US intelligence agencies are studying how Iran would respond if President Donald Trump were to declare a unilateral victory in the two-month-old war that ​has killed thousands and become a political liability for the White House, two US officials and a person familiar with the matter said.

The intelligence community is ‌analysing the question along with others at the request of senior administration officials. The goal is to understand the implications of Trump potentially pulling back from a conflict that some officials and advisers worry could contribute to deep Republican losses at the midterm elections later this year, according to the sources.

While no decision has been made, and Trump could easily ramp back up military operations, a quick de-escalation could ease political pressure on the ​president, even as it could leave behind an emboldened Iran.

The sources spoke ​on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.

It is not clear when the intelligence community would complete its work, ⁠but it has previously analysed the likely reaction of Iran’s leaders to a US declaration of victory.

In the days following US-Israeli strikes in Iran in late February, intelligence agencies assessed that if ​Trump were to declare victory and the US drew down its forces in the region, Iran would likely view it as a win, one of the sources said.

If Trump instead said the US ​had won but maintained a heavy troop presence, Iran would likely see it as a negotiating tactic, but not one that would necessarily lead to the end of the war, the source said.

The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said the US is still engaging with the Iranians on negotiations and would “not be rushed into making a bad deal”.

“The president will ​only enter into an agreement that puts U.S. national security first, and he has been clear that Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon,” she said.

High political costs

Opinion polls show the ​war is overwhelmingly unpopular with Americans. Only 26 per cent of respondents in a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week said the military campaign has been worth the costs, and only 25pc said it has made the ‌US safer.

Three people ⁠familiar with White House discussions in recent days have described Trump as keenly aware of the political price being paid by him and his party.

Twenty days after Trump declared a ceasefire, a flurry of diplomacy has failed to fully open the economically vital Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran closed by attacking ships and laying mines in the narrow waterway.

Choking off the shipping that carries about 20pc of the world’s crude oil has driven up energy costs worldwide and the price at US gasoline pumps. Iran’s ability to disrupt commerce gives it powerful leverage against the United ​States and its allies.

A decision to scale ​back the US military presence in the ⁠region, paired with a mutual lifting of the blockade, would eventually bring down gasoline prices.

So far, however, the two sides appear far from any agreement.

Last weekend, Trump cancelled a trip by his special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner to meet Iranian officials in Pakistan, telling ​reporters on Saturday that it would take “too much time” and that if Iran wanted to talk “all they had to do was call.”

Military options remain on table

Various military ⁠options remain formally on the table, with renewed airstrikes on Iran’s military and political leaders among them, according to a separate person familiar with administration dynamics.

One of the US officials and another person familiar with the discussions said, however, that the most ambitious of those options, such as a ground invasion of the Iranian mainland, appear less likely than they did a few weeks ago.

A White House ⁠official described the ​domestic pressure on the president to wrap up the war as “enormous.”

SpaceX’s board approved a compensation plan for founder Elon Musk with goals as futuristic and celestial as the company’s ambitions: colonising Mars and running data centres in outer space.

The details of Musk’s sweeping pay package were revealed in the company’s confidential registration statement filed in recent weeks with the Securities and Exchange Commission and have been reviewed by Reuters.

The lofty rewards dangled for Musk by SpaceX show the challenge of holding the attention of the serial entrepreneur as he prepared to take the rocket maker public. They also potentially set up SpaceX investors for tensions with shareholders of Tesla, where Musk is chief executive officer (CEO), said corporate governance experts.

Connecting science-fiction visions with accounting commitments, the SpaceX board in January approved a pay package for the world’s richest man that would award 200 million in super-voting restricted shares if the company hit a market value of $7.5 trillion and established a permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million people, according to excerpts from the company’s registration statement reviewed by Reuters.

His Mars-shot performance package also gave him as many as 60.4m in restricted shares awarded on March 23, if SpaceX met separate valuation goals and operated data centres in space that provided at least 100 terawatts of compute capacity — a colossal amount of power equal to 100,000 gigawatts — or about 100,000 one-gigawatt nuclear reactors running all at once.

Both awards came with super-voting Class B restricted stock, which carried 10 votes to every one Class A share, and vested in tranches as the company’s value rose.

Conditional rewards, stock options

However, he would not receive a single share if the company failed to reach the board’s lofty valuation targets, which were not tied to a specific timeline other than his continued employment.

He received a nominal salary from SpaceX of $54,080 per year since 2019. The value of the pay package could not be determined since SpaceX is privately held.

SpaceX is targeting an initial public offering around the time of Musk’s birthday on June 28, which could value the company at some $1.75 trillion.

As of December 31, he held 68.8m in previously awarded Class B stock options with a strike price of about $42 that expires in 2031, allowing Musk to pocket any profit above that amount if he exercises the options before that date.

Musk is already worth $776 billion by Forbes’ estimate. SpaceX aside, he could more than double that if he achieves separate, ambitious performance goals at Tesla — the EV automaker he also runs. He owned about 20 per cent of that company’s stock as of November, according to the registration statement.

SpaceX and Tesla did not respond to requests for comment.

