Trump knows he lost the Iran war, and is now desperate to find a way out
BY MITCHELL PLITNICK
As tensions in the ongoing confrontation between the United States and Iran were ramping up, events took a turn.
Because Donald Trump blinked.
Over the weekend and into this week, there were reports of exchanges of fire in the Strait of Hormuz, with the U.S. and Iran each denying reports from the other that their forces had been hit. Sunday evening, Trump announced the absurdly-named “Project Freedom,” whereby American naval vessels would escort ships through the Strait, a costly, dangerous, and unwieldy project that could not, even in the best-case scenario, do much more than allow a slightly larger trickle of ships through.
Iran launched several attacks on the United Arab Emirates, whose bellicosity and open collaboration with Israel and the U.S. in this war have made it Iran’s primary target. The UAE vowed a strong response.
And then, suddenly, on Tuesday, Trump announced that they were close to an agreement to end the war and that he had, therefore, suspended “Project Freedom.”
The major shift came from Washington, which seems to have accepted Iran’s formulation that the war stop and the Strait be reopened, and only then can there be negotiations on other matters.
The United States had consistently rejected that plan, insisting on Iranian concessions before the war would end. That position has apparently changed.
Trump’s erratic decision-making means that this could all be reversed, of course. But for the moment, it appears that the myriad pressures on him have succeeded in altering his perspective.
Republicans are panicked at what the war is doing to their prospects in the November elections, as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz sends the global economy into a tailspin.
Trump has finally been forced to admit that Iran has the superior deterrent power because of the geography of the region and its preparedness for this conflict, built up over four decades.
He also had to confront the reality that even his weak legal justification for the war on Iran without congressional authorization had expired, as it reached the 60-day limit allowed by law. If he tried to get congressional approval, he might well fail, and even if he succeeded, it would be a pyrrhic victory. Republicans who voted to continue the war would suffer severe, perhaps lethal, blows at the ballot box as a result.
If he continued the war anyway, he would face increasing pressure from within his own party. But the fact is, he doesn’t want to continue the war. It is a political and financial sinkhole that has yielded him absolutely no gains.
There is also the increasing role of China, which last week ordered five of its refineries to ignore the latest U.S. sanctions on Iran. Trump is scheduled to meet Chinese Premier Xi Jinping next week. Given the impact this war has had on China and all of Asia, he would want to avoid the war rekindling ahead of that meeting.
This shift hinged on Trump finally, implicitly, recognizing what a disastrous mistake he had made when he believed the information that Israel had cooked up and, on that basis, launched this disastrous war.
What is the pending agreement?
Details of the U.S. proposal have not been released. But, as the Trump administration often does, some purported details have been leaked to Axios reporter Barak Ravid.
The American proposal would see an official end to fighting and a gradual easing of both Iran’s obstruction and the United States’ blockade in the Strait of Hormuz over the course of thirty days.
During that time, the two sides would negotiate a permanent end to the war. Each side would commit to basic parameters. Iran would, according to the American proposal, commit to a moratorium on nuclear enrichment, the length of which is to be decided; stringent United Nations inspections of its nuclear facilities; and declare that it would not seek a nuclear weapon or take steps toward acquiring one. The U.S. would agree to gradually lift all sanctions and release billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets.
It is a sign of just how great the American recognition of its failure is that there is no mention, at least in the Axios report, of Iran limiting its missile or drone capabilities or cutting support to its regional allies such as Hezbollah and Ansar Allah.
That would be nothing less than an American surrender on those points. It would contradict Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s claim on Tuesday that the war on Iran had “achieved the objective of that operation.”
In fact, it would have achieved nothing at all for the U.S. beyond mindless and needless death and destruction.
The four stated goals were: destroying Iran’s nuclear program, diminishing Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, ending Iran’s support for regional partners, and demolishing Iran’s military capabilities.
The war achieved none of those. Even if the eventual agreement includes a hard limit on Iran’s nuclear program, that is not an achievement of the war, as Iran had agreed to that before Israel and the United States launched their attacks.
It must also be stressed that the Axios report is based on American sources. Iran is certainly not going to accept the American proposal whole cloth. Indeed, they have already expressed skepticism about the broader contours.
Iranian government spokesperson Ebrahim Rezaei announced on Twitter that, “Axios’ text is Americans’ wish list until it becomes reality, Americans will not obtain through a failed war what they failed to gain in face-to-face negotiations.”
Still, Iran is the one who wanted to stop the fighting and ease passage in the Strait as a precondition for talks. It got that, although, again, only after the U.S. needlessly prolonged the standoff with its blockade that has now simply brought us all right back to where we were when the ceasefire was first declared.
