It’s almost not worth considering, but precisely because it comes from the White House, the mad manoeuvrings and silly airings of the US President must be taken seriously.

But only to a point. Over the last week, a series of events have taken place demonstrating the growing alarm within the administration that things are simply not going according to plan. Iran is proving asymmetrically resourceful, threatening and durable.

Tehran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, waterway to some fifth of the world’s oil and global shares of other products, including gas and fertiliser, is biting financial markets.

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On March 20,President Donald Trumpopenly considered scaling back operations in the war with Iran. This assertion was somewhat cheapened by the deployment of 2,500 additional Marines to the region, along with arequestto Congress for an additional $200 billion for the conflict. On social media, Trumpclaimedthat the US was “getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East.”

These objectives have always been hopelessly vague, but the President offered a few pointers that failed to clarify matters beyond the usual tactical triumphalism that has accompanied the briefings of this administration. Iran’s missile capability, including launchers “and everything else pertaining to them” were being “degraded”. Iran’s defence industrial base was in the process of being destroyed. The country’s navy and air force, including anti-aircraft weaponry, had been essentially eliminated. Tehran would never be permitted “to get even close to Nuclear Capability”, with the US always in a position to react speedily and “powerfully” in such a case. Fifthly, Washington’s Middle Eastern allies, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, and others, were to be protected. (Iran has made the fifth point not merely redundant but false: the US security guarantee has not been worth the rather expensive paper it was inked on.)

As for the Strait of Hormuz, dreamy suggestions involving guarding and policing by those nations using it followed. The US would provide assistance to such countries “in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated. Importantly, it will be an easy Military Operation for them.” No such indication of engagement by said countries has been forthcoming, and Iran remains, to date, firmly in control of the Strait.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavittdid little to fan the dust away,claimingthat Trump and the Pentagon had “predicted it would take approximately 4-6 weeks to achieve this mission.” Take your pick, Leavitt: a few weeks, a month, six months. Either way, on an ongoing daily basis, “the Iranian Regime is being crippled, and their ability to threaten the United States and our allies is being significantly weakened.” For a cripple, Iran continues to do astonishingly well, only permitting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz it approves of, and continuing its drone and missile strikes on targets thathave extended as faras the joint US-UK base of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

Much of the chatter about the chat involves the usual parties. On March 22, Trump’s envoys,Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushnerwere again involved in negotiations, this time with Iran’s parliamentary speaker,Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf. (The speaker denies having ever had such discussions,describingit as “Fake news” with the purpose of manipulating “financial and oil markets and to escape the quagmire in which America and Israel are trapped.”) The mentioning of this official was already suspicious, given the shortsighted, rather neanderthal tactics of the US-Israeli war machine in killing off, not merely the top echelons of the Iranian leadership but secondary, somewhat skilled officials who might serve to engage in diplomacy. Other reports point to the mediating role of Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan in passing on messages between the US and Iran. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry was good enoughto signalthat backchannel conversations were ongoing between Witkoff and IranianForeign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

Source: Global Research