Trump Seeks Quick End to Quixotic War
Having set the region afire, he's prepared to let others clean up the mess.
NPR (“Trump to address nation after saying U.S. may leave war within weeks“):
President Trump is set to address the nation on the Iran war at 9 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday night, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying he would be providing “an important update,” without providing further details.
On Tuesday, Trump said he expected the conflict to be over in two to three weeks, adding, “we’ll be leaving very soon,” and promising gas prices would then “come tumbling down.”
Trump shrugged off what would happen to the blockaded Strait of Hormuz – which has cut off one fifth of the world’s oil supply – saying, “we’re not going to have anything to do with it.” He said that it wouldn’t affect the U.S. and would be something for other countries to deal with.
“They’ll be able to fend for themselves,” he said, having previously told European allies who have refused to enter the war to “go get your own oil!”
The assertion to wrap up the war quickly comes just days after Trump threatened to up the ante if there was no deal and Tehran didn’t reopen the strait. He said he could seize Iran’s oil and blow up all of their Electric Generating Plants and desalinization plants. He also said he was considering an invasion of Iran’s key oil export terminal, Kharg Island.
But on Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed his boss’s latest comments on the war being over in a matter of weeks, saying the main goal of preventing Iran from being able to build a nuclear weapon had been achieved.
Rubio has expressed frustration in recent days over news reports accusing the administration of lacking clear objectives in Iran.
He said the objectives were: the destruction of Iran’s air force, the destruction of its navy, the “severe diminishing” of its capability to launch missiles, and the destruction of its factories.
Regime change, previously touted by the administration as a goal, was not mentioned. Earlier this week Trump said he considered regime change had been achieved, despite the fact that it remains a hardline theocracy led by the son of the previous ayatollah.
Reuters (“Trump says US may exit Iran war soon and threatens to quit NATO, as oil crisis escalates“) adds:
Global oil supplies are expected to be hit twice as hard this month as in March, the International Energy Agency said on Wednesday, underlining the urgent need to resolve the conflict over Iran that U.S. President Donald Trump said could end soon.
While Trump signalled he could wind down the war within weeks even without a deal, he also scaled up threats to pull the United States out of the NATO defence alliance if European states did not help stop Iran blocking the Strait of Hormuz.
“I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and (Russian President Vladimir) Putin knows that too, by the way,” Trump told Britain’s Daily Telegraph, saying he had moved beyond merely reconsidering U.S. membership.
The remarks on the war underscored Washington’s shifting and at times contradictory statements about a conflict that has killed thousands, spread across the region and caused unprecedented energy disruption.
“We’ll be leaving (the Iran conflict) very soon,” Trump told reporters, saying that could be “within two weeks, maybe two weeks, maybe three.”
“Iran doesn’t have to make a deal, no,” he said, when asked if successful diplomacy was a prerequisite for the U.S. to end what it calls “Operation Epic Fury”.
Cynics might say that expending tens of billions of dollars, the loss of countless lives, and doing lasting damage to the global economy without achieving any significant war aims constitutes a humiliating failure. Or that, having precipitated the closure of the body through which most of the world’s energy flows creates some responsibility to open it. But those people do not have the unique strategic mind possessed by this President, who knows more about war than any collection of generals.
And, indeed, investors seem relieved that the end of the operation may be in sight.
WaPo (“Markets rally, oil prices fall as Trump prepares to address nation on Iran war“):
Financial markets rallied, and oil and gas prices fell on hopes of an approaching end to the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, even as strikes in the region continued and Tehran maintained a show of defiance against opening the Strait of Hormuz.
Stock markets in Asia closed higher Wednesday while European markets posted gains in early trading. The price of Brent crude, a global benchmark, dipped below $100 a barrel, down from about $118 a day earlier, and European gas prices fell.
A day earlier, U.S. markets closed higher, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite index all gaining more than 2 percent.
Oddly, many in the region want the war to continue.
AP (“Gulf allies privately make the case to Trump to keep fighting until Iran is decisively defeated“):
Gulf allies of the United States, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are urging President Donald Trump to continue prosecuting the war against Iran, arguing that Tehran hasn’t been weakened enough by the monthlong U.S.-led bombing campaign, according to U.S., Gulf and Israeli officials.
