The Whims of War - Part 8

Over the past week I have occupied myself trying to see my way through the fog of war that is currently hovering over President Trump’s efforts to bring an end to the conflict in Iran. On the surface, it looks like he simply lost his patience with the game of chicken that the U.S. and Iran have been playing and capitulated to the settlement demands of the Iranian government. Indeed, that is the conclusion that many political pundits have reached. The problem is that there have been a number of unusual events that cry out for greater scrutiny which could change how this saga ends. That’s because President Trump may still have a few tricks left up his sleeve that will enable him to once again avoid consequences for his many miscalculations. 

Before turning to that, it’s instructive to understand just how our 47th President managed to cause the world’s wealthiest (and militarily strongest) nation to come to the verge of not just losing a war, but losing a war he commenced against a nation with an economy one sixtieth the size of the U.S. economy. The short answer seems to be that he allowed his super-abundance of self-confidence to lead him to make a series of bad judgments.

The root cause of this debacle was Trump’s decision to initiate a war against Iran thinking that by killing Iran’s theocratic Supreme Leader he could precipitate a change in the Iranian government. That, in turn, would lead to Iran’s abandoning its nuclear ambitions. This was an enticing prospect as it might even be sufficient to cause the American public to forget about the yet unreleased Epstein files and bolster the Republican Party’s chances of retaining control of the U.S. Congress following this Fall’s elections.

Just as Putin felt he could overrun Ukraine in a few weeks, Trump thought he could accomplish a comparable feat in a week or two. He, therefore, also decided NOT to seek permission from the Congress or to line up the help of our allies who similarly viewed Iran as a nation bent on fostering hate and destruction. President Trump may have also been concerned that such precautionary measures might have invited opposition to his plan or worse, given Iranian leaders a warning of what he had in mind. At the very least, it would have made it virtually impossible to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader and many of his closest advisors in a single bombing raid.

Trump’s decision to proceed with this risky undertaking was also premised on underestimates of the extent of the Iranian government’s control over its people and its ability to withstand adverse events. Trump also misjudged Iran’s ability to bring traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to a virtual standstill and the devastating effect that would have on the world’s economy. It wasn’t that President Trump had not been warned of this possibility; he simply chose to discount it. Specifically, he concluded Iran would not seek to close the Strait because that would hurt it as much as it would hurt other countries. He also might have thought that the superior U.S. and Israeli military forces would overwhelm Iran’s defense forces so quickly that they would not have had time to set up a blockade of the Strait. 

Even if Iran tried to impair shipping through the Strait, President Trump seemingly concluded that the U.S. and its allies could quickly wrest control of the Strait away from the Iranians. The problem was that an effort to wrest control of the Strait away from Iran might result in scores of casualties and the loss of numerous ships and aircraft. Unfortunately, Trump further underestimated this problem, assuming that our allies might help achieve this objective even though he had alienated them by walking away from the defense of Ukraine and by constantly belittling them. As a result, none offered to help when Iran did seize control of the Strait.

When the initial bombing attacks did not bring about Iran’s immediate surrender, Trump turned to threatening the Iranian regime, pledging to rain destruction down on their infrastructure if they did not do as he was demanding. Unfortunately, the Iran’s leaders were not intimidated; and even though Trump continually escalated his threats, they remained unmoved. In short, they were willing to endure whatever Trump tried to throw at them even if it meant the loss of thousands of their citizens.

Trump was also partially to blame for the Iran’s seeming obstinance.  He had paused military operations allowing more than 60 days to pass since he had commenced the war; and U.S. law required him to obtain Congressional approval if he wished to continue it. Trump, however, was reluctant to seek belated Congressional approval since many Republicans members of Congress were dismayed by his breach of his campaign pledge not to drag the U.S. into another war. Moreover, they were upset that Trump had started the war without even notifying them especially since intelligence reports indicated that Iran was months, if not years, from developing nuclear weapons. 

On top of that, the costs of the war had become significant and Congressional Republicans had foolishly just passed legislation cutting many social welfare programs relied upon by their constituents.  If the federal government couldn’t afford those expenditures before the war, it would be even more difficult to authorize them after the nation had spent scores of billions of dollars on a war that neither they nor their constituents had even contemplated, much less approved. This meant that the mid-term elections, which were only five months away, were starting to look far more ominous than usual for the party controlling the government.