The Information and Reuters previously reported SpaceX paid targets for Musk linked to a Mars colony and to space data centres.

Executive compensation expert Eric Hoffmann, who is chief data officer for corporate governance consulting firm Farient Advisers, said he knew of nothing remotely comparable in compensation packages at other companies.

Space targets stand alone

“I am not a physicist or astronomer, and I wouldn’t know where to start,” he said.

“The measuring stick is: has it been done in human history? These haven’t. So that’s hard. Now, SpaceX and Tesla are effectively competing over Musk,” Hoffmann added.

He noted how just last autumn, Tesla’s board argued it needed to pay Musk generously to keep him focused on the automaker. Musk, in fact, threatened to leave Tesla if shareholders failed to approve the plan, Tesla previously disclosed.

“What’s interesting about this situation is now, SpaceX and Tesla — both effectively controlled by Elon Musk — are now bidding against each other for his attention,” Hoffmann said.

Equilar Director of Research Courtney Yu also said the goals of colonising Mars and building space data centres stood out because he could not remember any other company aside from Tesla using metrics beyond standard financial ones, like measures of earnings or revenue to set CEO pay.

It is up to the boards of the respective companies — SpaceX and Tesla — to determine how best to structure Musk’s time, Yu said.

While a $7.5 trillion market capitalisation for SpaceX may seem extraordinary, Yu said in a telephone interview, “it does help with setting expectations for investors as to what the goals of the company really are”.

The United Arab Emirates said on Tuesday it was quitting Opec, dealing a heavy blow to the oil producers’ group as an unprecedented energy crisis triggered by the Iran war exposes discord among Gulf nations.

The stunning loss of the UAE, a longstanding Opec member, could create disarray and weaken the group, which has usually sought to show a united front despite internal disagreements over a range of issues from geopolitics to production quotas.

UAE Energy Minister Suhail Mohamed al-Mazrouei told Reuters the decision was taken after a careful look at the regional power’s energy strategies.

Asked whether the UAE consulted with Saudi Arabia, he said the UAE did not raise the issue with any other country.

“This is a policy decision, it has been done after a careful look at current and future policies related to level of production,” said the energy minister.

Mazrouei said the UAE’s move, in which it will leave Opec and Opec+ as of May 1, would not have a huge impact on the market because of the constraints in the strait.

Opec Gulf producers have already been struggling to ship exports through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow chokepoint between Iran and Oman through which a fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes, because of Iranian threats and attacks against vessels.

Mazrouei said the move would not have a huge impact on the market because of the situation in the strait.

But the UAE exit from OPEC represents a big win for US President Donald Trump, who has accused the organisation of “ripping off the rest of the world” by inflating oil prices.

Trump has also linked US military support for the Gulf with oil prices, saying that while the US defends Opec members, they “exploit this by imposing high oil prices”.

The move came after the UAE, a regional business hub and one of Washington’s most important allies, criticised fellow Arab states for not doing enough to protect it from numerous Iranian attacks during the war.

Anwar Gargash, the diplomatic adviser for the UAE president, criticised the Arab and Gulf response to the Iranian attacks in a session at the Gulf Influencers Forum on Monday.

“The Gulf Cooperation Council countries supported each other logistically, but politically and militarily, I think their position has been the weakest historically,” Gargash said.

“I expect this weak stance from the Arab League and I am not surprised by it, but I haven’t expected it from the (Gulf) Cooperation Council and I am surprised by it,” he said.

Iran warned last week that submarine cables in the Strait of Hormuz were a vulnerable point for the region’s digital economy, raising concerns about potential attacks on critical infrastructure.

The narrow waterway, already a chokepoint for global oil shipments, is equally vital for the digital world.

Several fibre-optic cables snake across the seabed of the strait, connecting countries from Southeast Asia to Europe via the Gulf states and Egypt.

What makes undersea cables important?

Subsea cables are fibre-optic or electrical cables laid on the sea floor to transmit data and power.

They carry around 99 per cent of the world’s internet traffic, according to the ITU, the United Nations specialised agency for digital technologies.

They also carry telecommunications and electricity between countries, and are essential for cloud services and online communications.

“Damaged cables mean the internet slowing down or outages, e-commerce disruptions, delayed financial transactions … and economic fallout from all of these disruptions,” said geopolitical and energy analyst Masha Kotkin.

Gulf countries, particularly the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, have been investing billions of dollars in artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure to diversify their economies away from oil.

Both nations have established national AI companies serving customers across the region, all of which rely on undersea cables to move data at lightning speed.

Major cables through the Strait of Hormuz include the Asia-Africa-Europe 1 (AAE-1), connecting Southeast Asia to Europe via Egypt, with landing points in the UAE, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia; the FALCON network, connecting India and Sri Lanka to Gulf countries, Sudan, and Egypt; and the Gulf Bridge International Cable System, linking all Gulf countries, including Iran. Additional networks are under construction, including a system led by Qatar’s Ooredoo.

What are the risks?

While the total length of submarine cables has grown considerably between 2014 and 2025, faults have remained stable at around 150200 incidents per year, according to the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC).

