Last weekend, Donald Trump did something that he has done more times than I can now count: threatened Iran with a massive, indiscriminate attack and then backed down while claiming that his threat had led to an imminent diplomatic breakthrough.
Of course, just like all the other times, no diplomatic breakthrough was actually imminent. What happened is that Trump was too fearful of the costs and dangers of escalating the war further to actually do it. The U.S. doesn’t have the missile interceptor stocks in the region to weather a return to full-on fighting. Bringing them from other regions - like the Pacific - would dangerously deplete stocks there. Iran has also shown a willingness to strike new energy and desalination targets recently, meaning the economic cost of escalation could be high. Finally, Trump doesn’t want more casualties before the midterms.
What all of this adds up to is that right now at least, Trump is tacitly admitting that he isn’t willing to fight to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. As a result, the strait remains under the sway of Iran and will do so indefinitely.
But we’ve now reached the point in this dynamic where Iran doesn’t just pocket this and walk away, but is instead actively ratcheting up the pressure on the U.S. Last night Tehran became the first one to break a tacit ceasefire between the two sides by firing missiles at U.S. forces in Jordan. Hezbollah also launched an attack in Lebanon, and Iran floated the idea that Tehran might also charge tolls for passage through the Bab el-Mandab strait.
Iran is behaving like it has Trump on the ropes. And why wouldn’t it? Government officials in Tehran can read the U.S. newspapers just as well as anyone else. They know about the interceptor shortage, the unpopularity of Israel in the U.S., and Trump’s fear of both economic damage and troop casualties. Even more to the point, they’ve now watched Trump threaten to escalate and then back down so many times that they have come to believe that he’ll never do it.
And this is the big problem with Trump’s ham-fisted diplomacy. When he makes big threats, he thinks that he’s piling on pressure and making a deal more likely. But what he’s actually doing is setting himself up for a climbdown. That climbdown then sticks in the minds of his opponents more than the initial threats.
What’s probably going to happen next is that Trump will order a retaliatory strike on Iran. But what’s not clear is what the point of it will be.
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