After private grumbling at the start of the war that they were not given adequate advance notice of the U.S.-Israeli attack and complaining the U.S. had ignored their warnings that the war would have devastating consequences for the entire region, some of the regional allies are making the case to the White House that the moment offers a historic opportunity to cripple Tehran’s clerical rule once and for all.
Officials from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain have conveyed in private conversations that they do not want the military operation to end until there are significant changes in the Iranian leadership or there’s a dramatic shift in Iranian behavior, according to the officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The push from the Gulf nations comes as Trump vacillates between claiming that Iran’s decimated leadership is ready to settle the conflict and threatening to further escalate the war if a deal is not reached soon.
Indeed, one ally is apparently ready to put their money where their mouth is.
WSJ (“U.A.E. Wants to Force Hormuz Open and Is Willing to Join the Fight“):
The United Arab Emirates is preparing to help the U.S. and other allies open the Strait of Hormuz by force, Arab officials said, a move that would make it the first Persian Gulf country to become a combatant, after being hit by Iranian attacks.
The U.A.E. is lobbying for a United Nations Security Council resolution that would authorize such action, the officials said. Emirati diplomats have urged the U.S. and military powers in Europe and Asia to form a coalition to open the strait by force, the officials said. A U.A.E. official said the Iranian regime thinks it is fighting for its existence and is willing to bring the global economy down with it in a chokehold on the strait.
The U.A.E. official said the country had reviewed its capabilities to assist in securing the strait, including efforts to help clear it of mines and other support services.
The Gulf state has also said the U.S. should occupy islands in the strategic waterway including Abu Musa, which has been held by Iran for a half-century and is claimed by the U.A.E., other Arab officials said.
[…]
The U.A.E.’s newly assertive approach is a fundamental shift in its strategic outlook, said officials from a Persian Gulf state. Dubai, the commercial center of the U.A.E., has long financed the Iranian regime. Emirati diplomats were racing to mediate between the U.S. and Iran before the war, an effort that included a visit to Abu Dhabi by Ali Larijani, an Iranian national-security official who later died in an airstrike.
Meanwhile, The Mustache of Understanding argues “Trump Has a Way Out of the War.” But first, some insults:
It is actually embarrassing to watch the American president flip-flopping around, from telling us that the surviving Iranian leaders have pretty much agreed to his every demand, that the war is close to being over and Trump won, to admitting that he has no idea how to get the Strait of Hormuz shipping lane out of Iran’s grip. If America’s Western allies, whom Trump never consulted before the war, won’t send their armies and navies to do the job for Trump, then it’s too bad for them, he says: We have all the oil we need. That is, unless Trump decides to “obliterate” — his favorite word — Iran’s industrial base and desalination plants until Iran says uncle.
In short, we are watching what happens when you put into the Oval Office an impulsive, unstable man who ran for president largely to get revenge on his political foes. Then he surrounded himself with a cabinet chosen for its handsome looks and its willingness to put loyalty to Trump over loyalty to the Constitution. Add to that Republican majorities in the House and Senate willing to write him blank checks, and it all eventually leads to sloppy, undisciplined decision-making, including starting a huge war in the Middle East with no plan for the morning after.
Trump is a man-child playing with matches — the world’s most powerful military — in a gas-filled room.
But, finally, we get a solution so brilliant that it’s shocking no one has thought of it before:
Trump should set aside his 15-point peace plan — which would be ridiculously complicated to implement — and reduce it to two points: Iran gives up its more than 950 pounds of nearly bomb-grade highly enriched uranium, and in return the United States gives up on regime change. Both sides would then agree to end all hostilities. That is, no more American and Israeli bombing, no more Iranian and Hezbollah rockets, no more Strait of Hormuz blockade and, for darn sure, no U.S. ground troops landing in Iran.
I mean, why didn’t I think of that? Iran, which is arguably winning the war, could hand over its prime security asset in exchange for promises from (checks notes) Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald J. Trump to play nice. Why, they’d be fools not to take such a great deal.
Nancy A. Youssef, one of the aforementioned cynics, counters that there’s “No Good Way Out.”
