Trump has no good options to resolve the disaster he created in Iran
BY MITCHELL PLITNICK
U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the American public on Wednesday, but he didn’t have anything new to say. That lack of any substance is emblematic of the entire criminal and foolish war he agreed to launch on Iran.
The American war effort is a disaster. While the United States and Israel have inflicted enormous damage on Iran and killed and injured thousands of innocent civilians both there and in Lebanon, the actual gains are minimal, and to the extent that there were any goals for this war, they haven’t been achieved.
When Trump announced that he would speak Wednesday night, many thought he was going to announce a timetable for an American departure from this war, but all we got was more of the same “four weeks” guesswork that we heard four weeks ago.
The only item that was even a little different, although Trump has been alluding to it for several days, is that the U.S. might leave the war without a deal to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Doing that would make American losses in this war even more dramatic. But Trump has allowed himself to be led into a war with no way out.
Is the Strait really closed?
Iran says the Strait is not closed, but ships tied to “the enemy” are not being permitted through. In practice, this means only ships specifically cleared by Iran are getting through, and even then, they are limited by the trepidation of their owners and crews, as well as restrictions from insurance companies.
As a result, traffic through the Strait is a tiny trickle, perhaps 5% of normal levels. These are the ships that Trump is calling a “gift” to him, demonstrating the depth, breadth, and flimsiness of his lies around this war.
In some ways, Iran’s decision to allow some ships through is an even stronger statement than an absolute blockade would be. Iran is demonstrating that it will exercise broad control over traffic in every sense, not merely with a single blunt tool.
That is a worrying signal for the oil-producing countries in the Gulf. It means that Iran will have the ability to potentially charge ships a toll for passage, as other countries do with canals and similar narrow waterways. It seems a natural course for Iran to pursue to recoup the enormous losses it has sustained in this war and over the years of sanctions.
It also opens the possibility of using the Strait as a cudgel against Arab Gulf oil exporters. On the other hand, Iran could also use it as a mere lever, ensuring that Arab states have an incentive to improve relations with Iran and to stand against any future attempts to attack it.
This is something Iran could have pursued at any time over the years, but never did. It pursued it only because the U.S. and Israel attacked. If this is the future of how the Strait will function, it would represent a huge blow to the U.S., which brought it about needlessly.
Arab fear of Trump abandoning them
Trump seems to think that if he simply abandons the war effort, this will spur European states to act. That is certainly what is implied by his call, both before and during his speech, for other states to “take their oil” from the region.
But the idea that Trump, desperate as he obviously is for an exit ramp, might simply exit the war in some manner without resolving the problems his attacks have created is understandably terrifying to Iran’s neighbors.
Those neighbors are responding in various ways. Oman and Qatar continue to hold the line for a quick, diplomatic resolution. Both of them need to consider their future relationship with Iran, as they have shared resources with the Islamic Republic, despite their anger at Iran for striking them, especially Qatar.
Bahrain and Kuwait are closer to the United States, but are relatively small forces in the Gulf. Kuwait has also been hit hard in recent days, but can do little but hope the situation resolves itself. Bahrain is clamping down hard domestically on its large Shi’a population, while giving the U.S. fleet that is stationed there free rein.
The United Arab Emirates has been the boldest of the Gulf states, openly and loudly encouraging both the U.S. and Israel to escalate their strikes against Iran. Now, the UAE has declared its willingness to join the fight directly and has even gone to the UN Security Council for authorization.
It’s a dramatic move, and, as long as the U.S. remains active in the war, it’s largely for show. After all, while the UAE certainly has some military capabilities, there is little it can contribute that Israel and the U.S. cannot do themselves.
Still, it’s a foolhardy and impetuous move by the UAE. They are extremely vulnerable to Iranian attack. Indeed, it is that very vulnerability that is probably prompting their radical stance. The Emiratis have already seen the aura of safety around Dubai and Abu Dhabi shattered, and the repercussions of that on both tourism and foreign investment in the UAE are enormous and lasting.
Shattering that image for the UAE has certainly enraged its leaders. Even their public statements make the UAE a target for intensified Iranian strikes if the U.S. escalates or sends in ground troops in the coming days, as seems likely.
