Washington’s Strategy Against Iran: Victory Without Firing a Shot

Liza Gallard

The repeated military threats issued by Washington against Tehran appear less a prelude to war and more a mirror reflecting a strategic impasse. The United States has reached a point where it neither possesses the appetite to launch a war nor the ability to retreat openly. In this vacuum, the “performance of power” has become the central instrument of America’s Iran policy.
At first glance, the escalation of military rhetoric by U.S. officials may suggest an approach toward direct confrontation. Yet a closer reading of Washington’s behavior reveals a different reality: these threats are not the opening chapter of a war, but rather the byproduct of America’s failure to identify an effective option against Iran.
Over the past two decades, the United States has deployed a full spectrum of tools to contain Iran—crippling sanctions, diplomatic pressure, intelligence operations, targeted assassinations, cyber warfare, and efforts to fuel internal unrest. The outcome of this multilayered strategy is unmistakable. Iran has neither collapsed nor been sidelined from regional equations. Under these circumstances, military threats have been reduced to a largely theatrical instrument—one designed more for psychological and media consumption than for actual battlefield use, and a core component of Washington’s cognitive warfare against Iran.
American military movements in the region—the deployment of aircraft carriers, bomber flights, and highly publicized exercises—combined with the U.S. president’s constant verbal warnings, convey a single message: the projection of readiness for war without paying its real costs. Washington understands well that a conflict with Iran would not be a limited operation, but a complex, multi-layered confrontation with unpredictable consequences—one that could place American interests and those of its allies at risk from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean.

Recent regional conflicts have only reinforced this calculation. Israel, Washington’s closest military ally in the region, despite extensive intelligence and weapons support, failed to achieve its declared objectives even in a limited confrontation. That experience has made the potential costs of a direct clash with Iran far more tangible for American decision-makers.
Seen through this lens, U.S. warships function less as tools of war initiation and more as instruments of psychological deterrence. Yet this lever is itself fragile. Much of America’s power rests on the image of unquestioned military superiority. Any crack in that image—even a symbolic one—could carry significant strategic repercussions. This is precisely why Washington has been exceedingly cautious in translating threats into action.

Instead, greater emphasis has been placed on a strategy of psychological attrition through comprehensive cognitive warfare.

The aim is not to shift the balance on the battlefield, but to shape perceptions inside Iran: to cultivate a sense of chronic insecurity, to amplify economic despair, and to reinforce the notion that resistance is prohibitively costly. This approach is cheaper than war, less risky than direct confrontation, and inherently long-term and continuous.
Yet this project, too, has a critical vulnerability. Psychological attrition is effective only when the dominant narrative belongs to the opposing side. A sober reassessment of on-the-ground realities—from the enemy’s military failures to America’s genuine constraints in initiating a war—can neutralize this effort.

Experience has shown that whenever the realities of the field are communicated clearly, Iranian society has proven capable of absorbing pressure and even reversing the equation to the detriment of its adversaries.

What is unfolding today is not a “threshold of war,” but rather a phase of deterrence consolidation. The United States threatens in order not to fight, stages displays of force in order not to retreat, and seeks—if possible—to advance a project of submission at minimal cost. In such an environment, managing public perception and winning the battle of narratives have become as central to national security as military capability itself.