All of [Trump’s] options come with serious liabilities, not least the fact that Iran appears to consider its own position to be relatively strong, given its de facto control over the Strait of Hormuz and, therefore, the global price of oil. Tehran may not feel that ending the war on a quick U.S. time frame is in its own interests.
“While we are inflicting enormous pain on Iran, we are also signaling to them that we are experiencing pain, and we don’t like it,” Peter Feaver, a professor of political science and public policy at Duke University, told me. “That tells them that their strategy—to just ‘survive’ and that will be a win—might be working. And if they hold on, they might get a better deal next week rather than this week. And that complicates negotiations.”
Indeed. This is especially true if we’re telling them they only need to endure another two or three weeks.
I totally do not understand why oil is down on this news. Is Iran supposed to open the strait in exchange for promises, or what? (Iran has already said they have zero trust in anything Trump or Trump minions say).
Let us pray that TACO Tuesday falls on Wednesday this week.
Lawrence O’Donnell mentioned last night that Nixon won election in a landslide in 1972 (61/38). And a couple years later almost no one admitted to having voted for him.
“Having set the region afire, he’s prepared to let others clean up the mess.”
It’s worked for Trump for nearly 8 decades, why not now?
The felon’s and the world’s best strategy is for him to declare victory and go home. As far as safety in transiting the Strait, that will take care of itself. With the cessation of hostilities, Iran doesn’t have a burning need to continue the blockade, may they demand tribute for keeping the Strait open, probably, but that would simply become the cost of doing business and everyone would adjust.
The wildcard is Israel and Bibi’s political situation, so part of Iran’s demand of the other gulf states, maybe to deny Israel overflight rights, that would create a buffer for Iran.
And it is somehow appropriate that he is going to finally address the nation on April Fool’s Day.
@Steven L. Taylor:
April Fool: Indeed, it is not beyond the realm of possibility this is a big fakeout, that would not be out of character for him.
It would be in character for him to use the military forces he has mobilized.
“Wajeeh Lion”
ETA: KSA is also (now) hawkish, although without the capability of being much help.
@Sleeping Dog:
What you think Iran needs and what the IRGC thinks Iran should do could possibly not completely match.
But I suppose thinking as you do explains the jubilation in the stock markets, and the oil price selloff.
But, I will say this: if UAE/KSA agreed with your assessment they would not be wanting to join a military effort to force the Strait open.
Which brings to mind for some reason:
So much for Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn rule – “you broke it you bought it.” Just as Trump doesn’t understand how tariffs work, he doesn’t understand that oil and gas prices here are based on the world market. Apparently he thinks Exxon and Chevron et.al will salute the flag and say no to the inflated profits that will be there for the taking. If we’re oil independent, as the Orange Clown says, why did “our” gas prices go up a dollar a gallon? And why won’t the White House gaggle ask Karoline “Tokyo Rose Garden” Leavitt these questions?
Re: destroying Iran’s arms industry. Even with the Gulf closed, Russia has a direct route across the Caspian Sea. They can ship Russian-made Shaheds, and trans-ship anything China cares to contribute without worrying much about US or Israeli air power. How long would it take the Chinese to rebuild Iran’s missile factories? Six weeks? Maybe? Is Trump going to bomb Chinese construction crews? No, he’s not. Iran’s factories will be rebuilt just as soon as Chairman Xi decides.
The end game is becoming all-too clear: Iran will operate the Hormuz Toll Booth. Russia and China will have a say in what gets through the strait. We will not and the Gulf Arabs will not. In the end Trump will have greatly increased Iran’s power over the Gulf. Advantage Russia and China. Mission Accomplished.
@Scott:
Make America Great Gatsby???
Best news I’ve seen this month. Netanyahu makes the case that wars on Iran have succeeded. In the (gift) link you have to go down a few stories. Looks like Netanyahu knows Trump’s going to TACO, and Israel has to go along.
@Michael Reynolds:
Trump has killed whatever was left of the “American Century”. We set aside New Deal, social-democratic, whatever economics, which was working imperfectly but pretty well, in favor of neoliberalism. And that having failed, we’re scratching for something else. Trump has set aside a Western (including much of Asia) alliance under loose U. S. hegemony, which was working imperfectly but pretty well. Apparently in favor of Carl Schmittian spheres of influence. Does James still have that Picard facepalm graphic?
