Who is playing with whom? This is the question posed by the behavior of President Donald Trump and whoever is still running Iran from Tehran in the current phase of a war that started more than 100 days ago.
Both Trump and his Iranian co-authors of this war appear as if they are prepared for this war to last 100 years. At the same time both pretend that an accord leading to a sine die truce is one step away.
According to CNN, Trump has trumpeted that elusive accord 38 times in two months.
According to IRGC’s news agency, Tasnim, Tehran’s authorized or self-authorized spokesmen have a more modest record by announcing an imminent accord only 22 times.
What is certain is that neither side wishes to return to the early phase of the conflict that saw Iran suffer the heaviest air attacks the world had witnessed since World War II.
The coming weekend will witness anti-Trump demos in France as he arrives to joins the June 15 G7 summit in the spa town of Evian.
The “Hate-America” coalition of extreme left and ultra-right weirdos who organize the demo designate Trump as a “warmonger” and as a “loser.”
Do such labels fit Trump?
Trump was the only US president to make a serious attempt to mend relations with Iran.
One of his first moves was to withdraw from the neo-colonial accord imposed by President Barack Obama under which Iran would be put under the tutelage of the 5 veto-holding powers of the Security Council plus Germany in the name of preventing Iran from acquiring a hypothetical nuclear arsenal.
Trump’s next move in his first term was to write a 5-page letter to the then Supreme Guide, AIi Khamenei, proposing negotiations aimed at a “new beginning” between two nations that had no objective reasons for mutual hostility. The letter was planned to be hand delivered in Tehran by Shinzo Abe, the first Japanese Prime Minister to visit Iran since the mullahs seized power in 1979.
Khamenei in effect insulted Abe and refused to receive Trump’s letter. The contents of the letter have not been revealed but Abe told Iranian officials that Trump had made a generous offer and was seeking a genuine re-start with Tehran.
Even when Trump was drawn in the recent two wars in June and February, it was clear that he was a reluctant warrior persuaded by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that a short and sharp bombing campaign coupled with the assassination of senior leaders in Tehran would bring Tehran to its senses.
When that didn’t happen in June Trump imposed a ceasefire after three days of bombing.
Tehran misinterpreted that as American weakness and re-ignited the fires by resuming its campaign against Israel through proxies.
In the second phase of the war, Trump understood that bombing no matter how intense wouldn’t persuade an adversary to capitulate. He might have not known about the early phase of World War II when Nazi Germany carpet-bombed London and several other English cities among them Coventry in the hope of forcing the British to throw in the towel.
Coventry was so shattered that it gave birth to a new English verb “to coventrize,” meaning to turn a large city into a pile of smoking rubble. Yet the British didn’t surrender and continued to fight alone for another 18 months until the US and the USSR joined the anti-Axis alliance.
Trump understood that air war alone wouldn’t produce victory.
At the same time, however, he didn’t make the error some of his predecessors made by starting a boots-on-the-ground adventure against a foe that couldn’t pose an existential threat to the US.
President John Kennedy made that mistake by getting the US involved in the Vietnam War that later spread to Cambodia and Laos and ended in the Last Helicopter from Saigon.
Many observers see Trump’s management of this war as chaotic which in appearance it certainly is. However, he has stuck to several objectives.
The first is to keep American human losses as low as possible. This is the first time the US is engaged in a war of that length with such low casualties, 16 by the latest count, in 100 days.
In 1993, US forces under President Bill Clinton and assisted by Malaysian and Pakistani troops fought a 48-hour battle with Somali forces south of Mogadishu. In that brief encounter 18 US soldiers were killed and 84 more wounded.
Trump’s next objective is not to box in the wounded Persian cat in a way as to leave it no option but to make a final suicidal surge. That explains the patience with which Trump has participated in the negotiations tango that started before first shots were fired.
By dangling a juicy carrot that every faction in Tehran wants but only for itself, he has succeeded in deepening the split that has been the hallmark of regime rule from 1979.
Trump’s other objective has been to keep Tehran’s feet on fire without burning them. His blockade of Iranian ports is hurting both the regime and the Iranian people. But it is applied in a measured way not to choke the Iranian economy.
Tehran announces that more than 1.6 million tons of “essential goods” have reached 5 Iranian ports in the past 10 days. In exchange, Tehran has chosen not to see the increasing number of ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz.
A good part of war, some experts believe all of it, is about psychology which includes illusions of victory and/or defeat. Some like the desperados in Tehran feel their mouths sweeten by saying “helluva."
But the fact is that so far at least Trump is the winner of this war. Iran’s human losses are put at over 7,000, including at least 3,000 military personnel, among them dozens of ranking officers.
The damage done to Iranian military and industrial infrastructure is estimated at over $400 billion. Some key assets including several offshore oilfields may have been lost forever. The damage done to some cultural heritage edifices may never be repaired.
The US has the economic and military power to continue low-intensity war forever, or at least as long as Trump is there and prepared to keep the game going.
Once he has celebrated his birthday, seen the football World Cup through and presided over the 250th shindig of American independence he could raise the temperature again.
Tehran’s illusion is that by waiting until US mid-term elections, which they think Trump will lose, they could claim victory.
That is a foolish dream.
The longer they wait before they accept a truce, the heavier Iran’s losses shall be.
In my opinion the wars involving Iran will not end without regime change in Tehran, which can only be realized by the Iranian people and the internal political dynamics of a complex society that has passed through half a century of crises.
