Ironic, isn’t it? The big boy on the block starts the fight, but when the little feller down the street pulls out a ‘trump’ card – in this case, the Strait of Hormuz - the big boy has to face a technique that he had failed to anticipate, that now forces him to back off. Where’s the irony? Well, it’s in the fact that the small boy appears ready and willing to carry on with the scrap.
It can’t, of course, be as simple as that. Iran will not be in good shape to continue fighting the USA. But its battle strategy will depend very much on who is actually calling the shots in Iran. Everything seems to point to the emergence of an interim military dictatorship, because we don’t see the remnants of the earlier leadership still in charge.
Another ironic development lies with that military unit. Iran had a secret police and intelligence unit prior to the Islamic Revolution of 1979. It was known as SAVAK. Once the revolution was completed, the SAVAK personnel were hunted down and a large number executed. Today’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is very similar to, though much larger than SAVAK; and is an elite military branch of the Iranian army while operating separately. This IRGC is there to carry out surveillance and suppress domestic dissent, just like SAVAK did. In January of this year, the IRGC participated in the killing of thousands of innocent Iranians who were on the street, simply demanding respect for human rights in Iran. It was the deadliest period of repression in decades. Trump needs to end the war. His words never reflect reality and he is losing support, not least because of the price of fuel and his having asked Congress for a US$1 trillion budget, mainly for fighting the war. It is highly unlikely that the American people can visualise what that amount looks like. If they did, then Mr Trump would risk being out of office in five minutes. You see, US$1 trillion is US$ 1 000 000 000 000. That’s an awful lot of money; impossible to quantify, albeit mentally.
Even Republicans, the ruling political party headed by Mr Trump, would be running to the opposition. And they don’t change allegiance for nothing. In the USA there are effectively only two parties, Republicans and Democrats. Born into allegiance with one of those parties and you’re usually there for life. Only the floating voters decide a national election. There may soon be additional floaters, despite Mr Trump having gained some public kudos from being very recently in the rifle sights of yet another would-be assassin.
So, America is ready to come to peace talks. What they come with is, of course, another matter. And who leads Iran has introduced a new dimension. With the IRGC perhaps running the place, these are hardliners who won’t go to the peace table with the tail between the legs. You have this weird situation where the smaller guy is standing firm with an apparently iron grip on home territory. While you have the bigger opponent starting to get more than a little nervous about how steady it is for him at home. Home always matters. So where do we go? Big concessions are the only route to save the mid-term elections in November and the Football World Cup in July 2026. Perhaps back to roughly where Barack Obama was in 2015; another dose of irony.
It’s time for some diplomacy. We (the USA) mobilise the representatives who can talk the handle off a front door, though with some honest trading thrown in. We will lift sanctions if they hand over the uranium. Then we’ll pay for 40 per cent of the cost of damage repair in their country, while they give us a share of control of the Strait of Hormuz.
Mr Trump has to stop behaving in a wild, unruly manner, one minute offering an extension to the truce, the next minute hurling abuse of the worst kind. Regarding boats blocking the Strait of Hormuz, Trump says: “We’ll shoot and kill the Iranian boats.” Anyone know how you kill a boat? Hold it under the water for a couple of hours?
Fighting has taken place for eight weeks, and no one has won. Only damage has been achieved. The Iranians have lost resources and, sadly, many innocent people, including children. Only the national budget and the dollar in the pocket, especially for fuel, have seen any damage for the average American. Its military deaths stand at 13.
There is a responsibility among the big boys on the block – USA, China, Russia, India – to collaborate in a joint ‘oversight’ of the world. Have they ever tried to get together and launch this kind of guidance and monitoring, more esoteric but still within the UN? Monitoring others can improve one’s own standards. An opportunity was certainly wasted prior to January 2022 when Russia attacked Ukraine for no decent reason whatsoever and lost any credibility.
So America is ready to come to peace talks.