@Steven L. Taylor:
No wonder then he said he’ll try to intimidate the fixer court earlier today. he needs the nap to be rested in order to lie to the nation in the evening.
@Steven L. Taylor:
No wonder then he said he’ll try to intimidate the fixer court earlier today. he needs the nap to be rested in order to lie to the nation in the evening.
@Steven L. Taylor:
No wonder then he said he’ll try to intimidate the fixer court earlier today. he needs the nap to be rested in order to lie to the nation in the evening.
@charontwo:
Financial markets are not exactly the same trusted economic indicator they used to be, they now include more day-to-day gamblers. Not all are trading on long term geopolitical analysis, but on what’s in the news today.
Almost anyone can open a Charles Schwab or Robinhood or [insert fintech app here] account and trade in stocks, bonds, ETFs, and commodities futures. One need not filter such activity through a broker reached by phone anymore, they can do it themselves on their phone whenever. They’re buying and selling daily, making risky bets based on daily news, to cash in and out quickly.
Oil prices are relatively volatile anyway, tied to many factors, including market speculation. Those financial bettors now include anyone with a smartphone + potentially millions of NEETS — people Not Employed, in Education, or in Training.
Millions of Gen Z men are jobless—or NEETs—and they’re so checked out they’re betting away entire paychecks on red or black: ‘$256K is about to go down on the table’ (Fortune)
I’m a College Student. Gen Z Sports Betting Is Wrecking My Friends’ Lives. (NY Post)
Millions of prime age men nationwide neither working nor looking for employment (CNBC)
Financial markets have always had speculators, day traders, and gamblers. That cohort is now supercharged.
Also since the pandemic, our feudal lords have more excess money with which to speculate in stocks and commodities, here in our second Gilded Age.
@charontwo:
How willing will the UAE and KSA be without the US? As @Michael Reynolds: points out Iran can quite quickly rebuild its military capability with even just Russian assistance.
Militarily opening the Strait will require a massive land invasion to gain control of the geography around the Strait. The idea that naval escorts and playing whack-a-mole with drones and speed boats will open it is delusional.
@Michael Reynolds:
So maybe 3 years or so to build, but pipelines, roads, maybe railroads direct to the Arabian Sea and Mediterranean, bypass both straits. That’s the ultimate endgame if (big if) Iran can keep the Strait closed.
@Sleeping Dog:
Are you sure Trump is really going to pick up his marbles and go home? I’m not.
@charontwo:
I am not sure. In fact, I think it’s possible that Trump thinks he’s playing a clever misdirection game and the Marines and Airborne and Delta and SEALS are all on their way to a quagmire. There’s a new moon in mid-April, which is about when the second MEU will be on-station. New moon darkness is when you want to carry out nighttime ground attacks.
Government by humiliation kink is a novel form of government, but what more can we expect from American Exceptionalism?
Do you trust Trump to fix the situation? Let’s say he tries his hardest and puts his best people on it — does that make things better or worse?
He tried for an easy win, put his (our) money down, rolled the dice, and failed miserably because he was at the poker table. The smart move there is to walk away, and try to make espresso in the slot machines or something. If we’re very, very lucky he will do exactly that.
@charontwo: UAE signalling of intentions aside, the situation still presents itself as intractable no matter how many gulf countries join the fray. Iran’s theocracy with its 4+ million uniformed fighting personnel (including Basij), is simply not going to capitulate. They can keep those Straits closed for a very long time merely with the armament they have on hand or can fabricate locally. And we can be most assured, Putin is ready to lend a hand to his southern ally, to keep the price of oil higher.
Global supply chains will need to compensate, and creation of alternative sourcing will take longer than a stuttering global economy can wait. All the while, the US grows more pariah-like in the eyes of our once partner nations, as we view Pax Americana recede in our rearview mirror.
The only rational exit now is through diplomatic means, and that will cost massive loss of face for the US, a geopolitically strengthened Iran, and higher costs for everyone, maybe in perpetuity.
No Kings is looking somewhat belated: Trump has already “royally” ____ed this nation.
