The past few days have seen a flare-up of the war of choice that the United States launched against Iran. American forces launched a series of attacks against Iran, killing both military personnel and civilians. The latter included five people at a wedding, two of them children.
Iran responded by attacking American military locations in Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, and, later, the United Arab Emirates.
While the mutual attacks, including the probable war crime by the U.S., represented a break in what had been a relative lull in fighting, they were also calibrated to maintain each side’s control over escalation. Neither side seeks an immediate escalation back to the all-out fighting of the spring months.
That, however, should not imply that both sides are equally reluctant to reignite greater fighting. Although Iran has much more at risk by a return to all-out war, it also has a greater incentive than the United States to end the current state of tension, which is primarily characterized by less firepower and more economic warfare.
The American strategy, to the extent that the administration of Donald Trump has one, is currently to focus on enacting ever-tighter sanctions on Iran, closing off alternative revenue streams, and hoping that the economic collapse does today what it has not done for forty-seven years and brings down the Islamic Republic.
Iran, conversely, is trying to hold on to control of the Strait of Hormuz while continuing to push the United States’ military farther away from the Persian Gulf region. Their increased focus on attacking the remaining American bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE is coupled with their growing focus on American positions in Jordan. But they seem, at least for the moment, to have decided to refrain from further attacks on Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
That indicates that Iran is trying to promote a new regional security regime, diminishing the American role, thereby shifting the defense focus from Iran to Israel.
That reflects a more careful long-term strategy, which is sensible for Tehran as the United States is simultaneously making other moves that threaten to entrench this conflict for the long term, bringing a new “forever war.”
How does Trump intend to sell that war to his MAGA followers, who backed him based on “no forever wars”? The same way he always does: he’ll lie to them.
Media blackouts and disinformation
From the beginning of this war, both the United States and Iran have worked to hide information on the damage they have suffered. Iran has more incentive than the United States to broadcast damage, however, so we have had somewhat better views of some American actions, such as this week’s bombing of a wedding in the town of Sirik.
A Reuters investigation confirmed what was initially clear: the United States had directly attacked the wedding site. Obviously, Iran wants to let the world know about such crimes, and the United States, which does not risk its own civilians in this war, has no such temptation.
Of course, Iran has other reasons to conceal some data, such as the extent of the damage the U.S. has done to its missile and drone manufacturing capabilities. Whether those are as greatly diminished as the U.S. dubiously claims or remain largely intact, keeping that knowledge secret is advantageous to Tehran.
This week’s attacks illustrate that advantage. The American attacks, though the largest in many weeks, mostly targeted sites they had hit before, so they were not likely to have caused much more damage, given the mobility of Iran’s defensive systems.
On the other hand, the United States claimed that the Iranian strikes in response were all intercepted or landed in uninhabited areas. Other reporting disputes that, supporting Iranian claims of having hit American communication, radar, and hangar sites as well as the headquarters of an American commander.
There is no way to be certain where the truth lies, but earlier similar American claims have been shown weeks later to be false. The clampdown on reporting has only stiffened since then.
Damage assessments are not the only arena of disinformation. Both sides have an interest in giving the impression of total control of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran insists that the Strait is closed, but some ships are getting through, even without Iran’s permission. They are moving stealthily, often at night, and with their transponders turned off to avoid detection. They are accompanied by American naval and air forces, an expensive, provocative, and unsustainable operation, but one that has temporarily eased the global shortage of oil that has resulted from this war to some degree.
But this week’s claim from U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright that the United States was able to bring 17 million barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz on Monday — a figure nearly on par with pre-war traffic through the Strait — was met with widespread skepticism.
Commercial tracking agencies detected only a handful of ships transiting the Strait that day, nothing like the more than one hundred that would be required to match Wright’s claim. Those companies rely not only on transponder signals but also on satellite imagery to count traffic.
The oil market also does not seem convinced by the Trump administration’s claims.
It would take several weeks for shipments of crude oil leaving the Gulf now to hit the market, so we wouldn’t expect to see crude oil prices fall yet.
