Trump Searches for an Exit
But Iran has turned out the lights and put new barriers in his path
[1,201 words: a 5-minute read.]
President Donald Trump’s problems in Iran are entirely of his own making—and now he seems eager to escape from them.
Trump chose to attack a country that hadn’t attacked the United States, nor even threatened to do so. He expected an easy victory, perhaps because he’d kidnapped Venezuela’s leader Nicolas Maduro in January and replaced him with Maduro’s pliant deputy, Delcy Rodriguez, without a hitch, and subsequently became the custodian of Venezuela’s oil revenues. Trump’s confidence that the Islamic Republic would collapse under the weight of an Israeli-US bombardment was bolstered by the upbeat briefing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of Mossad, David Barnea, gave him on February 11. For at least two years, Israel had even groomed the Iranian equivalent of Delcy Rodriguez, former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, widely reviled by Iranians for his incompetence and slew of prohibitions on what they could read, say, listen to, and (particularly in the case of women) wear. None of that mattered to Trump, scarcely a paragon of democracy; what mattered was that the Israelis, à la Venezuela, had a new Iranian leader in waiting.
Before long, Trump’s war will reach its six-month mark. By now even the president’s diehard supporters sense that it has been a disaster, though none will say so out loud. Tehran’s governing institutions didn’t crumble. Moreover, Iran weathered ferocious air and missile strikes by Israel and the United States and, in response, widened the war to encompass all of America’s Persian Gulf allies, hitting their ports, bases, and energy installations. Iran countered the relentless American strikes with waves of drone and missile attacks, forcing the US to dig deep into its stocks of defensive and offensive systems. By mid-summer, CENTCOM had expended nearly two-thirds of the nation’s Patriot missile interceptors, four-fifths of its THAAD air defense missiles, “virtually all” of its ATACMS and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM), and half of its Tomahawk surface-to-surface missiles. According to recent press reports, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine has been seeking an “off ramp,” and so, apparently, have Vice-President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
Despite his bravado, Trump, too, wants out; victory has eluded him, and the war has taken a toll on his political capital. Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz, locking up a fifth of the world’s trade in crude oil and a quarter of its natural gas. American consumers feel the pinch directly when they pump gas, which, by July, was 30% more expensive than before the war. They feel it when they buy airline tickets. Because of the surge in jet fuel prices, they cost 8% more on average, and international trips 14% more. Then there are the increased indirect costs. Consider one example: trucks transport 73% of the value of goods that move around the US. Freight costs have surged because diesel prices have risen by a third since February. The added costs are passed on to consumers.
Not surprisingly, Trump’s approval rating, based on an average of polls, has plunged to 38% versus 52% on Inauguration Day—this as the mid-term elections approach. The GOP is also in trouble: polls show that the Democrats have narrowed the gap even on defense and national security, long a Republican strong suit, and on “war, foreign conflicts, and terrorism,” even pulled ahead. The House, and perhaps even the Senate, could change hands, transforming the political balance of power.
All of this has gotten Trump’s attention—to the point, according to an August 9 Wall Street Journal report based on information from “US officials,” of “floating the idea privately to senior aides that he’s willing to walk away without a nuclear deal,” providing Iran agrees to open the Strait of Hormuz. If true, this would be a big climbdown. The president has said time and again that preventing a nuclear-armed Iran is among his most important objectives in the talks with Iran. And abandoning that for an agreement that unblocks the Strait wouldn’t be a victory at all: that waterway was open before his war began; its closure by Iran was precipitated by Trump’s attack.
Tehran, well aware of the pressure he’s under, on and off the battlefield, isn’t about to make it easy for him to find the exit. It has shut off the corridor lights and strewn furniture all along the path to prevent easy egress.
Trump was hoping that the discussions between Oman and Iran on unblocking the Strait would help him. No such luck. JD Vance revealed this weekend that Iran had assured the US that it had no plans to impose a “toll” on ships crossing the Strait. But presenting this as a win is a conjurer’s trick. Iran’s word of choice hasn’t been “toll”; it talks of a “service fee,” and hasn’t backed off from its determination to impose one. The service fee has been the pivotal part of the negotiations between Oman and Tehran, with the latter proposing one as high as 7% of the value of a ship’s cargo. There’s no way Trump, author of The Art of the Deal, can pass off as success an arrangement that permits Iran to turn the Strait into a cash cow that yields $40 billion a year (and according to some estimates twice that sum), a huge gain, even when split with Oman.
Trump’s problems are now even bigger. Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, now says Tehran won’t open the Strait permanently unless the US agrees to additional conditions and “corrects its behavior.” Here’s how Iran’s state news agency reported what he meant by that:
“Behavior correction means:
1- Never threaten Iran with any language and do not insult the sanctities of this nation.
2- End the war and aggression against Iran and Iran’s allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen and Iraq forever.
3- Remove the naval blockade and withdraw its military forces (sea and air) from around Iran.
4- Pay the damages of the two wars of aggression imposed on Iran.
5- Remove cruel and illegal sanctions against the Iranian nation.
6- Unconditionally release the frozen and stolen assets of the Iranian people.”
Iran may be overplaying its hand by assuming that it now has Trump over a barrel and can dictate terms, regardless of its own deep economic problems. These include a collapse of the rial, approaching 1.9 million to the dollar, youth unemployment at 21%, year-on-year inflation at 87.9%, and a US naval blockade that has shut down 90% of Iran’s oil exports. Iran’s new conditions could be an opening bid. If so, Trump may be able to stitch together a deal, even if only a face-saving one.
For now, however, Trump’s path to the exit door remains dark, long, and barrier-filled. And if Iran doesn’t trade away some of its latest conditions, he’ll be stuck with a distasteful choice between resuming a war, something his top military adviser deems unwise, or capitulating. There’s one sign that the president knows Iran may now have the whip hand: his tirades against its leaders, threats to bomb Iran to smithereens, and claims that Tehran has nothing left and is pleading for a deal seem to have ceased, even as Iran flaunts its control of the Strait through continued attacks on ships.