@Michael Reynolds: If I were Iran, I would be considering how far I could push keeping the strait closed to try to reduce US forces out of the region.
That or play nice and have a very quick scramble to get nuclear weapons.
We ultimately got our ass handed to us in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and now, not apparently having learned the significance of synergism between geography, culture, and geopolitics, we are again on the brink of being smacked against the side of our head, at great, tragic expense to innocent civilian populations. The “big stick” and chest thumping has severe limitations. Backed against the wall, human persistence is a force to be reckoned. Humans really need to find a better way to resolve conflict. Our shared existence now depends on exceedingly complex interrelationships that do not handle large shocks well, portending even less well given the future challenges facing this shrinking planet.
@DK:
The stuff social revolutions are made of when expectations fall short on a grand scale.
Beat me to the punch. Something I was formulating for comment on OTB a week ago.
Trump’s Iran Response Is Similar to COVID
Not having learned from Trump’s erratic performance during his first term in the face of a global crisis, American voters are now poised to take a second drink from that poisoned well. Trump utterly botched our national response to a global pandemic, flitting from one distraction to another. And here we go again. Only this time, instead of a microscopic mutating virus, Trump IS at the center of the unfolding human catastrophe, he is the progenitor. We can watch his justifications for the war, and every other distraction, mutate before our very eyes. The human-sized virus. People die.
@Michael Reynolds: I think that potentially, but partially, accurate. The Chinese may be able to talk Iran into opening the strait in exchange for help to re-build. But I doubt the Chinese will demand say-so on who gets to use it or encourage the Iranians to do that, I expect the opposite. It would be a bad and entirely unnecessary position to take for them. With the US losing respect by the day, if not hour, there is no need to over-play their hand. They can look like a savior against the mad jolly green giant to the nations in their region who are now scared spitless by it, including Australia.
If a Trump was ruling the place they might want to flex to the max like that, but they aren’t insane egomaniacs, at least not the type that’s eager to be obvious about it.
@Rob1:
The pedophile didn’t just botch the global pandemic, he likely caused it. The virus’s escape from mainland China was downstream of the Trump admin’s 2017-2019 decimnation of the CDC China team by 70%, including key roles specific to intercepting emerging outbreaks and to advising Chinese epidemiologists.
Future historians will research and model the probability a fully intact CDC China might’ve more quickly contained COVID-19. The result of such investigations into Trump’s first and second term personnel cuts — including USAid cuts causing 14+ million excess deaths in the upcoming decade — will see Trump declared an American Mao: someone’s whose careless ideological choices were tantamount to mass murder.
@Michael Reynolds:
@Sleeping Dog:@Gustopher:
@Rob1:
@charontwo:
@dazedandconfused:
There is a rail line to China that bypasses Russia as well: runs from Mashad through the Central Asian ‘stans.
If Trump does climb down, either now or after a filed land operation, I suspect the rational move for Iran would be to pocket the win, and let the Straits traffic resume, after a week or so to make their point.
After that, they can toll and “inspect” as suits their pleasure, and periodically deny passage to specific ships to coerce the Gulfies to expel US bases.
And China can play “honest broker” with all parties.
Because, if Iran does keep the Straits closed post-hostlities, its liable to seriously annoy China, India, Pakistan etc.
The question is, are the Pasdaran rational enough to see that?
That also relates re Gustopher’s possibility:
That’s a very high risk move.
Given the Israeli’s have fairly good intel on thing Iranian, theres a fair chance they’d detect Iran going for 90% and remetalliaztion.
And in that event I’ve a nasty feeling that Israel would be very likely to opt for a nuclear strike on the remetallization facility.
So long as Iran has an effective lock on the Straits, they don’t really need nuclear weapons.
@Sleeping Dog: Russia has its hands full with Ukraine at the moment and even if that mess was resolved today it’s going to take Russia many years to recover.
The Iranians should turn to their best customers, China and India, who will want status quo ante bellum in the strait and almost certainly be willing to give something in exchange, and China is capable of giving quite a bit. Particularly if the Iranians continue to accept yuan for oil.
China could almost certainly have a credible deterrent to Israeli aggression in place within a year, maybe two. The Iranians would almost certainly open the strait for that.
