Trump’s Iran gamble falters as war drags on amid concerns of long-term chaos

A month after the US and Israel launched the war with Iran, nothing seems to be going according to President Donald Trump’s plan for a conflict lasting four to six weeks. Despite the assassinations of most of the Islamic Republic’s political and military leaders, the regime shows no signs of collapse. Similarly, wave after wave of US and Israeli air strikes may have degraded Iran’s ballistic missile and drone capabilities, but they still look set to remain a potent threat to the region for the duration of the conflict – and beyond. In stark contrast to the Trump administration’s demands for capitulation, diplomatic proposals exchanged via Pakistan’s government in recent days have seen Iran harden its position. Washington wants Tehran to dismantle its nuclear enrichment facilities and surrender its stockpile of near-weapons-grade uranium estimated to be sufficient for 11 warheads. US conditions for ending the war also include scrapping all Iranian missiles except those for defensive purposes, and ending Tehran’s support for allied “Axis of Resistance” militias including Lebanese Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis. In response, Iran has demanded acceptance of its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, the withdrawal of US forces from bases in the Gulf Arab states, and the parallel cessation of attacks against its regional proxies. According to Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Middle East fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, officials in Iran “feel they have the initiative simply because the regime is largely intact”. Tehran remained capable of launching ballistic missiles and drones at Israel and the Gulf monarchies, and maintaining its de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz and “stranglehold over the world economy”. “There is a feeling held by many in Iran that their tolerance for pain is higher than Trump’s, and this will begin to make itself felt the longer the war goes on,” he said. As such, analysts see Trump’s setting and extension of deadlines for Iran’s surrender – from last Monday to April 6 – as performative politics designed to keep his options open, as it does for Tehran. Observers say the American president faces a clear choice between two undesirable, risky options: military escalation that would extend the conflict by many months – probably without bringing down the regime; or a negotiated end to the war that would embolden a weakened, vengeful Iran for years to come. In either case, the global economy would pick up the tab for the warring countries’ brinkmanship, analysts told This Week In Asia. The US and Israel “shattered the long-standing taboo against direct war” with Iran, while Iran “broke the taboo of keeping the Strait of Hormuz open”, said Ali Alfoneh, author of Political Succession in the Islamic Republic of Iran. “The threshold has been crossed,” said Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Arab Gulf States Institute. “The global economy must now operate under the permanent risk of repeated disruption to one of the world’s most vital energy corridors.” Ulrichsen said the conflict could continue even if Trump decided to end US involvement. “It is by no means a certainty that Israel will do the same, or that Iranian leaders will want to give up their trump card which is their ability to choke international trade and energy flows,” Ulrichsen said. In such a scenario, a protracted conflict was likely to “continue at a lower level which maintains the possibility of disruption at any time and thus elevates the risk of doing business across the region”, he said. The evolving situation thus threatened to destabilise the Gulf for years, as was the case when the US went to war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime, after it occupied Kuwait in 1990. Instead of producing a decisive outcome, the US continued periodic strikes against Iraq until the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam. Israel – and, in practice, the US – “attempted and failed” to overthrow the Iranian regime, while the ceasefire terms advanced by Washington were unacceptable to Tehran and “amount to a framework resembling the containment regime imposed on Iraq in the 1990s”, Alfoneh said. “Unlike Iraq, however, Iran will not remain contained.” Instead, Tehran would retaliate “asymmetrically against regional actors and the global economy, ensuring that every strike on Iran carries broader consequences”. Analysts said Trump’s habit of veering from one statement threatening escalation to another talking up peace prospects made it difficult to predict how events would play out. This was partly why leaders in the Gulf states “are so concerned at the lack of predictability in decision-making in Washington”, Ulrichsen said. Having previously opposed the war, these hydrocarbon-wealthy monarchies had found themselves in a bind, analysts said. A US escalation involving Trump’s threatened attacks on Iranian energy infrastructure or seizures of islands in the Gulf would undoubtedly trigger massive retaliatory strikes against the Gulf Cooperation Council member states: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman. But a US failure to destroy Iran’s offensive capabilities would render them extremely vulnerable to periodic attacks after the end of the current conflict. That would certainly be the case if, as Alfoneh expected, the Iranian regime survives after “Trump loses patience and declares victory unilaterally”. In this scenario, Iran responds by “locking in long-term oil arrangements” with Beijing and accelerating its nuclear programme to produce at least two weapons – “one for testing, one for deterrence”. According to Alfoneh, the war would thus transform Iran into “the North Korea of the Middle East”: diplomatically isolated, economically constrained, fiercely nationalist, revanchist and committed to nuclear armament.

Trump’s Iran gamble falters as war drags on amid concerns of long-term chaos

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}With Iran emboldened despite US and Israeli strikes, analysts warn of the ‘permanent risk of repeated disruption’ for the global economy

With Iran emboldened despite US and Israeli strikes, analysts warn of the ‘permanent risk of repeated disruption’ for the global economy