How will Israel and the Gulf states respond?
Israeli officials were quoted as saying that they were taken by surprise by the news of the pending U.S.-Iran deal. Israel quickly denied these statements, but they are undoubtedly true.
Once Netanyahu did hear about the possibility that the U.S. might formally end the war, he reacted swiftly by launching an attack on Beirut for the first time since the bogus ceasefire there was instituted after the massacre Israel perpetrated on April 8 in Beirut.
Haaretz reported that Israeli security sources strongly opposed the proposed agreement, echoing the Israeli opposition to every agreement with Iran dating back to the nuclear deal under Barack Obama. According to Haaretz’s source, the security chiefs in Israel believe that Iran “would deceive the United States, rush to acquire nuclear weapons as soon as it is able, and seize control of the billions of dollars that will be made available to it under the agreement.”
This familiar argument, of course, leaves no option but endless war.
The United Arab Emirates, for its part, stated that Iran’s nuclear program “cannot be separated from Tehran’s hostile and terrorist behavior in the region,” and that the world must adopt “a comprehensive approach that addresses the Iranian nuclear file, its missile program, and its destabilizing behavior.”
Other Arab Gulf states are much more supportive of ending the war. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif praised Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman for his efforts to press the White House to adopt a more conciliatory stance.
Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani also expressed optimism about a deal, but he was more cautious. In terms that surely speak for many Gulf countries, he expressed concern about a potential deal that did not fully take into account the security and economic needs of Iran’s neighbors.
This is going to be a theme in the Gulf for a long time to come. Iran’s military tactics may have been necessitated by the overwhelming military might arrayed against it by the U.S. and Israel—and Gulf states may appreciate that fact, in time—but Iran’s Arab neighbors are not going to be content to play the role of an Iranian deterrent, where their own economic and security interests are nothing but a bargaining chip between Iran, Israel, and the United States.
While there will be opportunities to work together in partnerships both within the Gulf region and with outside partners, Gulf states will need the United States, Israel, and Iran to find some accommodation that allows the Arab states, as well as Iran, not only to export their oil freely but also to plan for economic diversification and expansion. These considerations are crucial for Saudi Arabia and the UAE in particular, as they have seen such plans severely disrupted by this war.
Despite its alliance with Israel and its obvious desire to see Iran pay dearly for its actions in this war, the UAE is still likely to recognize that expanding or even just continuing the war is not in its interest. It will surely advocate for more punitive measures on, and fewer compromises with, Iran, but they are unlikely to attack Iran themselves, as evidenced by the fact that they have not responded militarily to Iran’s attacks on their territory this week, despite the severity of some of those attacks.
What is the likely outcome?
Israel will, of course, not take Trump’s crying “uncle” lightly. It will continue to make Lebanon suffer for its frustration with Washington, while continuing to bait Iran, perhaps even with smaller-scale attacks. It will not, however, be capable of sustaining the full-blown war on Iran without direct American involvement.
Still, Israel’s objections will be one more factor that is likely to make reaching a permanent agreement much harder.
Trump has clearly realized that this war was a losing proposition, although it remains to be seen if he understands that Netanyahu and his people intentionally misled him about it.
Either way, Trump is going to resist anything that makes it too clear that he lost this war. He has also continued to surround himself with radical Iran hawks, with the far-right Foundation for the Defense of Democracies playing a prominent role.
It remains to be seen how far Iran is willing to go to end the immediate threat. Iran may have gotten Trump to agree to ease the blockade while Iran eases its own disruptions in the Strait, but after repeated betrayals where the U.S. and Israel have attacked Iran while using negotiations for cover, there is no trust in Tehran for Washington.
The most likely scenario from here is a return to the tense standoff between the U.S. and Iran that existed from last June’s Twelve-Day War until this current conflagration. The difference will be that Iran will likely need to continue to use the Strait as a bargaining chip, which will probably mean they will need to close it for short periods, or at least threaten to, to remind Trump they’re serious.
That won’t be sustainable, but there is a non-zero chance it can last for a few months. At that point, with elections in both the United States and Israel looming, one side or the other is likely to either make a dramatic concession or a dramatic attack to end the standoff.
The always capricious Trump can reverse this course at any time, though, and probably will. Tehran, too, may not wish to wait until elections potentially push Benjamin Netanyahu into even more reckless actions.
In any case, this temporary agreement will at least remove the immediate threat of a return to war and reduce, or at least pause, the growth of the strain on the global economy for a while.
It’s important to remember that even that small bit of progress happened because Trump blinked. More permanent solutions will depend mostly on how realistic he wants to be about how stupid this war really was. Trump doesn’t have to admit it publicly, but he will have to act on that reality in negotiations.