But if oil buyers believed these figures, we would expect to see an effect on the price of crude oil futures, which is based on the expected market, not the current one. But those prices, too, have not come down.
High oil prices hurt Trump’s claims of victory and of controlling the Strait. But he might still be able to deceive parts of the public if the shooting war does not heat up again.
Trump’s first attacks this week seem to have been intended to deter Iran from exercising more control over the Strait by laying more mines and positioning more launchers. It is unclear whether the American strikes were successful in doing that.
What is clear is that Iran is not likely to allow Trump to strangle the Iranian economy without a response. That was the message sent by Iran when they continued attacking American sites even after they had responded to the first American strikes.
That strategy is becoming even more imperative as the Trump administration, consciously or not, takes steps to prolong this war.
Entrenching the war in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia
There are two matters, beyond the direct confrontation between Iran and the United States in the Persian Gulf, that must be resolved for this war to end. Those are the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon and the issue of Iran’s nuclear program.
The Israeli invasion of Lebanon must end for there to be negotiations with any hope of success. The nuclear issue will upend any deal that might be made if it is not resolved, and the future is currently very hard to see.
Events this week made both of those areas tougher to confront.
Iran had warned the United States not to allow Israel to attack the Ali Taher Ridge, which was a key Hezbollah outpost. The warning should not have been necessary since there is supposed to be a ceasefire, and both Israel and Hezbollah are supposed to be holding their positions until there is a resolution.
Even that unjust arrangement was not good enough for Israel, which, given the impunity it continues to enjoy, went ahead and took out the Hezbollah headquarters, without provocation. As always, a ceasefire means the other side ceases, while Israel fires.
Initial reports stated that IRGC personnel were also in Ali Taher Ridge, but reports after the operation claimed there were none. It is possible the Iranians evacuated to avoid the Israeli assault.
In any case, it remains to be seen if Iran will retaliate, but even if they don’t, there is little hope that Israel will withdraw from Lebanon in the foreseeable future. Talks in Washington between Israel and the Lebanese government, always a meaningless sideshow, have paused as even the Lebanese president has been unable to maintain credibility while engaging Israel.
The looming midterm elections certainly mean Trump will be even more reluctant to press Israel on Lebanon, and after them, it is entirely possible that a thoroughly lame duck Trump will embark on even more radical paths. That, of course, would free Israel even more to act as it wants. Israeli Prime Minister’s precarious position only makes him more inclined to naked aggression.
Even in the unlikely event that the Lebanon issue can be resolved and that terms for ending the war in the Gulf could be found and agreed to, neither Iran nor the U.S. can end the war without a deal on Iran’s nuclear program that lifts the economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
As if that wasn’t already difficult enough, the announcement this week was that the United States and Saudi Arabia had signed an agreement for the U.S. to help Saudi Arabia develop a nuclear energy program.
The deal will certainly make it harder for the U.S. to reach an agreement with Iran, and that difficulty is likely to persist beyond Trump’s administration.
The nuclear deal would allow Saudi Arabia to enrich up to 20%, a level the U.S. had cried foul about when Iran enriched to that figure more than fifteen years ago. Moreover, the deal would not require Riyadh to sign on to the Additional Protocol, which allows for much more intrusive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and which Iran did sign on to as part of the JCPOA.
It’s a clear double standard and one that will make Iran even more reluctant than it already is to find common ground with the U.S. on the nuclear issue. This comes on top of the fact that the war itself increased the impetus for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.
All these factors are coming together and pointing the conflict in a hopeless direction. The way out, however, is still clear: a negotiated settlement along the lines of the Memorandum of Understanding reached in June, combined with elements of the JCPOA and international guarantees for all of it.
Does that mean the United States would have to admit defeat? Yes. But that defeat is manifest already, and Iran is not going to allow the U.S. to prolong this war and the economic strangulation of the Islamic Republic indefinitely. There will, eventually, be blows in the region and possibly beyond that which dwarf what we’ve seen already.
This war has been calamitous enough. The longer it goes on, the harder it will be to end, and the more likely it becomes that a certain global disaster will result.
