Editorial: Cost of Trump’s failed Iran strategy
What was intended as a decisive campaign against Iran has instead entrenched the regime, weakened US influence, and destabilised the region further
On February 28, Donald Trump made the following declaration to the Iranian people: “To the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. When we are finished take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will probably be your only chance for generations.”
Fast forward three and a half months, after 13,000 air strikes, thousands of people killed and a conservatively estimated $30 billion cost to the US Treasury alone. Not only is the brutal Iranian regime still in place but it is firmly entrenched in power and Tehran has been emboldened.
Hardliners continue to lead it and can claim victory because survival has always been the benchmark of success for a ruling class that killed thousands of its own people when it suppressed mass protests only a few months ago.
Today, Trump is ready to sign a rushed peace, notwithstanding the 60 days of negotiations that are supposed to deliver a treaty, more in line with long term strategic US (and European) goals, with the regime he wanted to topple. While the first war with Iran arguably achieved some clear objectives, such as material damage to Iran’s industrial nuclear capacity, this second joint US – Israeli war on Iran has achieved little beyond the destruction of Iranian infrastructure and the larger surface vessels of the Iranian navy, which was a puny force to begin with.
Iran retains considerable stocks of ballistic missiles and tens of thousands of drones.
Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, the junior partner in this war, has emerged weakened. He has been ignored in the negotiations with Iran. In return, perhaps, he has been left free to sink in a Lebanese quagmire.
His forces are overstretched. Many of his soldiers are exhausted and increasingly desensitised or demoralised, not least by the pressure to extend deployments constrained by Israel’s small population.
The gamble of Netanyahu’s manipulation of Trump’s long-held loathing of Iran, which stems from the Iran hostage crisis during the Carter administration, may have only delivered pennies when assessed against Israel’s long-term security objectives. Iran’s proxies are weakened but remain in power.
Hamas controls what is left of Gaza not controlled by Israel. Hezbollah is being slowly but surely restructured, taking orders directly from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). And the Iranian-supplied Houthis in Yemen remain unscathed.
China will exploit opportunities to influence the region at the expense of the US and Europe
Among the Arab Gulf states, US standing has similarly been weakened.
China will exploit opportunities to influence the region at the expense of the US and Europe.
The UAE has indeed drawn closer to the US and Israel, out of the necessity of being targeted by Iran. However, this was a war the Gulf states argued against starting, and, once their advice was ignored, they expected the victory promised by Trump.
Instead, Iran has driven home its ability to halt the exports of key Gulf states (including 20% of the world’s oil) in the Straits of Hormuz and send inflation higher in Europe, the US and beyond. The Gulf states will still deal with the same Iranian regime, that might well be freed of sanctions on the back of empty promises while remaining a destabilising force.
At the G7 summit, Trump said his next priority is putting an end to the war in Ukraine, now that “there is a deal to end the war with Iran”. It was a war Trump initiated that history will undoubtedly call a reckless irresponsible gamble. And the ‘deal’ so far is a vaguely written MOU that raises more questions than it answers.
It is also unquestionably tilted towards Iran, including a US pledge to terminate “all types of sanctions against Iran”. With Trump, fact and fiction inhabit the same grey space.