Key insights
- Wolfe Research analyst Tobin Marcus casts doubt on the likelihood of an imminent US-Iran diplomatic deal, suggesting Trump's optimism may stem from a belief that military pressure will force Iran to concede. Marcus highlights the risk of Iranian retaliation against Gulf energy infrastructure if the US strikes Iranian power plants, potentially disrupting oil supplies and negatively impacting US equities.
Investing.com -- Wolfe Research’s political analyst Tobin Marcus said he is skeptical that a diplomatic breakthrough with Iran is imminent, questioning whether President Trump’s public confidence in a deal reflects the actual state of negotiations or simply his belief that sustained bombing would force Tehran to the table.
Marcus’s comments come with the U.S. again within 48 hours of Trump’s latest deadline to strike Iranian power plants, a threat he has issued and extended multiple times since March 9 without following through.
"There could be a deal, and there could also not be a deal. I don’t know. I have no idea with these people, they’re getting the s*** beat out of them, and that’s, that’s all I can tell you,” Trump told the journalists.
According to Marcus, this “suggests that his recent public confidence in the prospects for a deal may have been based more on his theory that bombing would force the regime to cave than on the actual status of talks.”
On the question of a ground operation, the analyst said his instinct is that Trump lacks the appetite for a large-scale deployment despite the ongoing military buildup in the region.
He argued that the specific ground operations reportedly under consideration have “deep strategic flaws,” and that further airstrikes against a new target set could serve as an alternative that reduces the pressure to send in troops.
Marcus also flagged the risk of Iranian retaliation against Gulf energy infrastructure should Trump follow through on strikes against power plants.
He noted that Iran still reportedly retains roughly half of its intermediate-range ballistic missile stockpile, and that the U.S. is drawing down standoff munitions from Asia for the conflict. This “presumably reflects concerns about the risks to U.S. aircraft operating at closer range,” the analyst wrote.
On the broader trajectory of the conflict, Marcus said the war could grind on for several more weeks even if the eventual endgame is a declared victory and withdrawal without militarily reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
He pointed to footage from an Easter lunch with allies, inadvertently published by the White House, in which Trump voiced a preference to stay in Iran longer and "take the oil."
On the Strait itself, Marcus pushed back on optimism around the recent uptick in ship traffic, saying that the vessels currently transiting are primarily those leaving the Gulf, not new ones entering.
"If you’re a hostage in a bank robbery, and the robbers release you, you’re not going to head back into that bank to cash a check while the robbery is in progress," he wrote, adding that a true normalization of flows would require ship operators to feel safe sailing back in to load new cargoes.