Three M’s Ended the War with Iran—and would Prevent Its Resumption
Jun 24, 2026
Three M’s Ended the War with Iran—and would Prevent Its Resumption
Ahmad Hashemi
When the guns finally went silent over the Persian Gulf after 90 days of relentless airstrikes, the sudden pause caught almost everyone off guard. The conflict ended not with a dramatic battlefield victory, but with the stroke of a pen at a G7 summit in France.
This wasn’t a breakthrough born out of a decisive win. Instead, President Donald Trump’s decision to halt military operations and sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was driven by a cold calculation of domestic and global pressures. Three brutal realities forced the White House’s hand: Markets, Munitions, and Midterm Elections.
One- Markets: Staving Off Global Economic Collapse
First and foremost, the war had to end because the global economy was on the brink of collapse. Modern warfare is always expensive, but a conflict that chokes off the world’s primary energy arteries carries a price tag that no sitting American president can afford.
The breaking point was the Strait of Hormuz. When the fighting effectively closed this narrow chokepoint—which handles roughly 20% of the world’s petroleum and natural gas—shockwaves ripped through global markets. Energy costs skyrocketed overnight, gas prices at home spiked, and an already stubborn inflation rate threatened to spiral completely out of control.
Speaking to reporters after signing the MOU in France, Trump didn’t mince words. He admitted his timeline for peace was driven by the blood-red numbers flashing across Wall Street trading screens, stating bluntly that he stopped the three-month war because the world was on the verge of “going into a depression.” In a rare moment of historical reflection, Trump noted that he was determined not to become the next Herbert Hoover.
The market’s reaction proved he was right to worry. The moment the U.S. Navy announced it would lift its blockade and reopen shipping lanes, global stocks rallied fiercely. More importantly, oil prices plunged back below the psychologically critical $90-a-barrel mark, giving a gasping global economy room to breathe.
Two- Munitions: The Empty Arsenal of Democracy
While the public face of the ceasefire was all about saving the economy, a much more alarming crisis was unfolding behind closed doors at the Pentagon. The sheer intensity of the 90-day bombing campaign had pushed America’s military stockpile to its absolute limit.
Post-war analyses from defense think tanks like the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) revealed a terrifying reality: the U.S. military was burning through high-end precision munitions at an unsustainable rate. Tomahawk cruise missiles and advanced air-defense interceptors—vital for taking out Iranian missile batteries and protecting American ships—were running dangerously low. The U.S. was on the verge of running on empty. Defense experts estimate it could take three to six years just to replenish these sophisticated weapons systems to pre-war levels. Because of supply chain bottlenecks, factory lines simply cannot ramp up production overnight.
This created a massive strategic vulnerability. If Trump had prolonged the war for another few months, the U.S. would have been left virtually defenseless if a second crisis suddenly boiled over in places like the Indo-Pacific or Eastern Europe. The White House realized it couldn’t afford to fight a war of attrition when its own ammunition gauges were flashing red.
Three- Midterm Elections: The Unforgiving Political Math
The final pressure point was domestic politics. No matter how grand a commander-in-chief’s foreign policy goals might be, they always clash eventually with the reality of the ballot box.
By month three of the war, the public’s patience had worn thin. Abstract arguments about “regional stability” and “containment” don’t mean much to everyday Americans watching their paychecks get eaten alive by soaring gas prices and inflation.
Behind the scenes, Republican strategists and internal pollsters delivered a brutal wake-up call to the Oval Office: if this war keeps going and gas stays this high, they are looking at an absolute bloodbath in November. The data showed the party was on track to lose control of both the House and the Senate.
Faced with the prospect of a crippled agenda and a hostile Congress for the rest of his term, Trump chose political survival over total military victory. The instinct for self-preservation overrode the desire to keep hammering Tehran. Ending the war was the only way to cool down inflation and save his party’s thin majorities in Washington.
The Reality Check: How to Keep the Peace
Understanding the “Three M’s” explains why the strikes stopped, but it also provides a stark blueprint for the future. The current peace is incredibly fragile—it’s an armed truce, not a permanent treaty. The Three M’s saved the world from a catastrophic depression and gave the U.S. military a chance to catch its breath. But peace takes work. If Washington doesn’t fix its broken supply chains, secure its energy resiliency, and rebuild its missile stockpiles, the exact vulnerabilities that forced an end to this war will become the targets our adversaries exploit to start the next one.
Ahmad Hashemi is the Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Program at the Global Policy Institute (GPI). He is a naturalized U.S. citizen in northern Virginia with a unique background as a former Foreign Ministry linguist, pro-democracy activist, and a freelance journalist from Iran. He is currently pursuing a Master’s in Strategic Intelligence Studies at the Institute of World Politics (IWP). His experience also includes a research fellowship at the Hudson Institute, freelance journalism, and multilingual translation in Farsi, Arabic, Turkish, and Azerbaijani. His work at Hudson focused on Iran, Azerbaijan, and Middle Eastern foreign policy issues. He has written for The Hill, National Interest, Washington Examiner, Jewish News Syndicate, the Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post, Israel Hayom, BBC Persian, Al Arabiya, Iran International, and The Independent Persian, among other media outlets. He has also appeared as a commentator on the BBC Persian, VOA Farsi, Iran International, Bengu Turk TV, Indus TV, and Al Arabiya TV, among other outlets. Before joining Hudson, he worked at Gunaz TV as a political commentator, reporter, and producer. Ahmad Hashemi can be reached at AHMADHASH (at) GMAIL.COM
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Ahmad Hashemi, Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Program at the Global Policy Institute (GPI). 