WaPo (“Trump increasingly lashing out at allies as victory in Iran war proves elusive“):
To kick off the week, President Donald Trump threatened to bomb Oman, a U.S. ally that has been acting as a mediator trying to end the war against Iran.
The next day, Trump posted a map with a circle around the Strait of Hormuz — and land along its shorelines in Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Iran — labeling the area “NEW U.S. Territory.”
And on Wednesday, Trump declared “ECONOMIC D-DAY” against Iran, warning in a post on Truth Social of dire consequences for any nation that supports Iran.
Trump’s incendiary missives this week were a symptom of growing frustration, analysts said, as the president does not appear to see a way out of the war that he started. Nearly six months after launching attacks on Iran with Israel and 75 days before elections that will determine whether his party retains control of Congress, Trump faces the kind of open-ended conflict he once claimed he would end.
Unable to force Tehran’s surrender and declare the victory he sought, Trump is increasingly lashing out at allies. He also seems worried of a potential side deal between Iran and other Persian Gulf countries that would open the strait, analysts said.
[…]
The war has in recent weeks reached a strange stalemate, with U.S. attacks against Iran, and Iranian attacks against U.S. allies in the Gulf, slowing dramatically since last month.
With stocks of U.S. armaments dwindling, Trump for the moment is forgoing military force and instead has focused on punishing Iran economically, which experts say has caused severe financial pain, especially for Iranian civilians, but still failed to elicit the concessions that Trump wants from Iran’s leadership — especially regarding the strait.
Alan Eyre, a former diplomat who served on the U.S. negotiating team that secured the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, compared the Trump administration’s actions to that of a “thrashing mastodon, slowly sinking into a tar pit” during the Ice Age.
[…]
Although much remains uncertain about why Oman became a target of Trump’s rage this week, Eyre said that the frustration probably boils down to one thing. “He is upset with Oman for the same reason he is upset with South Korea,” Eyre said, referring to Trump lambasting South Korea for refusing to join the war efforts. “Neither have solved his problem,” he said.
NYT (“The Message Behind Trump’s Threats of ‘Economic Warfare’ Against Iran“):
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tried to reassure investors worried about the pressure campaign on Iran on Thursday, declaring that a resumption of “large-scale” fighting was unlikely.
The problem for the Trump administration is that Iran was also listening.
President Trump this week promised an “economic D-Day” against Iran, a “crushing” operation to “cripple” Iran. The U.S. clampdown is formidable, a combination of wartime destruction, a naval blockade and sanctions that have already put the Iranian economy under more pressure than its regime has experienced in decades.
But between the lines of the administration’s threats was a signal that Mr. Bessent made as clear as ever on Thursday: Mr. Trump does not want to go back to war right now. The president is waging an economic campaign against Iran having already spent weeks bombing the country earlier this year, and having stepped back from multiple threats since then to resume the violence.
As a result, experts say, Mr. Trump is stuck in a conflict with limited leverage, a demonstrated vulnerability and an emboldened adversary. Even as Iran reels from shortages and inflation, Mr. Trump is likely to increasingly feel the pressure of the approaching midterm elections in the shadow of an unpopular war and high gas prices. It is a dangerous combination, experts say, that could prompt Iran to sense American weakness and lash out.
“They read him now as not wanting to escalate militarily,” Dennis B. Ross, a former Middle East negotiator for presidents of both parties, said of Iran’s leaders. “That creates an incentive for them to show that they may escalate militarily.”
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Mr. Trump announced his upcoming “economic D-Day” against Iran in a social media post Wednesday evening, warning of “Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale.”
“These maniacs are on the ropes, and these HISTORIC MEASURES will cripple them and their ability to project terror worldwide,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Among the challenges for Mr. Trump is that he has repeatedly threatened Iran with large-scale destruction, only to pull back from the threat. He spoke in June about his fear of an extended war pushing the United States into an economic “depression.” And polls show the Iran war to be widely unpopular — even, increasingly, among Republicans — creating a political Achilles’ heel for Mr. Trump as a conflict he described as a weekslong “little excursion” nears its six-month mark.
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The Iranian resilience and retaliation appear to have pushed Mr. Trump to rely on economic pressure to try to force Iran’s hand. Analysts note that the administration has already imposed extraordinary pain on Iran’s economy, with Mr. Trump’s naval blockade compounding the damage done by this spring’s bombing campaign.
A new escalation came on Wednesday when the United Arab Emirates, a crucial economic partner across the Persian Gulf from Iran, said it would halt all trade and financial transactions with the country.
But going further could be difficult for Mr. Trump, who warned in his Truth Social post that “ANY country” providing any kind of “lifeline to Iran” would “itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences.”
Iran’s most important financial lifeline is China, which buys most of Iran’s oil.
“China is the indispensable piece” of an economic pressure campaign against Iran, said Miad Maleki, a senior fellow at the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank in Washington who previously worked on sanctions policy at the Treasury Department.
“No substitute can absorb Iranian crude at China’s scale,” Mr. Maleki added in a text message.
But Mr. Trump has worked to improve his relationship with Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, who is expected to meet Mr. Trump in Washington on Sept. 24. Analysts said they anticipate that the Trump administration will be cautious in pressuring China, especially given the upcoming summit, leaving open the question of just how much more severe the U.S. economic campaign against Iran can become.
Mr. Bessent told CNBC that the administration’s conversations with China on the matter would remain private.
“Iran has been under comprehensive sanctions for years,” said Edward Fishman, senior fellow and director of the Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomics at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The only major thing left to do is aggressively target Iran’s trading partners — above all, China.”
He added: “I’m skeptical Trump is willing to risk instigating an economic war with China right now.”
The options are limited, indeed.
In the short term, at least, a trade war with China would be far more painful for American consumers than for the Chinese. Not only do most of us get cheap goods from China delivered to our doorsteps several times a week, but even American-manufactured goods rely on Chinese components. And that’s to say nothing of China’s near-monopoly on several key rare earth minerals.
Despite wishful thinking that economic pressure will force whoever’s running Iran to capitulate, all indicators are that they’re willing to bear enormous pain to preserve the Islamic Republic. Approval for the war is underwater, with 55.1% opposed and only 37% supporting. Trump himself is at record lows, with 58% disapproving and only 38% supporting. Time is very much on Tehran’s side.
