By Tom Fowdy
It was weeks ago that Donald Trump and his administration claimed that a "deal" was close with Iran, one which would end the botched war he initiated earlier this year and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to safe navigation.
Yet never today did such a "deal" seem less likely as the President intensified rhetorical threats towards Tehran on Truth Social, complaining that they "have taken too" long and vowing to hit them "hard." UN Secretary General, António Guterres, then dubbed the ceasefire a "lesser-fire" as Washington and Tehran exchanged strikes.
I had previously predicted that such a deal between the US and Iran was a highly fanciful outcome, if not a total non-starter. While a smaller deal, or as was put "memorandum of understanding" to re-open the Strait of Hormuz and at least paint a superficial pathway to peace, is not impossible, I have argued continually that a serious breakthrough is impossible because the foreign policy logic of the United States only accepts total capitulation, and will not make what we can describe as "strategic concessions" to a country it deems adversarial.
Donald Trump started the Iran conflict, backed by Israel, with the premise of attaining total regime change in Tehran with the view of subjugating the Iranian state to American interests, that the President might, as had been done with Venezuela, be able to attain hegemony of its energy reserves as part of his own economic geopolitical leverage. The Caracas operation was, of course, a big aspect in the President's overconfidence, as it led him and his administration to wrongfully assume the Iranian regime could be destroyed in a swift and bloodless decapitation effort.
In doing so, they expected the war to be over in a matter of days, and had not factored any of the consequences, including a wave of strikes against the Gulf States, US Military infrastructure in the region, or a global energy crisis stemming from a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. As a result, if your goal was to destroy the Islamic Republic state, a state which in the US perspective is vilified as a hostile religious fanatacist regime, why on earth would you bow to making a compromise peace offering concessions to them, not least when you even ripped up your predecessor's deal with them on the basis it constituted "appeasement" and have Israeli lobbying pushing for war?
As I have said numerous times, Iran has become a quagmire that Trump has no way out of. He recognises the consequences of a conflict continuing, yet also realises that politically is completely untenable for him to accept anything less than Iran's full capitulation to American terms. This has resulted in a highly inconsistent "Peace" process which cycles between anticipation for a deal, and then a routine return to rhetorical threats. My insight on this is that Trump is not truly serious about a deal, and instead, we should look at the White House's messaging through the lens of his classic market manipulation strategy.
The President is in famous for weaponizing selective, yet empty, optimistic rhetoric, talking of deals in order to rally the confidence of markets to offset the damage done by his often-destructive foreign policies. We have seen this done many times with China, and almost always the outcomes don't change the status-quo in which he has altered. The President recognises that the Iran war is a huge problem for global oil prices, so he routinely pushes hope of peace, or declares victory, in order to lower the price, while nonetheless alternating to various threats. However, this changes nothing; again, the President does not have a concrete plan to end the war he started. Iran has not and will not capitulate, precisely because even if it has taken some heavy blows, it still feels it has the counter leverage to be able to harm the interests of the United States and its allies, and believes it has no other choice.
After all, why would Iran also find the status quo tolerable? Why would their state accept the "same old" scenario allows the US and Israel to just attack them when they want? Trump's actions have made the situation irreparable through raising "existential" stakes, and this precisely why the US can't just row back and give concessions, as the goal is capitulation, something which they can't get, but ultimately something that Iran cannot just tolerate and shrug off. So, what is the answer? How will this truly end? We're going round in circles, an ironic outcome for a White House that vowed to end "forever wars."
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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