 3.67 percent cap.

The demographic math also undercut dovish optimism. Iran’s population (≈85 million) dwarfs Iraq’s, making any hope of a quick, home-grown ouster far messier. When Secretary of State John Kerry argued in 2015 that the nuclear deal could ‘empower the moderates,’ he assumed economic relief would strengthen President Hassan Rouhani. Instead, hard-liners loyal to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei swept subsequent parliamentary elections. Engagement bought time—for the regime, not the reformers.

Hawks Underestimated the Price of Stopping Tehran

If doves misread Iranian society, hawks misread Iranian terrain. Proponents of kinetic action—ranging from Senator Tom Cotton’s 2015 open letter promising bombing within ‘several days’ to more recent calls for strikes on nuclear sites—assumed Iran could be coerced like Saddam’s Iraq circa 1981 Osirak raid. Yet Iran spans 636,000 square miles of Zagros and Alborz mountain ranges that conceal centrifuge halls 60 metres underground. The Natanz enrichment plant alone covers 100,000 square metres; Fordow is buried beneath 80 metres of rock. A 2012 CSIS war-game led by Anthony Cordesman concluded even a sustained air campaign would set back Iran’s program ‘two to five years at most,’ after which centrifuges could be rebuilt deeper.

More importantly, hawks discounted Tehran’s retaliatory toolbox: the IRGC’s Quds Force arms over 100,000 proxies across Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, Iraq’s Hashd al-Shaabi and Syria’s militias. A 2021 estimate by the International Institute for Strategic Studies values Iran’s asymmetric network at less than $1 billion annually—cheap compared with the $3 trillion U.S. price tag for the Iraq War—yet capable of menacing Red Sea shipping, Israeli cities and 70,000 U.S. troops stationed from Qatar to Kuwait. ‘The hawks’ slide-decks rarely factored in the cost of defending every partner facility and oil refinery once the rockets fly,’ says Emile Hokayem, Middle East analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The economic blowback was equally downplayed. Roughly 20 percent of global oil transits the Strait of Hormuz; Energy Aspects calculates a three-week shutdown would push Brent crude past $120 per barrel, adding roughly 30 cents to U.S. gasoline prices. When drones struck Saudi Aramco’s Abqaiq plant in 2019—an attack widely attributed to Iran—Brent spiked 20 percent within hours. Hawks’ rosy briefings rarely priced that volatility into their cost-benefit tables.

What the Strait of Hormuz Means for Global Oil

Energy markets sit at the core of why the current Gulf war rattles cabinets far beyond Tehran and Washington. The narrow shipping lane—only 21 nautical miles wide at its narrowest—handles about 18 million barrels per day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Any sustained mining campaign or missile harassment could force tankers to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope, adding 3,000 nautical miles and roughly $2.5 million in freight cost per very-large-crude-carrier, says brokerage Howe Robinson Partners.

Insurance premiums already tell the story: war-risk rates for vessels transiting the Gulf jumped 600 percent in the weeks after the latest drone clashes, to 0.75 percent of cargo value from 0.125 percent, says insurer Gard. For a cargo of 270,000 metric tonnes of crude worth $190 million, that adds roughly $1.4 million in extra cost—ultimately passed to refiners in Europe and Asia. The International Monetary Fund estimates each $10 rise in Brent shaves 0.3 percentage points off global GDP growth within two years.

Tehran’s calculus banks on this leverage. By threatening tanker traffic, it raises the geopolitical price of U.S. coercion, deters Saudi Arabia from normalising relations with Israel, and complicates Europe’s sanctions enforcement. The tactic worked in 2019 when then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Tehran to mediate; within hours, two oil tankers were damaged nearby, sending Brent up 4 percent. Hawks who promise swift victory rarely price in that volatility premium.

Is There Still a Diplomatic Off-Ramp?

The battlefield stalemate has revived quiet chatter about renewed diplomacy, yet the JCPOA’s corpse is cold. Iran’s 60 percent enriched uranium stockpile now exceeds 120 kg, enough—if further enriched—to produce several bombs, according to the IAEA’s May report. Washington insists any deal must address not only centrifuge numbers but also regional militias and ballistic missiles, conditions Tehran calls ‘maximalist.’

Back-channel talks in Oman during 2023 produced a draft that would cap enrichment at 5 percent in exchange for phased oil-sanctions waivers, but hard-liners in both capitals scuttled it. ‘The mistrust is now generational,’ says Barbara Slavin, an Iran specialist at the Atlantic Council. ‘Students who once protested for visa access now chant anti-U.S. slogans; U.S. lawmakers who once toured Isfahan now sponsor bills to designate the IRGC as terrorists.’

Europe floats a phased approach: interim freeze of enrichment above 20 percent in return for limited medical isotope imports, hoping to build momentum. Yet without China and Russia buying Iranian oil at steep discounts—Beijing imported 1.1 million b/d in April—Western sanctions lose bite. Conversely, Tehran’s enrichment leverage evaporates if Asian customers refuse to pay crude premiums underwritten by nuclear risk. The off-ramp exists on paper; the politics of accepting it remain toxic in both Washington and Tehran.

Key Takeaways for the Next U.S. Administration

Regardless of who occupies the White House next, three lessons are already etched in Pentagon war-games and Treasury spreadsheets. First, containment is not cost-free: keeping 70,000 U.S. troops in the region, carrier strike groups on rotation and Patriot batteries in Gulf monarchies runs about $50 billion annually, according to a CSIS estimate—roughly half the State Department’s entire discretionary budget.

Second, sanctions without enforcement corrode deterrence. Iran’s oil exports rebounded to 1.5 million b/d in early 2024 despite ‘maximum pressure’ because Beijing bought discounted cargoes and Washington shied at secondary sanctions on Chinese banks ahead of election-year politics. ‘Sanctions are a dimmer, not a switch,’ says Richard Nephew, former deputy coordinator for sanctions at State.

Third, regional allies want U.S. reliability more than U.S. fireworks. When Washington wavered over retaliating for the 2022 drone attack on Abu Dhabi, the UAE turned to China for port investments and to Russia for security calls. Restoring credibility means clearer red-lines backed by consistent action, not episodic shows of force. The next administration must decide whether to institutionalise a Persian Gulf security architecture—including Israel and Gulf states—that shares radar data and missile defense, or continue the ad-hoc deterrence that produced today’s wider war.