By Tom Fowdy
Last week, social media was rife with the proclamation that "World War 3" was coming. Although such an outcome was always ludicrous and bordering on hysteria, given that Iran has no capabilities of doing so, the growing conflict between Tehran and Israel was nonetheless unnerving. Global energy prices were being pushed up, flights from critical airlines such as Qatar and Emirates were being cancelled, and of course, Donald Trump then jumped in himself by bombing Iran's nuclear facilities, creating a rupture in his fan base.
The outlook seemed bleak, then all of a sudden, it came to an end. From nowhere, the President announced that a ceasefire had been secured from Tehran and Tel Aviv. When Israel, used to acting with total impunity, didn't seem to take this seriously and publicly vowed mass strikes on Iran again, the President scathingly rebuked them on Truth Social and then swore live on television over the issue. The skirmish had come to an end, with controversy and narrative wars ongoing over what extent Iran suffered damage to its nuclear facilities.
This situation has demonstrated a classic Trump playbook: The President repeatedly pushes things to the brink, threatens catastrophe, and pushes boundaries. On seeing this, everyone is whipped up into a massive sense of hysteria, and then suddenly, he abruptly and firmly brings things to a close. Because I've already seen this happen so many times since 2017, I was not concerned at all by the situation, knowing fine well that a) Iran can't cause prolonged global harm and b) Despite the social media hysteria and noise, Iran is a massive, mountainous country with a population of 90 million people and invading them is not an option.
Instead, I compared the pattern of events to the playbook Trump used against North Korea in 2017-2018, which is infamously described as "fire and fury." While North Korea's very real nuclear capabilities and risk of retaliation against Seoul meant that Trump did not take the risk of pre-emptively striking their nuclear sites, it nonetheless beckons to a familiar story of the President whipping up a cycle of drama, hysteria, and overt, inflammatory threats to create a sense of fear. Of course, at the time, I was terrified, but now I am conscious of the reality that Donald Trump's decades-long immersion in American reality television has made him extremely competent at theatrics.
The President knows how to engage, manipulate, and perform to audiences, and uses it in politics with devastating effect. When it comes to international adversaries, he cultivates the persona of a madman and quickly creates a firestorm, threatening the worst scenario possible, whether it be "destroying" North Korea, threatening to assassinate Iran's supreme leader, the list goes on, and he appears to show little regard for the consequences. This usually follows with some "staged" action which involves a limited, yet powerful show of force. He's done this before by assassinating Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps leader Soleimani in 2020, and wanted to do something similar with North Korea, but was stopped by those around him.
Thus, while he gives the impression of lashing out, each move is usually well calculated, and when his rhetoric starts to weigh on markets, he usually retreats, but Trump has also mastered framing every single climbdown, U-turn, and walk back as a decisive victory on his terms.
Thus, when he brings things to a close, he quickly creates the impression that the situation was always under control, and the psychological effect of this produces a universal sigh of relief. Key to this staged expectations game is the perception it creates amongst his enemies that the outcome is, in fact, a "let off" for them and could have been much worse. For example, Iran has had a great deal of its military leadership wiped out and facilities destroyed, yet its elite are probably left thankful that they have not been eliminated.
A wider war has been averted, yet what Trump has succeeded in doing by backing Israel is shifting the paradigm to weaken Iran while managing the fallout, pushing things to the brink, and then retreating. The President uses narrative control to aggressively move the goalposts, threatening catastrophe, while ultimately avoiding it. This is what he describes as the "art of the deal," and the real study of the President begins by looking not at what he says, but what he does.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Tom Fowdy:
Opinion | China provides options for Pacific Island Nations: The west doesn't like this?
Opinion | Geopolitically cornered, Iran has few good options left
Opinion | When Israel is under pressure, it plays the Iran Card
Comment