The ceasefire declared in the US-Israel war against Iran is set to end in the next couple of days amid conflicting views on what might happen next.
By the time of writing this piece many observers thought that both sides might agree to an extension of the brittle truce a further 45 days. In a world of 24-hour news cycle, punctuated by tweets and video clips, that may sound a long time.
In last June’s war against Iran, President Donald Trump declared a ceasefire after 35 hours of bombing.
He had also declared “mission accomplished” in Venezuela after a 5-hour raid to kidnap President Nicolás Maduro. When the second round of war against Iran seemed to stall, the president threatened to turn Iran back to the Stone Age in just 4 hours.
In the Islamabad peace talks last week, Vice President JD Vance decided that enough was enough after a 16-hour back-and-forth with Tehran’s emissaries, half of it spent on translation of what each side said.
In war and diplomacy, however, as in love, patience is the name of the game.
The US wars with Mexico lasted six years. The two world wars got the US involved for almost four years each time. The Korean War ended after more than three years with no clear winner and the war in Indochina pegged the US down for more than a decade.
Since Trump is clearly unwilling to pursue this war for as long as it takes, his best choice is to seek a way of concluding it through diplomacy.
However, diplomacy also needs patience.
You can’t just walk in and put down your desiderata for the adversary to sign with a “my way or the highway” brag which is what JD did in Islamabad.
Remember that the Vietnam peace talks in Paris spent 15 days to decide the shape of the table around which the delegates would sit.
The problem with talking with Iran today is that it isn’t a normal nation-state. It is an unusual structure built around a charismatic personality with absolute power that uses a more or less formal government as a façade.
In it, nobody can claim to be anybody unless endorsed by the “Supreme Guide” for a specific mission and a limited period. In that system, there is no normal circulation of information even within the organs of the regime.
When Vladimir Putin suddenly arrived in Tehran, the Iranian president at the time, Hassan Rouhani, learned about it only by watching television.
The Russian leader went directly to the residence of the “Supreme Guide,” spent four hours with and drove back to the airport to return to Moscow. General Qassem Soleimani, then chief of the Quds Force and a favorite of Ali Khamenei, invited Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad to Tehran without informing the Iranian president or foreign minister.
Under the system that Khomeini and Khamenei created, even the chiefs of Iranian Revolutionary Guard are not allowed to hold staff meetings without prior approval of “beit” or office of the “Supreme Guide” and the presence of his military advisers.
The IRGC is divided into 5 separate commands, plus half a dozen other armed outfits whose ultimate control rests with the “beit”.
Former foreign minister Muhammad Javad Zarif, not known for his love of veracity, was telling the truth when he told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York that he didn’t know much about Iran’s nuclear project.
President Trump says regime change has already happened in Tehran. But what has happened is the destruction of a regime built around a cult of personality.
With Khamenei’s demise, the “beit” has disappeared with its 5,000-strong personnel killed, scattered or left uncertain about their future.
In the absence of a ruling political party, Khamenei ruled Iran through multiple parallel networks of clients in cultural, economic, religious and security domains. He even had his own ambassadors, apart from Iran’s official ones, in 22 capitals. The so-called proxies were also run by the “beit” with the formal Iranian government used as a façade.
With Khamenei’s demise, pundits have been looking for a strongman to put Iran on a different trajectory.
For a few days, Ali Ardeshir Larijani was fancied as the Iranian version of Deng Xiaoping. When the Israelis assassinated him, people started talking about 1-star General Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf as a cut-price Bonaparte for Iran.
The truth, however, is that to play a Deng or a Bonaparte one needs an organized state structure capable of being used by a new big cheese.
Two things seem clear at this juncture. The Khomeini-Khamenei system cannot be rebuilt even if the new “Supreme Guide” Mojtaba is really alive and kicking.
The second thing is that a reshuffling of cards that leaves the regime in place in an altered form would not change the genetics of an ideology built around radical rejection of accepted rules of international life.
All that, however is no concern of Trump who is looking for a quick Nescafe solution to suit his calendar of events: a summit in Beijing, hosting the British monarch in Washington, celebrating the 250th anniversary of American independence, a NATO summit, Republican primaries and mid-term elections - all that against the backdrop of rising gas prices and inflation.
If Trump is looking for a breathing space, his best bet is to do the ceasefire trapeze with a safety net, a strong military safety net, underneath.
None of the political midgets left in Tehran has the courage or stature to grant Trump all what he wants. But a renewed ceasefire might provide the time and space for the contours of a new power arrangement in Tehran to appear on the horizon.
A truce can either prolong this war that started 47 years ago or offer an opportunity for Iranians to seriously think of regime change rather than a change of behavior by the regime.
The worst option is to promote uncertainty through provocative tweets and hurly volte-face. The tactic may have worked at first because of its novelty. Now, however, it has been factored-in as part of the background noise.
The mullahs often hasted that while the “Great Satan” has the gold watch they have the time.
Trump-bashers of all ilks have helped spread that shibboleth warning about global economic meltdown despite a return of calm on stock exchanges and energy markets.
Now, however, the “Great Satan” has the time while the mullahs are left with their worry beads.
