The question hanging over Washington this evening is not whether the United States and Iran are on a collision course, but whether the man in the Oval Office is still at the controls. British security analysts, watching the situation unfold with a mixture of alarm and a sense of deja vu, are asking whether President Trump has lost control of the escalation spiral that is now pulling both nations towards open conflict.
Let me be precise. The data points are clear. On the diplomatic front, the US administration has oscillated between maximum pressure and overtures for negotiation, a whipsaw that has left allies and adversaries alike uncertain of American intent. On the ground, in the waters of the Persian Gulf and the skies over Iraq and Syria, the kinetic exchanges have already begun: a series of tit-for-tat strikes, cyber intrusions, and the shooting down of a US drone. These are the characteristic pre-shocks before a major seismic event.
The core of the concern, as voiced by senior figures at the Royal United Services Institute and the International Institute for Strategic Studies, is the apparent absence of a coherent strategy. The Trump team’s foreign policy resembles a series of isolated impulses. The withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 was the first domino. Then came the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, a move that was tactical in nature but lacked a strategic framework. The killing was a decapitation strike against a key node in Iran’s proxy network, but it also painted the United States into a corner. It made further escalation almost inevitable, while closing off the diplomatic off-ramps that might have avoided a wider war.
The physics of conflict, like the physics of climate change, operate on a principle of cumulative forcing. Each action by one side increases the temperature of the system, and the system’s response is non-linear. The Iranians have been patient. They have reduced their compliance with the nuclear deal step by step, a process of calibrated increases in enrichment and stockpiling. They are now enriching to levels that have no civilian justification. The International Atomic Energy Agency has verified this. The trajectory is clear: within weeks, Iran could have enough fissile material for a weapon, should they choose to weaponize.
The Trump administration’s response has been to send more military assets to the region. The USS Nimitz is in the Arabian Sea. B-52 bombers are on standby. But military force is a blunt instrument. It can deter, but it cannot impose a political solution. The United States does not have the appetite for another ground war in the Middle East. The American public, polling shows, is war-weary. Congress has not authorised military action. The Administration is, in effect, steering the supertanker of state towards an iceberg while the crew fights over who is at the helm.
And here is the crux of the alarm from British analysts: the President’s decision making appears increasingly erratic. His tweets are contradictory. His senior advisors, from the Secretary of State to the Secretary of Defense, issue statements that are not coordinated. This is not a government managing a crisis. This is a government in reactive mode, being pulled by events.
To use an analogy from my own field: imagine a planet on a stable orbit, gradually spiralling inward. The process is slow at first, then it accelerates. The observers on the ground can see the path. They know the orbital mechanics. But the pilot of the spacecraft seems determined to ignore the laws of gravity. That is the situation we are in now. The gravity of war is pulling both nations closer. And the pilot appears to have his hands off the controls.
The question for the next few hours is whether the United States can avoid a catastrophic miscalculation. A single satellite glitch, a radar false alarm, a lone patrol boat commander making a split-second decision. That is how wars begin. Not with a bang, but with a cascade of system failures. We are in the cascade zone now. The British security establishment is sounding the alarm. It would be wise to listen.