These factors led Iran’s leaders to conclude that, notwithstanding Trump’s periodic and escalating threats to resume hostilities, he was in no position to do so. Thus, they could afford to sit tight and let Trump’s domestic problems force him to seek a settlement on terms favorable to them. In short, they could wait him out. Ironically, Trump had concluded that the U.S. was better able to further postpone military activities until the Iranians became desperate for the hostilities to end. After all, the U.S. was the world’s wealthiest nation with military might exceeding that of Iran by manyfold. 

Thus, when I last wrote about the war in Iran a month ago, it was in a state of partial hiatus with both the U.S. and Iran waiting for the other to make a concession that might serve as a basis for restarting peace negotiations. On the morning of Thursday, June 11th President Trump seemingly lost his patience with trying to out-wait the Iranians. This prompted him to unexpectedly announce plans to attack Kharg Island, the linchpin of Iran’s oil export infrastructure, and to assume control of its oil and gas operations. Then, less than five hours later, he made a second announcement; this one stating that the U.S. and Iran had come to an understanding that would enable them to terminate hostilities. While such an apparent rapid change of plans claiming a breakthrough in settlement negotiation was not unprecedented for Trump (as he had done the same on at least three previous occasions), this was different because this time the Iranians quickly concurred that there had indeed been a break-through in negotiations.

What was not clear, however, was whether Trump’s new and more specific threat had prompted the Iranians to suddenly re-evaluate their bargaining position or whether President Trump himself, after realizing that his threats were again being ignored, had decided that he would capitulate to Iran’s demands for achieving peace. Although President Trump tends to be impulsive, it is altogether possible that he had made up his mind to capitulate earlier that morning but chose to try to intimidate the Iranians one more time before agreeing to accept many of the Iranian’s demands. 

Three days later (on June 14th), the U.S. and Iran reached an understanding (embodied in a 14-point memorandum electronically signed by both parties) to (a) immediately suspend all military action in both Iran and Lebanon, (b) lift the U.S. naval blockade on Iran’s ports and (c) reopen the Strait of Hormuz, all for a period of sixty days beginning upon a formal signing of their understanding scheduled for June 19th. What remains puzzling is why the parties felt that there was even a need for a formal signing of their Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). 

Moreover, why did President Trump decide that Vice President Vance could sign for the U.S. when he had seemingly engineered this break-through in the parties’ settlement negotiations? This is a particularly vexing question when you consider that in the MOU, Iran also “reaffirmed that it [would] not procure or develop nuclear weapons” and agreed to negotiate during the “60-day period” the disposition of its stockpile of enriched nuclear material. Notably, the Obama administration had been unable to attain a comparable commitment in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the JCPOA) which it had negotiated in 2015.

In return, the U.S. agreed to use that same 60-day period “to undertake with regional partners to develop a mutually agreed plan with at least $300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of Iran.” They would also endeavor to negotiate resolutions to a host of other difficult issues (including restrictions on Iran’s development and possession of long-range missiles and restrictions on its support for its three non-state military allies) left over from the JCPOA.

The parties’ agreements in the MOU were immediately welcomed by most nations as well as by the U.S. stock markets. While the impetus for this seemingly dramatic turn of events remains unclear, it appears that President Trump was moved to act by the growing dissatisfaction of U.S. voters over the rising costs of living plaguing working class Americans. Indicative of growing voter dissatisfaction was a poll of over 5,400 Americans  taken by the Public Religion Research Institute that revealed that since last September President Trump’s favorability rating  among independent voters had plunged from 37 percent to 25 percent and even further (from 35 percent to 14 percent) among independents who professed not to  lean toward either party.

Of course, one of the principal factors causing the rise in living costs was the Iran war itself. Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz prevented petroleum, fertilizer and other important commodities produced by the countries bordering the Persian Gulf from being shipped to purchasers all around the world. Indeed, prior to the start of the war up to 135 ships (transporting roughly 20% of the petroleum consumed world-wide) had passed through the Strait each day. With Iran’s institution of its blockade, traffic through the Strait had dropped to roughly a dozen ships a day. As a result, global oil reserves were being rapidly depleted. Indeed, information cited by President Trump was that the world’s petroleum reserves held in storage tanks would be wholly exhausted in another four weeks. That meant that increases in the prices of gasoline and diesel fuel would be rapidly accelerating during that period. Correspondingly, increases in living costs would be accelerating and that Trump’s favorability ratings would continue their sharp descent.

