Scribblings

The Art of Getting it Wrong

I don’t know about you and what you might call it, but I call it a massive failure. I’m talking about Donald Trump’s “little adventure” in the Middle East in attacking Iran, in conjunction with Israel. Can anyone say with any degree of honesty that the US is in a better position as regards Iran today than when it began the attack on February 28?

Let’s run a check:

1. Is Iran any less of a theocratic regime run by ideological hardliners than it was on February 27? No, it is not.

2. Has Iran’s nuclear program been degraded? Not so far, at any rate.

3. Does Iran still have the capacity to launch attacks against its neighbours around the Gulf? Yes, it does, and it regularly launches such attacks.

4. Iran has realised the leverage it has over the world’s economy through its control of the Strait of Hormuz. Not only can it determine which ships pass through the Strait, but it now plans to make them pay to do so. This will bring it in billions a year. The Strait was open and cost-free before Trump began his ill-advised attack.

If you go into any negotiation, or a war in this case, with the objective of reducing the ongoing power of the other party and the other party emerges stronger and richer after the event, then it has to be said that you have failed and failed spectacularly. You can dress a pig up in Hermes and say it is a fashion icon, but it will still be a pig, even if it has a Birkin bag.

As I write this, Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defence, though he likes to call himself the Secretary for War, is quoted in the Financial Times as saying:

“He (Trump) wanted me to reiterate how patient he is in ensuring that with America undertaking this kind of historic endeavour [the Iran war], any deal will be a good one. A great one.”

I somehow doubt it. For one, Trump has little leverage over Iran. Certainly, he can resume bombing, but the Iranian regime has shown it can absorb such attacks and keep functioning. The Iranian regime is a totalitarian regime that is not subject to political pressures from its citizens. In fact, it has no compulsion in killing them in their thousands if they step out of line, as it showed in the early part of this year when people took to the streets over record-high inflation, food prices, and currency depreciation. Religious totalitarians have little fear of death, believing as they do that if they are killed for defending their beliefs, they will be amply rewarded in the next life.

On the other hand, and despite his dictatorial impulses, Trump is subject to democratic political pressures. His popularity ratings have tanked in the US, as his tariffs and war have resulted in a spike in inflation, with gas at the pumps now above $4 a gallon. Most of the promises he made during the election campaign, such as slashing energy costs and bringing down food prices, have not been delivered on. There is every chance he could lose one or both houses of Congress in the midterm elections, hobbling the last two years of his presidency to a significant extent.

In a war, as in a negotiation, it is difficult to push forward if you do not have your own side on board. There is an inelegant term for it in labour negotiations theory: intra-organisational bargaining, which means getting your own side behind you before you even start talking to the other side. It means you have to have clear objectives and be able to show how you plan to deliver those objectives.

This is never as easy as it sounds. Your own side is made up of multiple stakeholders. Even if they are all sailing in roughly the same direction, they are not all on one ship. It is more like a convey, and it can be tough keeping them sailing together.

When it came to his attack on Iran on February 28, Trump had made no effort beforehand to get US allies on board with what he planned to do. The attacks came as a surprise to many of them. And then he demanded their support for something they were never consulted about. Most of them demurred, resulting in rage on his part. Trump demands unquestionable loyalty. He may get it in MAGA world, but not outside MAGA world in the US and certainly not in the rest of the world. In Europe, we know where blindly following leaders can end up.

To borrow from the Police song, with every move he makes, with every breath he takes, Trump diminishes the US. But then, he’s so vain, he probably thinks that song is about him.

As I said above, if you want to get your allies/stakeholders working with you, you need to have clear objectives and a realistic delivery plan.

It seems to me that with Iran, Trump had neither. I am convinced that he thought he could rerun the Venezuela playbook, where he had special forces go in and grab Maduro, having already probably cut a deal with Maduro’s vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, to take over from him and work with Washington. You have to suspect that the snatch of Maduro was made possible by access to a great deal of inside information. Ambition for the top job has led to many a betrayal in the course of history. Et Tu Brutè, and all that.

On the other side of the table, Iran is not necessarily unified in its approach to the negotiations with the US. This article in the New York Times quotes one Iranian political hardliner as saying:

“Trump must know that Iran, as the victor and conqueror of the field, sets the terms.”

Now, even though I cannot see the US coming well out of Trump’s “little adventure” in the Middle East, I also cannot see it bowing the knee to hardliners in Iran. The idea that Iran can dictate the terms of a settlement is nonsense, but then, that’s where religious fundamentalism gets you. Trying to do a deal to end a war is not easy if one side thinks that God is on their side. Hardline Iranians clearly do. But it is even more difficult when both sides think God is with them. Pete Hegseth sees the attack on Iran as a sort of modern crusade, driven by Christian values. When two religions collide, finding a solution can be intractable. Over the centuries, how long did wars of religion run for in Europe? How many died because people believed that their God was a better God than your God?

No wonder God does not appear on earth all that often. He does not want to have to pick sides. I can’t say I blame him.

If a deal is done to end the Iran war, it will be on terms that Iran can live with, not what Trump would have wanted at the outset. Trump will cry victory, but the cry will ring hollow.

Trump is also pushing for the establishment of a $1.8bn fund to compensate people he claims were victims of “lawfare” by the Biden presidency. Critics see it as a slush fund to enable him to award political supporters.

Trump came to public attention with his book The Art of the Deal. Maybe he should now write a follow-up: The Grift of the Giveaway.

Coda

I am currently reading James D. Boy’s US Grand Strategy and the Madman Theory: From Nixon to Trump. I get how the Madman Theory was intellectually constructed by the academics Schelling, Ellsberg, and Kissinger and then shaped by Nixon, drawing on his own political experiences in the Eisenhower administration. But I am convinced that Trump is not making use of the Madman Theory in any sort of coherent fashion. He is what he is. A T-Bone short of a full BBQ. I will come back to the Madman Theory when I have finished the book.