Weakened Iran has called Trump’s bluff
Perhaps Iran has grasped something Donald Trump has not – holding good cards does not always mean holding a strong hand
Donald Trump is fond of card analogies. Last year, he said that Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, held none, implying that a Russian victory was inevitable.
In his showdown with Iran, the US president would appear to hold all the cards – the world’s most powerful man concentrating the planet’s most formidable firepower against a regime that has weakened on multiple fronts in recent years.
Yet weakness has not succumbed to strength, much to his bewilderment. So much for Thucydides and his maxim about the strong doing what they can and the weak suffering what they must.
Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump’s envoy-at-large, said in exasperation this week that the president was “curious” why Iran had not “capitulated”.
Perhaps Iran has grasped something that Mr Trump has not: holding good cards does not always mean holding a strong hand.
Like an inexpert bridge player, Mr Trump appears to have overbid, and is now struggling to make contract.
Flush from the clinical operation to seize Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela, the US president believed he could replicate the triumph in the Middle East. His pledge to “rescue” Iran’s protesters emboldened them to stay on the streets, where they were slaughtered in their tens of thousands.
But the hazards are multiplying. Mr Trump is at last colliding with geopolitical realities he has long skirted. Last year’s destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities, another “one-and-done” demonstration of US firepower, appears to have convinced him that war was easy.
That mission succeeded in part because it had a clear, limited goal. This one does not. As critics have noted, Mr Trump seems intent on war, but uncertain what he wants from it. Military action without a stated objective is rarely a recipe for success.
Iran senses that Mr Trump is in a bind. For all Washington’s military superiority, Tehran retains asymmetric deterrence – it can impose costs that may well be greater than the Trump administration is willing to bear.
Iran responded to previous US actions – the strikes on its nuclear facilities, or the killing in 2020 of Qassim Soleimani – with restraint.
Senior officials in Tehran warn that this time will be different.
Iran will escalate rather than defuse, knowing that ballistic missile strikes on US bases across the Middle East would risk drawing Mr Trump into the kind of forever war he once condemned, thereby alienating a crucial part of his base.
This dilemma explains some of the diplomatic contortions of recent weeks. At times, US demands have been maximalist, requiring Iran to abandon not only its nuclear ambitions but also its missile programme and support for anti-Israel armed groups.
Yet in his State of the Union address this week, Mr Trump appeared to lower the bar, suggesting that Tehran could avert war by uttering “those secret words: we will never have a nuclear weapon”.
But this has never been the issue. Iran has repeated such pledges for years, even issuing a fatwa declaring the peaceful intent of its nuclear programme. The problem has never been what Iran says. It is what Iran does.
The protean nature of the US position may be strategic ambiguity – or it may reflect uncertainty in Washington about what success looks like.
Tehran may conclude that Mr Trump is desperate for a fudge, and that one can be supplied.
Iran will not abandon its missiles, its nuclear infrastructure or its regional militias. But it could restate its nuclear pledge and accept limits on uranium enrichment, something it is not presently able to do anyway.
Yet even if Iran threw in a few additional sweeteners – allowing a resumption of United Nations nuclear inspections or granting US companies access to Iran’s energy sector – it would be hard even for Mr Trump to sell this as a decisive diplomatic victory.
Hawks are already circling. Lindsey Graham, a prominent Republican senator and staunch Trump ally, warned that if “there is a consideration of allowing Iran to have a very small enrichment of uranium for face-saving purposes... screw that”.
Yet failure risks hurting Mr Trump more than Iran. The Islamic regime appears convinced it can weather a US attack and retaliate in ways that inflict pain on its president.
The omens are poor. A YouGov poll published this week found that just 27 per cent of Americans support a strike on Iran – a figure that would surely fall if US soldiers were killed or the conflict slid into a messy stalemate.
Mr Trump is in a predicament. His critics will say it is one of his own making.
[Source: Daily Telegraph]
