As the Iran war drags on, I wanted to share some thoughts on the proper context in which to see the conflict. Donald Trump lost this war in its very first days. Everything that has happened in recent weeks – the threats, the negotiations, the live on social media breakdowns – has simply been a matter of trying to get free of that fact. This isn’t a political attack. It’s simply an accurate appraisal of what we all see. More importantly, it is the only way to understand what is happening now. Everything that’s happening today and for weeks has been focused on breaking Iran’s hold on the Strait of Hormuz, something it didn’t have before the war started. That’s the definition of failure: fighting a war and continuing a war to clean up the mess the war of choice actually created. By this measure, the best way to achieve what is now the central war aim – opening the Strait – would have been simply not to start the war in the first place.
You can see the reality of the power balance in the visible fact that Trump wants negotiations and an end to the conflict more than Iran does. He keeps asking for them or demanding them. Iran holds back. They have the upper hand, notwithstanding all the vast damage to infrastructure, civilian and military, Iran has suffered.
It all comes back to the foundational fact that Trump lost control of the situation and lost the conflict itself in the first days. Everything since has simply been an effort to ignore or bluster through or deny that fact. Trump wants out of the war so he’s not willing to use the level of force that might prevail over the Iranian blockade. The Iranian leadership sees that just as clearly as everyone else. And as he waits he and the global economy sustain damage. He’s stuck and since he won’t recognize that fact the conflict and the massive damage to the global economy continues, even if the scale of the fighting, for the moment, doesn’t.
