I feel like I'm seeing posts every day talking about the Iran situation from an extremely doomer-pilled perspective that, in my opinion, is completely out of touch with reality and influenced by political bias. I'll preface this by saying I'm not a trump supporter... Investing is fundamentally about making forward looking predictions, and if you knowingly or unknowingly let your biases seep into those predictions, you're setting yourself up for failure.
As someone who dislikes Trump and is exposed to a lot of left-leaning news flow (if you're on this site, this is almost certainly true for you) it is easy to assume the worst and panic over the current situation.
While I think this whole endeavor was probably miscalculated on some level from Trump's perspective, I don't think this war is going to drag on til mid terms like some people are suggesting. In my opinion the most likely outcome (and it is the most likely by far) is some kind of negotiated settlement by mid april.
Why:
Trump's perspective: As we are all aware, this war is highly politically unpopular and the economic cost of an extended conflict will almost certainly sink MAGA politically. Obviously trump is aware of this and knows he is on a timer.
Iran: This is where I think a lot of people are completely detached from reality... This is not a comparable situation to the hostage crisis. For many reasons... Iran is not holding American civilians hostage - they are holding the global economy hostage. While this is a much stronger form of leverage, it also negatively impacts every country on the planet, including Iran's allies and Iran itself. It is truly a situation of "if we're going down, you're going down with us" - Iran is destroying gulf state infrastructure, putting many countries close to economic crisis, etc. I do not believe that Iran wants to actually cause a global economic meltdown and become a global pariah over this conflict. They do, however, want to hang the threat of such an outcome over the US' head in order to force a settlement.
You have to understand this from Iran's perspective. Your fear and panic is their leverage. Until the very day that peace is negotiated, Iran will be screaming that they have not spoken with the US and that there is no possible settlement. This is obvious if you step back and look at the situation from their point of view. If you are reading their statements and your reaction is "Trump must be lying, they are going to fight til the end" - your reaction is exactly what they want... This is what will get them the most leverage at the negotiating table.
Ultimately both sides want this conflict to end sooner rather than later. This is just my opinion, nobody can predict the future with certainty, but I am fairly confident that those of you are who's calculus is: "Iran will drag this on til mid terms to sink Trump politically" are going to be proven dead wrong in the coming months.