Over the past year, Iran has exposed both the reach and the limits of U.S. power: from “shock and awe” strikes that made Tehran blink, to Washington’s muted response as an existential uprising was crushed, revealing Trump’s preference for easy wins over costly confrontations.
Over the past year in Iran we have likely seen both the highs and the lows in terms of U.S. military prowess.
First came another example of the heights of U.S. military capability with the “shock and awe” U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. We saw that when charged with a very specific, well targeted mission the technological advantage of the U.S. can be felt to full and devastating effect. In a way the U.S. called Iran’s bluff – Tehran thought the U.S. would not bomb for fear of retaliation which could have included a rapid move to enrich a limited number of dirty bombs or attacks on Gulf states. None of that happened as the U.S. attacks were not yet existential to the regime – they had boundaries which included not isolating themselves within the global south and its neighbours. Tehran blinked.
But most recently with the weak U.S. response to the latest uprising in Iran we saw the limitations of U.S. power. The uprising started, Trump initially perhaps saw a chance to bask in the glory of regime change, egged the demonstrators on by saying the U.S. would not let them down. The regime, facing a really existential threat, showed no mercy, no restraints, killing thousands of demonstrators, and the U.S. did nothing very much. This likely reflected the difficulties then of the militarily responding to support a civil uprising without boots on the ground – hard to determine friend and foe in street clashes from drones thousands of feet up. But also I think the U.S. was deterred in responding by regime warnings that it saw this finally as an existential threat – which this was – and it would retaliate by hitting Gulf assets. Trump feared a spike in oil prices as a result – hitting his campaign at home to tackle the cost of living crisis. Trump also likely listened to Iran’s neighbours who were worried that another half baked, half arsed, failed Western intervention in Iran would just produce another failed state – after a very long list of Western failures in Somalia, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan et al. They worried what might come next could be worse than the Islamic Republic.
As is the regime seems to have turned the tide of the uprising and understanding that it needed to give Trump something of a win has now apparently offered to suspend executions of demonstrators. Likely this will only be temporary until the news cycle and Trump’s narrow attention span shifts.
But let’s not beat around the bush here, this was a defeat for Trump. Trump set a red line on the regime in Tehran, they crossed it and Trump did nothing. They called his bluff – TACO. And it kind of demonstrates that Trump wants easy wins – the low hanging fruit. As per the decapitation exercise in Venezuela. If you can pitch an easy win to Trump, with the use of the bells and whistles of the U.S. military, he will take it. But he is less willing to get into the detail of resolving difficult crises that require the U.S. to input real skin in the game, take meaningful risks and go the extra mile to find solutions to the real underlying problems and you can see that in his approach to Ukraine and Gaza – looking for quick ceasefires rather than lasting solutions.
The immediate consequences of Trump’s humiliation really by the regime in Iran is Trump will look elsewhere to change the news cycle. I think we have seen that in the last 24H with new focus on Greenland, peace talks in Ukraine and the second stage of Gaza peace process
On Greenland, I would be worried now about some military spectacle – little Green men appearing akin to Crimea 2014.
On Ukraine Trump seems to be back to bullying Zelensky and brown nosing Putin. Bullying the weak, pandering to the powerful. But there is no way that Zelensky can accept anything close to the Dimwit 28-point plan. So the war goes on.
And on Gaza, the first stage ceasefire secured the release of hostages and reduced, but did not stop, the casualty rate amongst Palestinians – many hundreds have died during the ceasefire still. And there seems to have been very little progress on the core issues revolving around the later stages of the initial plan. Key there still is the deployment of a peacekeeping force including credible military involvement which really means Turkiye, the Gulf states, Pakistan et al. And therein Trump still does not seem to have secured sign off from Israel. So it’s difficult to be that optimistic.
A couple of final points to end on though.
First, the irony of Trump’s meaningless “Wag the Dog” operation to take Maduro out in Venezuela was that US military assets were diverted from the Gulf which left the U.S. military less able to act on a crisis where the dog – a Rottweiler – was barking loudly. And therein we can talk about the new Donroe Doctrine but when push came to shove the Western hemisphere was the distraction to the main event for Trump which was in the Gulf – and Trump could not help himself there by being so outspoken at the outset about backstopping demonstrators and seemingly being all in for regime change. As it was proven he was not in at all, not even very much at all. And if there is to be regime change in Iran then Trump has made clear, it’s up to Iranians.
Second, surely the above suggests all this was a colossal failure of U.S. intelligence. Surely with U.S. and Israeli assets in and over Iran they should have seen the uprising coming and briefed Trump then of the consequences of moving assets out of the Gulf to focus on Venezuela. So either this was a failure of U.S. intelligence or the Trump administration failed to accurately read or act on the available intelligence that was forthcoming on Iran. The actions on Venezuela could have waited – the regime change opportunities in Iran could not. But also Iran – unlike Venezuela – has the right oil – it’s the oil price plus or minus 30% story. So Trump missed two tricks here because of his distraction in Venezuela. And on Venezuela it was Trump’s ego and impatience that got the better of him – it’s was Trump vs Maduro. It became personal.
