Last week, the USA President, Donald Trump, stated that the war (except he doesn’t use the word ‘war’) with Iran would be over in two to three weeks.
This prediction was made ‘whether there’s a deal or not’. When this evolved into a demand for the Strait of Hormuz to be opened by yesterday morning (0000 hours our time), it was accompanied by the crude threat of taking out Iran ‘in one night’.
And shortly before the hugely relieving news of a two-week ceasefire and opening of the Strait of Hormuz, he even threatened that ‘a whole civilisation will die tonight’. And we know who he meant.
In the talking game – and there’s plenty of that on Mr Trump’s side – both the USA and Iran have set out conditions for ending the war.
The main ones of Iran are an end to conflict, reparations for war damage and Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. The Americans have 15 conditions, prioritising a full dismantling of Iran’s nuclear capability and of its support for violence in the Middle East. Iran’s leaders won’t agree to them all; if they did, they’d probably be finished.
A perfectly reasonable component of the USA’s conditions is the offer to lift international sanctions on Iran and support civil nuclear projects, mediated through Pakistan. Ironically, both sides have jumped the gun – I’ll change that, we’ve had enough of guns – both sides have already allowed Pakistan to intermediate in the two-week ceasefire. How refreshing to see Pakistan take on this responsibility. However, while everyone is delighted to see a stop to the warfare and to appreciate the forthcoming talks in Islamabad, we should not hold our breath. This is a time-bound ceasefire. It is not an agreed and credible peace.
Given the recent history of Trump days, peppered with self-contradictions, it would be unwise to take at face value too much of what has appeared overnight. There is a deep mistrust on both sides. Barely a week ago, Trump told America that the war was ‘nearing completion’, but accompanied it with the threat of intensifying his military action, to bring Iran ‘back to the Stone Ages where they belong’. He added: “I’m blowing up everything.”
That’s the violent rhetoric of gang warfare in the red-light district, not the leadership of the greatest democracy on this Earth. He jumps from endorsing negotiations to guaranteeing an escalation of violence. In some cultures of the world, including Iran and other Muslim countries, they take very great exception to personal insults – and Trump has included those, some almost unprintable.
There’s no peaceful spirit within his tone, and the desire for a genuine, permanent peace is not yet evident. Though time will tell.
Israel is now a big question. Are they prepared to toe the line with whatever Trump proposes? How powerful is the Jewish lobby in the USA? Israel has scores to settle. It is now similar to the wild beast. Once let loose, it’s very difficult to pull back in. They’ve already excluded Lebanon from the ceasefire deal.
The public bravado, until the ceasefire, had suggested an iron resolve on both sides to continue almost regardless. But, in reality, both sides desperately need peace; though this will, almost inevitably, be without a full reconciliation. Trump needs to pull away as fast as possible to save his presidency, while Iran will get harder to govern as the standard of living, human and infrastructure damage and perception of risk get worse within its society. Trump’s exaggeration and inconsistency are quite extraordinary and clearly not convincing his people that launching this war was justified and that it is progressing as continually and as misleadingly predicted.
In a strong knee-jerk reaction to the ceasefire, the price of oil dropped sharply to below US$100 per barrel. It is too early for anyone to predict its path. It will depend entirely on whether there is a sustained peace. And America is affected too. Mr Trump recently announced proudly that the US doesn’t need oil from the Middle East.
That’s obviously why he attacked Venezuela, which has the biggest oil reserves in the world. All part of a plan. What, however, he cannot control is the global price of oil. His people have been affected, and today are suffering along with the rest of the world.
That is an important dimension to this war because, unlike Iran, the USA has not been physically touched by the ravages of the battle. Apart from in the pocket, of course, but they’ll get over that.
Almost every day, Mr Trump has been claiming ‘victory’. The US, however, has not removed Iran’s highly enriched uranium (HEU) stores. As of now, there is over 400kg of near-weapons-grade uranium that lies under rubble at bombed sites, and in all probability more underground.
Unbelievably, and introducing doubt into the implications of this ceasefire, Trump is today claiming ‘total and complete victory’, hence the need to halt the attack. Does he think we’re all idiots? Iran has demonstrated that it has not been beaten, nor is it easily beaten, nor easily intimidated.
And, what initially surprised everyone (even USA intelligence), was that, by controlling the Strait of Hormuz, Iran holds a rather powerful ‘trump’ card.
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