Can we afford to let talks to end the war with Iran go on for a while?

Donald Trump says “I don’t want to rush it. I want to take my time.”

Pete Hegseth says “we have all the time in the world, and we’re not anxious for a deal.”

Trump is an expert bluffer, so take this all with a grain of salt.

But it’s half-right.

We’re putting a lot of pressure on Iran, and even the Iranian regime isn’t immune to feeling it.

And the stock market seems to trust Trump, with the S&P and NASDAQ closing at record highs on Friday.

That gives some running room to the president, who pays a lot of attention to the markets.

But the political price at home of continued war is also a painful one.

It’s easy for the Iranian regime to ignore the suffering of its people.

Tyrants who mow down tens of thousands of their subjects can live with empty shelves and unheated homes.

In our democratic system, Trump has to worry it’s already getting late to salvage Republican fortunes in the midterms.

Iran feeling the pinch

In purely military terms, Trump and Hegseth are on target.

Not only does the US cause far more damage than it sustains for every day that combat continues (if it resumes), a few weeks of cease-fire lets us start restocking ammunition and tracking the movements of Iranian regime figures who venture out of hiding.

We can do this for a long time before the cash-strapped Iranian regime can rebuild its missile arsenal or its navy.

And our Israeli allies will do things we won’t.

In economic terms, Trump says that the mullahs’ regime is “not doing any business because of the blockade.”

It remains to be seen if economic pain does more to incite rebellion in the Iranian people than to rally them against a common enemy.

But at some point, shutting off all outside sources of income means that Iranian soldiers don’t get paid and government infrastructure begins degrading.

That’s when trigger fingers get itchy.

The Iranian regime, far poorer than our own, can take a lot less economic pain than we can.

Without oil and gas exports, the already-tottering Iranian economy is all but ground to a halt.

Nobody’s trading Iranian stocks at all-time highs this week.

Meanwhile, the main victims of the Iranians’ closure of the Strait of Hormuz are our European and Asian allies, and Trump seems to take a perverse pleasure in watching them twist in the wind.

Political pressure

It’s on the political front that things get dicier.

Trump says “We were in Vietnam for 18 years. We were in Iraq for many, many years.”

But Vietnam wrecked the Democrats, and Iraq did the same to Republicans.

Trump’s approval average is almost as bad as his all-time low after January 6.

Voters are already upset at the high cost of living, and Trump has now alienated the anti-war element of his coalition.

If things don’t get better and soon, Republicans could end up losing the Senate as well as the House.

Trump may have weeks or even a month or two before this gets completely unsustainable, but he doesn’t have years.

Political pressure is also on the Iranian regime, however.

Local government has all but given up, and elements of the regime are beginning to visibly turn on one another.

Even if there isn’t a revolution from below, there’s still a power vacuum that hasn’t been entirely filled after the death of Ayatollah Khamenei and other senior figures early in the war.

It’s safer and easier for competing factions to start expanding their own power bases and securing a good living for their families once the war is over.

Even jihadist fanatics are interested in their own power and comfort.

At a minimum, the blockade has turned the one-way weapon of closing the Strait into a double-edged sword.

Now, economic pressure is actually being felt in the halls of Iranian power.

That gives Trump more leverage than it might seem — if he knows what kind of deal will be enough to call it victory.