It is impossible to imagine an Iran war off-ramp for US President Donald Trump that does not result in lasting humiliation and defeat. Because such a way out does not exist. The measure of it will be put against Barack Obama’s 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – JCPOA – which restricted Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
In that case there was no closure of the Strait of Hormuz and no resulting Iranian control of the waterway – because there had been no overt US military action that would prompt it. So just reaching that would be something and anything less will be a defeat and yet he is still hanging on, desperately trying to out-bluff the unbluffable, Iran.
View 4 ImagesUS forces board an Iranian-flagged oil tanker(Image: CENTCOM / SWNS)
Just two snapshots of Trump’s dealing with the current negotiations shows his incompetence and mendacity when it comes to dealing with world catastrophe. On Friday he said the Iran peace deal was already ‘largely negotiated’ and that the details of it would be announced ‘soon.’
Then over the weekend he stressed that he had told negotiators ‘not to rush into’ a deal – the first settling the markets and the second reining back his lies. Against a backdrop of a tanking world economy and bill for this war that for the US runs into hundreds of billions and counting he is now desperate for an answer to the war.
View 4 ImagesUS forces board the tanker as part of their blockade of Iran’s ports(Image: CENTCOM / SWNS)
View 4 ImagesIsraeli Prime MInister Benjamin Netanyahu is pictured(Image: 60 Minutes)
1. Invade Iran – impossible with a few thousand Marines and without the consensus of a NATO-wide coalition. This would lead to an insurgency that could last decades and drag the entire region into a vortex of war and terrorism rather like the Iraq conflict did. It might also remove the Shia-Sunni Mulsim schism between Iran and groups like Islamic State and form the terrorism equivalent of a super group.
2. Execute a partial special forces incursion into Iran to raid and seize Iran’s buried enriched uranium. This would be hyper-risky and could not be done as a lightning raid as it would involve specialist excavation, a huge force protection ring from regular forces and spark a major ground war that could in time turn into a full-on conflict inside Iran. And it would not resolve the Strait of Hormuz dilemma.
3. The US could release billions of dollars into Iranian coffers in sanctions relief and park the nuclear issue for now – this is likely what is being discussed, as it may persuade Tehran to open the Strait of Hormuz, whilst nevertheless being an unspinnable defeat
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4. America could simply walk away and leave it to the west and Israel – which is possible. But but walking away without solving the Strait of Hormuz would represent the biggest defeat of all and it would leave the nuclear issue hanging. In other words, a tremendous defeat.