Trump’s speech on Wednesday night did not offer anything new. But taken together with his threats to bomb Iran back to stone age, points to the further escalation of the war.
Trump and some around him still do not ‘get’ Iran. They never in their own life held any principle they would not deviated from if money was to be made. Iran, in contrast, does have principles that are not up for sale. It is beyond Trump’s comprehension that such exit:
In a phone interview the next morning [Apr 2], Trump told TIME that Iran was eager to make a deal to end the fighting. ‘Why wouldn’t they call? We just blew up their three big bridges last night,” the President says. “They’re getting decimated. They say Trump is not negotiating with Iran. I mean, it’s sort of an easy negotiation.”
Iran does not work like that. It is not ruled by sell-outs.
Trump and those who support him are still deeply delusional about their real power. Consider the Washington Post‘s opinion writer Marc Thiessen who insists (archived) that the U.S. has the military means to win the war within a few weeks:
Rather than waiting for Iran to agree to the conditions he has put on the table, [Trump] can simply impose the peace terms he has set unilaterally.
Here’s how to do so in five steps:
1. Complete all remaining military tasks. Trump said the war will “continue until our objectives are fully achieved.” So which tasks remain? Seize or destroy Iran’s fissile material so the regime cannot easily restart its nuclear program (or give what Trump calls its “nuclear dust” to terrorists for a dirty bomb). Take out all the remaining targets on the military’s list. Implement the innovative plan that sources tell me Centcom Commander Adm. Brad Cooper has prepared to open the Strait of Hormuz by force, and then hand the mission over to a multinational armada made up of countries who receive oil from the strait, which must take responsibility for keeping it open. Or, alternatively, the United States can charge a substantial “escort fee” for each ship passing through the strait, which would be waived for countries participating in the mission. And then, finally, either take control of Kharg Island, by seizing or blockading this linchpin of Iran’s energy export sector, or destroy it to cripple Iran’s ability to fund terrorist proxies and a military rebuild.
If the U.S. completes these tasks, it will have a stranglehold over Iran, and the regime will never again be able to hold the world’s economy hostage. U.S. military commanders believe that these objectives can be achieved in the next two to three weeks, …
Trump, probably after reading Thiessen’s pamphlet, seems to agree with this:
With a little more time, we can easily OPEN THE HORMUZ STRAIT, TAKE THE OIL, & MAKE A FORTUNE. IT WOULD BE A “GUSHER” FOR THE WORLD??? President DONALD J. TRUMP
(TS: 03 Apr 08:22 ET)
Iran’s enriched Uranium is hidden under some mountain. A large scale commando operation under fire would need weeks to dig out. Kharg can be destroyed by the U.S. just as easily as Iran can destroy all oil port on the western side of the Gulf. The result would be even more severe economic damage:
Dated Brent, the price of shipments bought and sold in the North Sea, on Thursday hit $141.36 per barrel, up from $128.46 a day earlier, according to S&P Global, a research group.
There is no way to ‘open’ Hormuz as long as Iran controls the coast along it. Nor are there the 100,000+ U.S. troops needed to take and secure that coastline.
It is the Strait where the war will be decided (archived):
Tehran’s ability to control this international waterway, through which one-fifth of the worldwide oil supply used to pass, has become Iran’s biggest leverage against the U.S., its Gulf neighbors and the global economy. Whether the war ends in a success or defeat for Iran depends first and foremost on whether Tehran emerges from this conflict still holding the strait—and, with it, the keys to the worldwide energy markets.
Over the last days the U.S. and Israel have bombed over 600 hospitals and medical outlets in Iran including his highly regarded Pasteur Institute. They struck the home of a former Foreign Minister of Iran who allegedly was in talks with Vice President JD Vance via Pakistan.
Iran hit back. The large Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery in Kuwait is burning after a drone strike. A large gas installation in the Emirates was also hit. Several fires were visible over industrial installations in Bahrain. Various military and industrial targets in Israel received damage. Iran threatened to hit bridges in the Gulf states after the U.S. destroyed a newly build one in Iran.
Today a U.S. fighter plan was shot down in Iran airspace which the U.S. allegedly controls.
But all this is small change if one considers what is at stake for the global standing of the U.S. of A. Following Alfred Mahan’s theories the global superpower status of the U.S. depends on its Navy’s control of the sea lanes:
Mahan believed that national greatness was inextricably associated with the sea, with its commercial use in peace and its control in war; […] Mahan’s framework derived from Jomini, and emphasized strategic locations (such as choke points, canals, and coaling stations), as well as quantifiable levels of fighting power in a fleet.
In their war against the Houthi the U.S. and its Navy had already failed to open the Red Sea. The more public failure of keeping the Strait of Hormuz under control will do enormous damage to their global image. If the U.S. fails to subjugate Iran and to re-open the Strait it will lose its status as a global superpower .
This why the U.S. is likely to escalate much further.