Is the war between Iran and the US-Israel tandem over bar the shouting? Even a week ago, the question might have sounded fanciful, as President Donald Trump was still threatening to wipe Iran off the map. Now, however, he is talking of "progress" towards a deal confirming what he and his aides, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, present as the end of military engagement.
Several new developments may have contributed to this new optimistic vision.
The first is that Israel has been excluded from the process of shaping the war's end. That gives the US a free hand in seeking a deal.
Trump wanted to flex America's military muscles and show everyone what its gigantic war machine can do thousands of miles away from home.
In 2002, Jonah Goldberg paraphrased Michael Ledeen, then a prominent Republican political guru, as saying: "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business."
Trump did better than Ledeen advised by picking Iran, which is anything but a crappy little country and managed to inflict on it damage that could take generations to repair.
To be sure, Trump-bashers still try to depict him as a loser, while in private they know that defying the US isn't like going on a picnic.
The second thing that contributed to what seems to be a change of mood is the realization that the blockade imposed on Iran may be more effective than bombing it, especially when one runs out of serious targets.
The third thing that happened was the failure of the project to guide ships pinned down by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz into the Gulf of Oman under US military escort.
At the rate of two ships a day, clearing the pinned-down vessels would take over 100 days and that would be too close to midterm elections that appear dicey for Trump.
Source: Gatestone Institute :: Articles