State-sponsored sabotage remains a risk, but 70-80pc of faults are caused by accidental human activities, primarily fishing and ship anchors, according to the ICPC and experts.

Other risks include undersea currents, earthquakes, subsea volcanoes, and typhoons, said Alan Mauldin, research director at telecom research firm TeleGeography. The industry addresses these by burying cables, armouring them, and selecting safe routes, he said.

The war on Iran, nearing the two-month mark, has brought unprecedented disruption to global energy supply and regional infrastructure, including hits to Amazon Web Services data centres in Bahrain and the UAE. Subsea cables have been spared so far.

However, an indirect risk exists from damaged vessels inadvertently hitting cables by dragging anchors.

“In a situation of active military operations, the risk of unintentional damage increases, and the longer this conflict lasts, the higher the likelihood of unintentional damage,” Kotkin said.

A similar incident occurred in 2024, when a commercial vessel attacked by Houthis drifted in the Red Sea and severed cables with its anchor.

The degree to which damage to the cables might impact connectivity in Gulf countries depends largely on how much individual network operators rely on them and what alternatives they have, according to TeleGeography.

No easy fix

Repairing damaged cables in conflict zones poses a separate challenge to securing them. While the physical repair itself is not overly complicated, decisions by repair vessel owners and insurers may also be impacted by the risk of damage from fighting or the presence of mines, experts say.

Permits to access territorial waters add another layer of difficulty.

“Often, one of the biggest problems with doing repairs is you have to get permits into the waters where the damage is. That can take a long time sometimes and can be the biggest source (of problems),” Mauldin said.

Once the conflict ends, industry players will also face the challenge of re-surveying the sea floor to determine safe cable positions and avoid ships or objects that may have sunk during hostilities, he said.

What alternatives are there if subsea cables falter?

While potential damage to subsea cables would not cause a complete connectivity loss due to land-based links, experts agree that satellite systems are not a feasible replacement, as they cannot handle the same volume of traffic and are more expensive.

“It’s not as though you could just switch to satellite. That’s not an alternative,” Mauldin said, noting that satellites rely on connections to land-based networks and are better suited for things in motion, like aeroplanes and ships.

Low-Earth-orbit networks such as Starlink are “a boutique solution, which is not scalable to millions of users, at this time,” Kotkin added.

• Operations delayed by hidden explosives, hazardous conditions beneath ruins
• UNDP says clearing rubble may take seven years in ideal conditions
• Palestinian labourers face daily danger from unstable sites, crossfire risks

GAZA: Palestinians are using war rubble to repave streets destroyed during Israel’s assault on Gaza, crushing concrete and metal into pavement under a UN-run project they hope will mark a first step toward rehabilitating their damaged cities.

The project run by the United Nations Development Programme comes as progress stalls in US President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan, meant to build on an October Israel-Hamas ceasefire by surging aid and rebuilding the enclave from scratch. It marks a bid by the UN and Palestinians to use locally available machinery to clear mountains of rubble that officials say is blocking access to water wells and hospitals and making it difficult to get the economy going again.

Crushing and reusing rubble

Alessandro Mrakic, head of UNDP’s Gaza office, said the territory faces one of the largest post-war clearance challenges in memory with an estimated 61 million tons of rubble.

“Beyond the collection [of rubble], we have started sorting, we have started crushing, and, as such, reusing it,” Mrakic said. “We have used almost the same amount that we have collected.” Mrakic said UNDP teams, staffed by Palestinian workers, were using the rubble “to rehabilitate roads and pave areas for shelter and community kitchens”.

In Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, Palestinians were operating heavy machinery to tear through mountains of destroyed concrete, sending plumes of dust into the air as workers picked through the twisted steel and rubble of damaged buildings.

Progress is being slowed by dangers hidden beneath the debris, officials say. Before rubble can be removed, sites must be checked for unexploded ordnance, in coordination with the UN’s mine service.

For Palestinian workers, the risks are tangible.

“I can’t find any other source of income, that is why I do this work. [You] could get hurt,” said Ibrahim al-Sarsawi, 32. He said the work site’s location near the Israel-Hamas armistice line meant he could be exposed to stray Israeli fire.

‘Tip of the iceberg’

Gaza rubble clearance could take seven years to complete, UNDP says, assuming accelerated, unimpeded access for heavy machinery and consistent fuel supplies, which are generally scarce in Gaza under Israeli restrictions.

Israel cites security concerns for its restrictions in Gaza, where it launched its assault following Hamas-led raid on October 7, 2023. The UNDP has so far removed about 287,000 tons of rubble — but that is just the “tip of the iceberg”, according to Mrakic.

Recovery and reconstruction in the tiny territory will require $71.4 billion over the next decade, according to a final Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment released this month by the European Union, United Nations, and World Bank.

“The war is over, but [this] is the beginning of a new war,” said Sobhi Dawoud, 60, a displaced Palestinian living in a tent encampment in Khan Yunis.

This “new war”, he added, is one “of reconstruction, the beginning of removing the rubble, and [fixing] infrastructure”.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2026