Good deal or bad – Trump just desperately needs one
The ink was not yet dry on the possible ceasefire extension agreement between Donald Trump and Iran’s brutal, hardline regime when the US leader started taking a victory lap.
Seeking to control the narrative concerning an historically humiliating American climbdown, Trump used his social media account on Friday to insist he was on the brink of securing a victory of historic proportions. Reposting the musings of Newt Gingrich, who served as Speaker of the House of Representatives as far back as the 1990s, Trump endorsed the view that he was “on the edge of an astonishing victory for our values and for a safer Middle East”.
In a post of his own, he then announced he was heading straight into the Situation Room “to make a final determination” and boosted expectations that a deal was at hand.
He claimed (without any supporting evidence) that the Iranians would “complete the immediate removal and/or detonation of any mines that are left, which will not be many!”, and he even encouraged the 20,000 seafarers who have been stranded aboard tankers and other vessels for the last three months to “say HELLO to your wives, husbands, parents, and families from me, your favorite President!”.
But the gleeful bonhomie was all for naught. After two hours surrounded by top members of his national security team, word emerged from the White House that, yet again, there was still no deal.
The New York Times reported that Iran’s demand for the release of at least $6bn in frozen assets is a major sticking point in discussions. Having spent years excoriating former president Barack Obama for sending $400m in cash to Iran in January 2016, Trump may realise the scale of the hypocrisy he is contemplating. He may also justifiably fear that the funds that will finance Iran’s recovery, its rearmament, and flow to its violent proxies further afield.
As for any progress on the nuclear issue, the Iranians are demanding that Trump kick the can even further down the road. “Iran must agree that they will never have a Nuclear Weapon or Bomb”, he wrote on Truth Social, reiterating what he claims to have been the war’s main aim. Yet it remains unattained.
So far, the balance sheet is devastating. Trump has needlessly squandered thirteen American military lives, depleted America’s weapons stockpile, and poured billions of dollars into a strategy-free military campaign that might – just might – now lead to the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz (a strategic waterway that was open before the first American missile struck targets on the conflict’s first day, including a school in which 168 children were incinerated).
Meanwhile, he has sparked an entirely unnecessary global economic crisis that thrust his allies and partners all over the world into turmoil, left American motorists, truckers and businesses paying the price for his Israeli-inspired hubris, and derailed his own demand for interest rates cuts by the end of the year.
On Friday, he indicated that whenever a ceasefire extension is agreed, he will ask Americans to believe that the costs of his war are water under the bridge. While avoiding the forever-tarnished phrase “Mission Accomplished”, Trump claimed the Strait may soon reopen “for unrestricted shipping traffic, in both directions”, which of course was where things stood before the conflict began.
But his critics are already pouncing. The hawkish former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who served in Trump’s first term before falling out with the him, accused the president of “ignoring…that the regime now has palpable evidence that it can disrupt global markets by turning the Strait on and off like a light switch”.
For Iranians struggling to free themselves from the clerical government’s oppressive yoke, Trump had not a single word on Friday. Indeed, you must go back to the conflict’s earliest hours to find evidence of the president’s initial determination to bring about regime change in Tehran, and his call on people to “seize the moment” and “take back their country”.
Where Trump once demanded Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” and promised “MIGA” (“Make Iran Great Again”), he is instead poised to deliver the country back into the hands of the regime. The regime’s leaders will portray any ceasefire extension as an unparalleled patriotic win over “the Great Satan”, while continuing its daily sweeping executions of political prisoners and protestors.
The weeks ahead are fraught with risk. Having only gained in strength from the conflict, Iran is likely to reject Trump’s continuing efforts to derail its nuclear ambitions, and may further test the US leader by imposing tolls for every vessel passing through the Strait. Since the war’s outbreak on 28 February, the regime has learned that access to the waterway is the most powerful weapon at its disposal, along with the thousands of drones and missiles that remain within its stockpile.
Just in time for America’s 250th birthday, Trump is demonstrating the limits of US power. The nation’s rivals and foes will be taking copious notes.