There was no question that these factors placed President Trump in a race against time. It would take at least four weeks, and possibly much longer, to increase petroleum shipments out of the Gulf to their pre-war levels which meant that petroleum reserves would continue to be depleted until that increase in the level of traffic was reached. A number of factors, however, stood in the way of that happening, including clearing the Strait on mines planted by the Iranians, having to restart oil wells that had been shut down and raising the level of confidence of ship owners and their insurers that transiting the Strait would be safe. 

These factors put pressure on the Trump administration to rapidly reach an agreement with Iran to reopen the Strait. This, in large measure, explains why the terms of the 14-point MOU signed by the U.S. and Iran on June 14th reads like it was drafted by the Iranians and does not address many of the demands that had been voiced by the Trump administration. It also explains why the Israelis were left out of the negotiations leading to the signing of the MOU, and why they believe that they are being double-crossed by the Trump administration.  It has also prompted one commentator to suggest that Trump had achieved a total surrender, except that the United States (and not Iran) was the party that had surrendered.

To be sure, the MOU did not even mention limiting Iran’s development and maintenance of long-range missiles or reining in the actions of the three para-military organizations through which Iran had been terrorizing the Middle East. In fact, it didn’t even seek to restrict Iran’s production and deployment of conventional military weapons. While it did require Iran to abandon its efforts to develop and acquire nuclear weapons and to surrender or downgrade its enriched Uranium, it also included some enormous incentives to entice Iran to make these concessions. Specifically, trade embargoes would be lifted, $24 billion of Iran’s assets being held by other countries would be released and a $300 billion reconstruction and economic development fund would be established for Iran’s benefit.

This final concession was almost uniformly decried in the U.S., including by a significant number of Congressional Republicans. When the Obama administration had entered into the JCPOA, Trump had bitterly criticized it as being overly generous to Iran because it called for the unfreezing of $50 to 100 billion of Iranian assets being held by other countries. By contrast, the MOU agreed to by Trump provides that Iran will receive three to six times that amount. To keep this out of the news, the Trump administration had not released a copy of the MOU but arranged for it to be disseminated on Friday, June 19th when it would be re-executed at a live meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.  

​ But wait! President Trump is insisting that the U.S. will not be making any contribution to Iran’s reconstruction and economic development fund. A close reading of paragraph 6 of the MOU may explain that. It only states that the U.S. “undertakes with regional partners to develop a definitive, mutually agreed plan with at least $300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of [Iran].” That raises the questions as to who are the “regional partners” and do they possess the intention, much less the wherewithal, to come up with $300 billion. Considering the economic importance of this provision, one would expect those “partners” to have been signatories to the MOU—especially in view of President Trump’s contention that the U.S. will not be a contributor to this fund. Even more disconcerting is what does “undertake . . .to develop a plan” mean?  At the very least, Paragraph 6 of the MOU doesn’t even approach a good faith commitment, much less an unqualified obligation, to actually assemble the promised funds. 

When he was a building contractor Donald Trump had a reputation for hiring subcontractors to do the construction work and then refusing to pay them after they had performed their services. Paragraph 6 of the MOU very much looks like just such a “con” to get the Iranians to freely allow shipping through the Strait for 60 (or possibly more) days and then to simply inform them that the U.S. was unable to get “regional partners” to make contributions to the fund. This might enable the oil markets to stabilize at a lower level and the Republicans to minimize their losses in the upcoming elections.

When the existence of the MOU was first announced, an Iranian spokesman stated that his government had some questions about the MOU. This may be what he had in mind, which raises the question as to whether those controlling the Iran government (who are anything but stupid) would be willing to proceed with a prolonged reopening the Strait without getting some real assurance that iranians will be fully compensated if they perform their part of the bargain. It also might explain why the parties may have felt the need to stage a “formal” signing of the MOU when the original document had already been signed.

It is also possible that the Iranians may be setting a trap of their own by encouraging President Trump to raise public expectations regarding a reopening of the Strait, an expectation which they have no intention of allowing him to fulfill. This could be sufficient to undermine Trump’s voter appeal and make him vulnerable in an impeachment proceeding in 2027. In this way, the Iranians might be the ones who will be successful in achieving regime change within their adversary. Could Donald the Undeterrable have miscalculated once again?