Middle Eastern wars: wait for September

Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump told journalists that the United States and Iran are “in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal.”

On Wednesday, after an American helicopter gunship crashed in the Strait of Hormuz, presumably downed by Iranians, he declared angrily that “They’ve taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price!!!”

Later on the same day, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqai took on the role of ‘only grown-up in the room’, saying that the United States is “damaging the diplomatic process through the contradictory messages it sends, its repeated shifts in positions and demands, and, worst of all, through repeated violations of the ceasefire.”

The pattern is pretty clear by now. Trump oscillates between wild optimism and frustrated fury, while the Iranian negotiators keep their voices down, never shift their positions, and display performative patience. That enrages Trump even more, and I suspect the Iranians secretly enjoy it.

Taunting Trump feels like a dangerous game, because this man has threatened a “civilization-ending” strike on Iran’s infrastructure that would leave its 92 million people desperate for food, water, even light: dams, power stations, bridges all gone. Tens of thousands would die, and it would be years before the economy was functioning again.

Trump came within less than two hours of his deadline before calling the whole thing off — but the point is that he did call it off. He was not willing to take the blame for ruining or ending so many civilians’ lives. “TACO!” (Trump Always Chickens Out) — but good for him.

But, if Trump is not willing to do this, at least not now, then where is his leverage for the “great deal” he imagines is just around the corner? Nowhere, that’s where. He has no cards.

Bombing Iran some more just bounces the rubble. Invading it would be a nightmare, because it is a huge country with a very mountainous geography, and the Iranians would fight. Trump keeps pointing out peevishly that he has already destroyed Iran’s navy and air force, so why won’t they surrender, but the fact is that all that gear now scarcely matters to Iran.

Iran has cards. It has lots of missiles and drones dug into caves to keep the strait closed, and a steep, rocky coastline that defies amphibious landings. Its rulers also don’t have to worry about October or November elections, unlike the U.S. president and Bibi Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. All the Iranians have to do to win is to not lose, and time is on their side.

So, the next few months should be eventful but not alarming: ceasefires made, broken and remade on the U.S.-Iran front, while Gaza rots and southern Lebanon is ground to dust by the Israelis. Come September, however, things will probably start to get exciting, because the elections will create deadlines. Not for Iran, of course, but for Trump and for Netanyahu.

Most Israelis still support Netanyahu’s wars on Iran and Lebanon and they care nothing about Gaza, but he will have to have some big concrete achievements by late September or he will be out of office and perhaps subsequently in jail on his long-standing corruption charges. He must “go big or go home.”

Trump’s political future does not depend entirely on the November mid-term elections, but losing control of the House would shrink his freedom to rule just as he wishes. The huge gerrymander carried out by the Republicans may save the day for them, but if the outcome is in doubt Trump, too, will be seeking a big military victory in a war that has gone on too long.

The trouble, for both men, is that they are fighting asymmetrical wars against opponents who refuse to “stand up and fight fair.” They’d be crazy to give them targets like that because they are totally out-gunned. They are not actually guerrillas, but they can make life very difficult for their richer and better-armed enemies.

If Trump and Netanyahu are frustrated now by their inability to achieve a decisive victory, how angry and desperate do you think they will be three or four months from now? Angry, desperate men are reckless men, and we don’t know what they might do at that point. It could be quite extreme. I’m aware that all this speculation rests on the assumption that there will not be a mutually satisfactory outcome in the “peace talks” or “ceasefire talks” that have already been underway for two months.

I just cannot see any reason why the Iranians would make major concessions to Trump, let alone to Netanyahu.

Gwynne Dyer’s new book is Intervention Earth: Life-Saving Ideas from the World’s Climate Engineers.