More than a year ago when some American politicians and pundits were beating the drums for war against Iran, Victor Davis Hanson reminded his audience that two of what he terms “the 10 decisive battles” that “the West” has fought in history were against Iran.
The battles mentioned by the respected military historian were in Salamis where the Achaeans sunk the Persian fleet and Gaugamela where Alexander of Macedonia defeated Darius III.
The late Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a vocal advocate of an attack on Iran, remembered a third battle that of Thermopylae where 300 Spartans fought against the army of Xerxes which is supposed to have been a million-strong and were all killed by “perfidious” Persians.
The Spartan king Leonidas had his head chopped off and exhibited on a stick.
Graham called for revenge as if modern USA were the natural heir of ancient Sparta.
Last Monday night, President Donald Trump remembered his late friend’s vow and published an image of himself alongside that of the unfortunate Leonidas once again vowing to destroy Iran which he described as a failed state.
The attack he ordered on the Iranian island of Larak was supposed to be the opening salvo in a fresh round of “wipe Iran off the map” scheme.
However, it quickly became apparent that Trump had ordered the attack to send a signal to China and Russia leading a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek that the war with Ian, also attending, wasn’t yet over.
A war that had started with unprecedented shock-and-awe intensity has morphed into a low intensity one that could go on for months if not years with the protagonists losing track in the fog of war.
One might also wonder about the Ukrainization of the current war on Iran in the sense that the conflict continues at lower though still deadly level with no clear objective in sight.
For the past three months, at least President Trump has given top billing to his demand that the Strait of Hormuz be open.
Regardless of punctual hitches, that has been the case for at least three weeks.
According to international navigation sources, an average of 50 to 60 ships pass through the strait daily, not yet up to what it was before the war but far from total shut-down.
Despite braggadocio by the aging teen-agers who run the curtailed Khomeinist show in Tehran, the backlog of ships trapped in the strait is almost cleared. Oil is also flowing out at a daily average of over 8 million barrels a day.
According to Trump, all mines, probably imaginary, laid in the strait have been cleared.
As for Tehran’s boast about turning the strait into a money tree, so far no ship has paid a penny for a passage.
Israel, which the usual suspects blame as the instigator of the war, is now at the ringside wondering what to make of Trump’s pirouetting.
The left-over Khomeinists have understood this and halted attacks on Israel, targeting Jordan, Bahrain and the UAE.
They want the war continue at a low intensity to keep their claim of “resistance” alive and postpone the inevitable volcano of popular anger against their ramshackle rule.
They need the war continue to justify their failure in all domains and their repression of dissents.
The national currency is in free fall, they blame the war.
GDP has fallen by almost 6 percent in a year, they blame the war. The number of Iranians below poverty line has jumped to 58 percent, they blame the war.
Inflation has topped 60 percent, they blame the war.
The Governor of Central Bank admits he is ordered to print money on a no-tomorrow basis, they blame the war.
If the war ends, the thinly disguised struggle for power within the ruling clique could break into the open. Rival factions may be forced to appeal to the people in the hope of tipping the balance in their own favor.
People may ask why the declared “Supreme Guide” who is in purdah supposedly for security reasons doesn’t show his face.
There are many cases where the end of a war leads to a change of leadership or even regime change.
Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle were victors in World War II but both lost power soon after they had uncorked the champagne bottle.
In the US, President Harry S. Truman was at the helm when the last arm of the Axis was broken. But in the first post-war elections Democrats lost power.
Today, I doubt if Volodymyr Zelensky or Vladimir Putin would be able to hang on to power for long once their war is over.
In 1981, Ruhollah Khomeini described the war started by Saddam Hussein as “a divine gift.”
His right-hand man Hashemi Rafsanjani said that without the war he wasn’t sure the Islamic regime could have lasted more than a couple of years.
The left-over Khomeinists need the war but Trump doesn’t.
To start with, this is a war of choice not of necessity which means the average American doesn’t feel threatened by ending it; nor would he feel elated by winning it.
Next, Trump won’t be seeking re-election and anyone he picks as his putative successor would be judged on his own merits and many other issues than this strange war.
Finally, Trump doesn’t need a war victory to preach his gospel. Regardless of some obvious setbacks he has a reasonable story to tell on the economy.
His campaign against illegal immigration is still popular and his efforts to curtail elitism often dressed as pseudo-leftist pretensions has appeal beyond his support base once described by Hillary Clinton as “the unwashed.”
Since neither he nor anyone else knows what winning this war might mean, he has no interest in staying in the game especially when he knows that declaring would expose the adversary to mortal - possibly fatal - danger at home.
He has weakened the Khomeinist regime to an extent unimaginable a year ago. He should now pass the ball to the Iranian people to settle their account with it.
