The real problem for Trump is both his and his team’s ignorance and misunderstanding of Iran. Join us on Telegram , Twitter , and VK . Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su Can anyone make any sense at all of Trump’s illogical, capricious and preposterous statements on Iran? This is a president who tore up the JCPOA deal in 2018, which limited Iran’s ability to develop enriched uranium to barely 4% strength, allowing Tehran to go to 60% today. This is a president who has allowed Tehran to control the Straits of Hormuz while the GCC countries distance themselves from the U.S. and its fantastical ideas about hegemony in the region. Trump is so confused about what he is trying to achieve with the Iranians that he is probably not conscious of how much he contradicts himself within minutes of posting conflicting rants on social media. Stupidity seems to be the central core of what drives him. It is like watching a sick animal chasing its own tail.
“Open the Strait of Hormuz until 8 p.m. or I will destroy your civilization” was one post, followed by Iran’s reply which rejected the demand. Trump’s response was the theatre of the absurd. “I am starting an indefinite ceasefire. Whatever the U.S. says will happen,” he hinted, suggesting he is not even in control of these decisions or the negotiations. Of course, Israel plays a bigger role than what most Americans understand, and Netanyahu is going to great lengths with whatever resources and leverage he has to block any possibility of a deal. For weeks, the Iranians always placed the nuclear part as secondary to opening the straits and enforcing a ceasefire, which created confusion and anger from Trump. But now it seems they have agreed that the nuclear issue could be negotiated during an initial 60-day ceasefire, which gave new hope to Trump of getting a deal that he can at least present to the American people as a victory. But it also enraged Netanyahu, who would be facing an ugly end to his career if peace were to be respected by both sides in exchange for guarantees about nuclear development.
The coded messages are important. Trump recently gave one to reporters in the White House when he said that he “didn’t care about the midterms” and that he was in no hurry. Of course, this was nonsense, as he is in such a panic to get a deal. The message was not for the Iranians but for Netanyahu and his Jewish lobby. Trump may well be telling the truth when he says he doesn’t care about the Republicans being hit hard and probably losing one of the two democratic ‘houses’ in the U.S. electoral system. He may well be playing a game of bluff with the Republicans and is already ready for impeachment proceedings.
Another coded message is Israel’s bombing of Lebanon and talk of completely flattening the southern Beirut suburb, which is seen as a centre of Hezbollah support. With this Lebanon strategy, Israel can show America that it can use its army against the wishes of the U.S. administration and venture forth with its own ideas about extending ‘Greater Israel’. The idea of taking Lebanon completely and converting it to a Judeo-Christian vassal of Israel has been a dream of the Israeli elite since the 1970s. In 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon in an ill-fated pursuit of PLO forces, it installed a puppet Christian dictator as president (who was promptly assassinated by Assad), only to carry out the Sabra and Shatila massacres of Palestinians but also of many innocent Lebanese living in those neighbourhoods. Their bloodthirsty rampage shocked the world, and even to this day those massacres mark Israel and its elite as sick, perverse and entirely depraved, given the psychotic logic behind the slaughter.
Is Netanyahu looking at Lebanon and thinking that it is time to capture it lock, stock and barrel?
Just recently, the Israeli military captured the strategic site of Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon, in what Netanyahu described as a ‘decisive shift’ in its offensive against Hezbollah. It comes as ground troops move ever deeper into Lebanese territory beyond their original demarcation line of the Litani River, sparking concerns among many Lebanese that they are being used in some geopolitical tug-of-war game that would compensate Israel for Trump’s failings to topple its regime. It’s not as absurd or far-fetched as many might think, though. The Sunnis in Lebanon would never fight the IDF. The Christians may well sign up to Israel taking over if it meant the absolute destruction of Hezbollah (with their former power being reinstated). And the Druze may easily shift closer to Israel, just as they did in Israel itself and even in Syria when it was convenient for them. Who knows what discussions are going on now between Netanyahu and Lebanon’s leaders?
The real problem for Trump, though, is both his and his team’s ignorance and misunderstanding of Iran. The hilarious notion which was floated recently by Witkoff and Kushner — that a real estate project could be offered as a sweetener — fell flat on its face and should never have been offered in the first place, given the Shia ideology of Iranians and their rejection of the glittering Dubai skyline dream, which is almost a blasphemy of sorts to their thinking and way of life. Idiots.
The real estate offer, though, gives you an idea just how lost Trump is and how out of his depth he is with the so-called negotiations. It’s hardly surprising now that there is talk by defence wonks in Washington of a drawn-out war being started by the US for over two years — precisely the amount of time left that Trump has in office. But how would that be possible when it is widely believed that America needs three years to replenish its arsenal, which Trump wasted on February 28th? The Iranians are bemused by three different representatives from three different countries hounding them to sign a deal, but this will never happen until they see with their own eyes the reality of the blockade being ended and a perfectly reasonable sum of merely $12 billion USD put into their bank accounts (from $100 billion USD of money which the US holds of theirs). Trump doesn’t understand them and, worse, doesn’t understand that he has no credibility whatsoever as a statesman to negotiate anything. It’s all about actions now. Is he an action man?