Trump Mulls Raising the Stakes to Force Iranian Capitulation

The 60-day MoU has expired. The framework of Iranian pre-conditions for any start to negotiations nonetheless lingers on in its comatose state.

Instead of the endlessly touted ‘Iran deal’, the picture is almost the complete opposite of what President Trump sought to create when he adopted the MoU framework (even if it is not clear whether he really intended to pursue the framework through to some sort of real agreement, or whether the framework was simply a device that Trump sought to leverage out as a platform for full American hegemonic pressure on Iran in order to compel Iran to open Hormuz on American terms.)

But talks are not happening. There are zero negotiations. The Strait of Hormuz remains — as at the outset — at the centre of the conflict, and effectively shut. Meanwhile the possibility of escalation has become much closer — one might say almost inevitable — as Iran have indicated its intent to pro-actively escalate against American and Gulf infrastructure targets unless Trump abides over the next 3-4 weeks by the well-known Iranian preconditions.

One early Iranian precondition is no longer implicit, but explicit: The Iranians have specified that the Palestinian arena that must be covered by the ‘the ceasefire for all, or ceasefire for no-one’ precondition. Of course, Israel won’t do this. They are escalating violently — a veritable “land grab” — against Palestinian refugee camps and villages in the West Bank.

Plainly, Iran’s preconditions are unlikely to be accepted by Trump. For, combined, they represent an unmistakable Iranian demand for the wholesale dismantlement of the US military infrastructure of the siege surrounding Iran — effectively US capitulation in West Asia.

Trump, more than anything, detests to be viewed as a ‘loser’.

Worse, from Trump’s perspective, his war on Iran, far from making the Middle East a sea of tranquillity and peace ‘after a thousand years of conflict’, as he claimed, his war on Iran has precisely ignited the regions’ many underlying tensions, setting them on fire. The region today is a tinderbox, rather than an exemplar of peaceful co-existence. Even his erstwhile allies have turned against him.

The most serious bush-fire is that in the Palestinian arena. Primary elections have been held by Likud. And General Elections are set to take place in Israel on 27 October. But already, it’s clear that elements of the political Right in Israel are planning to set the West Bank alight in order to ensure their polling victory – or at least to eliminate the possibility that any other government can be formed. A provocation centred on Al-Aqsa Mosque has been hinted at by Israeli politicians.

The Palestinian arena, of course, remains the combustible detonator which can set the region afire. As Ben Caspit outlines:

“The fanatics’ plan ... is to create chaos, to bring about a biblical Gog and Magog war, at the end of which it will be possible to fulfil Smotrich’s “decision plan” and expel the Palestinians ... or push them out by definition … The end of this plan will be the end of those who dream of a Riviera in Gaza and of crowds of Gazans leaving in buses for “voluntary immigration” … This will not happen. What will happen is bloodshed in commercial quantities and a greater, more real and threatening danger than anything we have encountered so far …”.