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Why the Ceasefire with Iran Is Likely to Hold
(Foreign Affairs) Gideon Rose - Both the U.S. and Iran are claiming victory in their war. Each says: We held out and the other guy blinked first. Some sort of outcome like this was always likely because the structure of the game constrained the decision-making of the players. Wars have three phases: an opening, a middle game, and an endgame. The opening involves deploying forces and engaging the enemy. If that doesn't produce a quick victory, the contest moves into a middle game in which the two sides fight it out and try to get one another to surrender. As the trends in battle become clear, eventually the rough shape of a logical outcome emerges and the war enters its endgame, during which the details of the final settlement are hammered out. The ceasefire is likely to hold for the same reason it was agreed to in the first place: both sides were hurting and would hurt even more if the war escalated instead of ending. By late March, when it was clear neither side would give in easily, the Iran war reached the inflection point. With neither side wanting to make the war total, both stepped back from the brink. And at that point, the war's endgame began in earnest. By agreeing to the ceasefire, both the U.S. and Iran acknowledged, at least tacitly, that they were not going to be able to get everything they wanted from the war. The gaps between the demands of each side are so great that some think the negotiations will break down and the ceasefire will fall apart. Yet both sides know that returning to war would put them into the same position they just escaped - paying ever-greater costs for diminishing returns. The most plausible outcome is a mix of compromise and can-kicking, producing enough practical results to restart something resembling normal economic activity around the Gulf. The Iranian regime will survive, but with its leadership echelons thinned and its capabilities battered. The writer is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of How Wars End.