Iran: to TACO or not?
The White House has twisted and turned to find a way out of its Iran disaster without success. It now faces an unenviable decision which cannot be delayed much more.
For the US, the Iran campaign has gone horribly wrong. The problem is that the US badly miscalculated Iran’s position before their original attack and at the outset had no clear objective. It was meant to lead to Iran’s capitulation over a weekend or so. Yet here we are over two months later with the US facing a stalemate. Meanwhile, ahead of the US midterms in November and with President Trump’s popularity sinking in the polls, Hormuz is shut and the global economic consequences are worsening by the day.
The Trump administration has been trying to force some sort of compromise out of Iran, which is why various policy options have been tried but without result. Iran knows it is in a strong position, backed by Russia and China and with considerable quantities of advanced weaponry yet to be deployed. The US navy dares not to approach within 200 miles of Iran’s coast for fear of attack. The clock is ticking, not so much for Iran but for the US.
The US finds itself facing the prospect of a Scylla and Charybdis. It must find a way past these all too real monsters. And like Odysseus of Greek mythology navigating the Straits of Messina, Trump has to choose his path through the Straits of Hormuz very carefully.
If he bombs Iran, Iran has promised to wipe out US allies in the region by destroying their oil installations, refineries, and power plants. They might extend that to desalination plants making the entire region uninhabitable. Iran will also attack Israel with her unstoppable hypersonic missiles, having already depleted the latter’s defences.
In other words, all hell will be let loose across the entire Middle East. Local intelligence confirms that Iran has the capability to make good on her threats and the capacity to carry them out, even if the US deploys all of her own destructive capacity in a bombing campaign.
Alternatively, the US might back down and leave Israel isolated. Israel’s Arab allies are fair-weather friends, only because of the US’s hegemonic and military power in the region. Without US support, Israel’s future as a nation must be in doubt.
The one thing the US does not have on its side is time. Every passing day is another