El Taco can’t conclude a quagmire in three weeks, but he can get one started. I wouldn’t rule out a daring, cinematic raid, with most uncinematic results, to seize Iran’s uranium, or an assault on Kharg Island for some reason.
@DK:
Much as I’d like to give full responsibility to El Taco for the trump pandemic, I just can’t.
Certainly removing the CDC personnel didn’t help, but quite likely it couldn’t be stopped.
Viral infectious diseases are the epitome of the phrase “first gradually, then suddenly.” Consider HIV. It went pandemic in the 80s, but it was probably circulating in Africa since the 1960s (!) The trump virus transmits far more easily, but it was probably circulating in Wuhan province weeks or months before it was identified in late 2019.
What the removal of the CDC team in China might have led to, though, is better information than the Chinese authorities were letting out. Like it transmits mainly person to person and not through contaminated surfaces.
What El Taco did to ern the title of COVID’s greatest supporter, was not to take the outbreaks seriously, impede mitigation efforts, fail to facilitate the dispersion of PPE and other supplies, and above all not promoting the vaccines he himself aided in developing quickly.
I hold him responsible for most of the deaths in his country, and many the world over from those who imitated him in careless and clueless pandemic management.
@charontwo:
Saudi Arabia might, maybe, be able to wait for years for that transport to get built.
The rest of the GCC would be in full economic collapse within months, and starving within a couple of months more. Because 70% to 80% of their food comes in via the Straits.
(In practice, I suspect even KSA would have very serious problems enduring a blockade)
They would have to capitulate to Iranian terms.
Both they and Iran know this; which is why they are despearate for the US to do something to get them out the deperate situation Trump and Netanyahu have dropped them in.
And why if Iran is sensible they won’t keep the Straits closed. Because the threat alone should suffice for coercion.
And because if they did fully collapse the Gulf states by blockade, and continude to wreck the global economy, after cease of hostilities, that’s a situation that could potentially generate a genuine international coalition against Iran.
If Iran is rational, it can now sit back and scoop up the winnings from a US strategic failure.
As can China, without even having to lift a finger.
@Kathy:
Maybe, maybe not. It’s uncertain because these events have not yet been fully adjudicated or studied. Until such investigations are greenlighted and peer-reviewed, there’s not much reason to give Trump benefit of doubt.
We placed people in China specifically to mitigate spread of infectious disease. These jobs were gutted by Trump, against epidemiological objection, starting in 2017, before the last quarter of 2019. The CDC had not created those roles for no reason.
Once there’s a body of research saying Trump’s actions here did not cripple efforts to contain COVID-19 early on, I’ll stop blaming him. It could be that in this case, the unprecedented disaster that follows Trump’s bad choices was just bad timing and coincidence — unrelated to his slash and burn incompetence. Me personally, I’ll keep saying COVID was very possibly Trump’s fault til shown otherwise, pending researchers’ final verdict.
@JohnSF:
How do you figure El Taco will carry out his next set of strikes on Iran after he no longer has access to bases in Europe because he decided to leave NATO?
I do know there’s a process in the treaty if a country wants to leave the Alliance. It takes time. Further, it’s a treaty, meaning it’s got the force of law, as approved by the Senate decades ago, and it takes an act of Congress to suspend or cancel it. I can’t see 50 GQP senators, even now, voting to leave NATO (of course, I’ve been wrong before*)
Still, El Taco’s liable to begin removing US troops from Europe, regardless of what the treaty says or what former commitments may have been made. After all, the pretend president should throw the tantrum he wants, no?
*As hard as that is to believe.
@JohnSF:
You persist in missing my point. Regardless of how things go for the GCC over the next 2 months or 4 months or whenever, 3 years from now the geology will still be the same. Iran and the straits will still be where they are, with Iran able to collect rents from its location.
So maybe some folks might like to address that. Do you think any solution to the current problem will be irreversible?
Well, that’s over. Trump spoke for 19 minutes and said almost nothing. Nothing new. Didn’t quit. Says two to three more weeks. Otherwise a string of his usual lies.
@gVOR10:..that’s over…
Thank you for watching Trump’s blather and your subsequent report.
Another instance of me getting all that I need to know from OTB.