The Saudi position is more ambiguous. There have been numerous reports in major Western news outlets claiming that the Saudis are pushing Trump to continue and intensify the war.
I am extremely skeptical of these reports, as I have detailed elsewhere. The Saudis stand to lose a great deal in a prolonged war and have every reason, strategically and economically, to prefer a quick end and a diplomatic resolution. Moreover, a prolonged war would either end in an even more pronounced Iranian victory or a failed Iranian state, both of which are nightmare scenarios for Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia has also been at the center of Pakistani peacemaking efforts. So they’re either playing both sides, or, as I think likely, they don’t want a prolonged war but are actually pressing Trump not to simply abandon them with the Strait closed and, perhaps just as importantly, with Israel still on the loose.
Israel is the wild card
Trump faces a serious dilemma of his own making in the Strait of Hormuz. He also has to deal with the fact that if Iran feels he is trying to leave the war with the option to restart it later, they will continue to attack Israel and the Gulf states, while still disrupting traffic through the Gulf.
But even if he can resolve those issues, Trump faces another problem: Israel, his disastrously poor choice in a partner in crime.
Iran has good reason to want the war to stop. As Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told the president of the European Council on Tuesday, “We possess the necessary will to end this conflict, provided that essential conditions are met, especially the guarantees required to prevent repetition of the aggression.”
It won’t be easy to find ways to deliver those guarantees, but at least there’s a path to a resolution.
Israel sees it differently.
Benjamin Netanyahu spoke in Trumpian language when he told Newsmax that the goals “are halfway done,” while adding that he didn’t want to “put a timetable on it.”
In reality, Israel’s goal has been the destruction of the Islamic Republic from the start. It was why Netanyahu pressed Trump so hard for this war, as he has with every prior president who were each not stupid enough to buy into it as Trump has.
Netanyahu has been forced to dial back some of the most apocalyptic talk as Trump has, from the start, tried to convince the public that regime change was not the intention and that the war was going to be short and targeted. But he is still adamant about striking the country’s civilian infrastructure, as Israel and the U.S. have done from the start, and now talks of striking Iran until the population “rises up” against the government.
All of this indicates that Netanyahu will not so easily stop attacking Iran just because Trump wants to pull out. While Israel could not keep up anything like the sustained bombing that has hit Iran for the past month, it is still capable of launching missiles from without and carrying out stealthy attacks and assassinations from within.
Moreover, Iran has made it clear that ending the war on Lebanon is part of its conditions for ending the war in the Gulf. With the massive mobilization Israel has undertaken in invading southern Lebanon again, and the fever growing among the Israeli right for expanding Israel’s border to the Litani River and settling southern Lebanon, it is very difficult to see Netanyahu agreeing to leave there, even if he can be convinced to dial back his aggression against Iran.
Of course, Trump can always press Netanyahu hard enough to force him out of Lebanon. He could exert enough pressure to get Israel completely out of Gaza, as Joe Biden could have as well. As in that case, it seems unlikely to happen, despite its obvious political and, more importantly, human importance.
Trump has painted himself into a corner, and there is no clear exit. He ignored the appeals of his Arab friends before the war. He entered this war under the mistaken notion that killing the Supreme Leader in Iran would lead to an uprising that would bring a new government. He did that despite having no way to know what kind of government, if any, would emerge.
Trump has stood idly by making foolish comments while Israel has taken out every Iranian voice of moderation, leaving a government that is now in the hands of the most hardline elements of the IRGC and which is fueled by the notion that Trump has proven them right every time they have urged a more aggressive and uncompromising position.
Trump had no plan to address or mitigate the retaliation that everyone knew would come—the attacks on the Gulf states and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. These were not secrets; Iran had threatened to do these things if they were attacked for years.
It is impossible to overstate the magnitude of this disaster or the foolishness of starting it. While the death toll, we all hope, might be nowhere near as great, this war is already having a greater effect not only regionally but globally than either Iraq or Vietnam.
As each day passes, the magnitude of this catastrophe grows, and the trap Trump set for himself (along with Netanyahu) and walked right into tightens around his throat. And as Trump flails trying to find a way out or waiting for someone to throw him the lifeline he doesn’t deserve, he is only more likely to make even more reckless decisions, costing more lives from all the nations involved.
