Name: Trump's options: how could the Iran war end? | The Global Story
Uploaded: 2026-03-24T23:02:58.000Z
Duration: 17 min 6 s
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They've wiped out we've wiped out everybody.

How does Donald Trump get out of the war in Iran?

On Monday he said there was progress to end the conflict.

We have points major points of agreement, I would say almost all points of agreement.

political pressure is mounting for him to find an off-ramp.

We'll at some point, very, very soon, meet.

And if it goes well, we're going to end up with, uh, settling this.

Otherwise we'll just keep bombing our little hearts out.

Today on the show, what are the choices facing the president, and how could he end the war?

I'm Tristan Redman, and you're watching The Global Story on YouTube.

And a quick note: this episode was recorded on Sunday afternoon.

the fundamental choices that Donald Trump faces about how to end the war remain the same.

We're joined by the BBC's Joe Inwood and BBC Persian's Gonsey Habibi Azad.

You've been with us before on The Global Story, but

could you introduce yourself once more for listeners, please?

I'm the BBC's world news correspondent, and

my job is to try and digest all of the things that are happening at any point in the world.

At the moment, a lot of that is focused, of course, on the Middle East.

I try and digest what's happening inside Iran and explain it, and

I can only do that through the work that Gonsey and her colleagues do.

And I'm Gonsey Habibi Azad, and I work for BBC's Persian Service in its forensic team.

But I also come from a monitoring background in the BBC, and

we monitored Iranian media on a daily basis, from social media to Iranian outlets to Iranian state TV, everywhere.

I think it's worth telling people there are huge amounts of there are huge numbers of different sections of the BBC, all these different teams working around the world producing amazing work.

And it's only through the sort of work that they do that the gobs-on-a-stick like me that stand in front of the camera actually know what to say, and

I should I should say for our American listeners that a gob-on-a-stick well, explain to us what a gob-on-a-stick is, Joe.

It's a slightly a jokingly derogatory term for somebody that just pops up on television and gives you an opinion on something.

It was so good to have you with us as a duo, Gonsey and Joe.

Escalation seems to be the order of the day, which stands in pretty stark contrast to what Donald Trump is saying, which is that he's looking for ways to wind up the conflict.

Joe, if he wants an off-ramp, what are the possible off-ramps available to him?

One of the things that people are talking about is the idea that if they want to bring this down, what you need to do is you need to force your enemy into a position where they feel they have to negotiate.

That's where the phrase "escalate to de-escalate" comes from.

What you do is, rather than keep a the continual pressure as it is, you ramp up, you do something which suddenly puts them on the back foot.

Because at the moment, the Iranians are under severe pressure, no doubt, but they are firing missiles back.

The suggestion is what they might be looking at doing is putting some sort of ground force in.

I mean, there are the reports of US Marines, many thousands of them, on the way to the region.

They could do something like, for example, occupy Khark Island.

Now, Khark Island is a key Iranian oil distribution, oil export island.

It's right up at the north of the Persian-Arabian Gulf.

And the suggestion is that you capture that, and

suddenly that puts an economic pressure, an economic gives you an economic lever over the regime, which previously you might not have had.

That's an option, but then it's very, very foreseeable that that starts to escalate further and further, and

Once you start to put boots on the ground, the risk to the to you losing soldiers, the risk to it spiraling increases exponentially.

The other thing people talk about is trying to do something limited along the coast to try and get rid of the naval threat.

But all of these will come with incredible risks, and

eventually it ends with marching your troops into Tehran, and that's just inconceivable.

And so it's difficult to see what the escalate to de-escalate option would be, but

Well, at the opposite end of the spectrum, there is another option, which is declare victory and walk away, or at least try to just walk away.

And Gonsey, in particular for people on the ground inside Iran, what would come next if that were to happen?

Well, it's a very tricky situation right now to know what's even happening inside the country.

When I see Iran's Supreme Leader, Iran's third Supreme Leader, all we have seen so far from him have been written messages so far.

We haven't seen him since his succession earlier March, and

that has led to some people speculating about his whereabouts, what he's doing.

Mojtaba Khamenei, who is son of Iran's late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been a man in the shadows.

He has been regarded as someone who has got influence over Iran's military, IRGC, and

different parts, but we don't know much about him.

Is it fair to say, Gonsey, that the one thing that we do know from the regime is that they probably would not just end this conflict if the Americans said that they were walking away?

My guess is probably the Iranians say, "Well, you're finished, but

we're not." I think most analysts would feel that if the Americans walked away and if the Iranian regime is still in place, is still able to fire missiles, and

still decides it would like to and disrupt shipping, well, there's very, very few people who could, with a straight face, call that a victory for the USA.

You're saying that the risk is that the missile attacks from Iran could continue to happen, for example, on Gulf state neighbours and/or Israel after the Americans had pulled out.

Think about the damage done to Iran, to its infrastructure, to its people, the numbers who've been killed.

We're declaring victory." Why would the Iranians go, "Okay, fine.

The thing the Iranians have said they want to achieve is to drive the Americans from the Middle East, to see all bases removed from the Middle East.

And as long as the Iranians still have the capacity to fire missiles and as we've seen over this weekend, they still have that capability, as long as they have that, they have got a vote.

And my suspicion would be that the Americans could declare whatever they liked.

The Iranians would still be able to vote, and

they would do it by targeting shipping, by carrying on their strikes if they wanted to.

At the beginning of the war, one of the things one of the prognoses that you might hear from various different corners was the so-called Venezuela model of conflict in which the United States might go in, regime change, install a new person.

In Venezuela, it was Delsey Rodriguez, who was seen as a US-friendly head of state.

You don't hear so much about that possible solution anymore when it comes to Iran.

Joe, is that dead and buried at this point as an end game?

It's worth pointing out that in terms of what the end game was, it's always been little, if not opaque from the United States, but