Originally Published by the Indian Express
Wars often come at the juncture when both sides embroiled in fight find it hard to detach themselves, as whoever blinks first is depicted as the weaker party. In the case of the ongoing war between Iran on one side and Israel and the United States, on the other conditions for an offer are even more fraught. Especially so, because depending on which lens you use, it appears to be a fight of anything on and between power, dignity, legacy, hubris, threat perception, future guarantees and existentialism. Furthermore, nature of existential threats that Iran and Israel face from each other have mutually reinforced threat perceptions from either side. Amidst this complex milieu, the Trump administration has used raw display of American power as a leverage to go the whole hog on Iran and try to do the job which the Carter administration in 1979 failed to do in the Iran hostage crisis. Trump may be racing against time in three respects, first, the virtual shutting of the Strait of Hormuz have sent oil prices and stock markets reeling and on the edge. For the Trump administration which is going into the midterms in November this year, its promises of no new wars and more importantly keeping the inflation low now find it hard to be reconciled with the existing realities. Second, the political support for the war inside the United States cannot be sustained for long, even though Congress has traditionally shown bipartisan support during wartime. And finally, Donald Trump who seems besotted to the idea of individuality may also be assessing this war from a legacy question – one that has compelled him to go into this war expecting the unexpected - the capitulation of Iran. Trump has often assessed his performance with the other president, especially those in the recent past, Biden and Obama to gauge his success. The Iran question provides him a broad spectrum to compare he is achievements as far back as Jimmy Carter. However, Iran may have presented a different reality, despite their being a perfect storm in the region by way of Iran, being at its weakest, historically, and without much support from its regional proxies.
Within a matter of hours, Donald Trump has s swung between threatening to blow up Iran’s critical infrastructure, including its electricity to doing a U-turn and appearing positively sanguine about a possible dialogue with the Iranians to dial down the temperature. While the approach itself may be characteristically true in the context of Donald Trump’s mercurial character, this particular moment of the ongoing war may have a different story to tell. Trump had his eyes set on the Middle East in a new drawing in a new Economic frame from his very first term, which is why he started the Abraham records and wanted to pick up from where he left to build on his grand economic agenda through the I2U2 and the IMEEC projects. In his second term, the Trump administration took a dual approach to the Middle East. One was connectivity project banking on the I2U2 and the IMEEC project and the second was the technological bet on the Middle East to avoid the China trap in technology dependence, thereby curating relationships with the UAE and the Saudi Arabia to take forward his economic bet on the region. One of the biggest hurdles preventing this from coming to fruition was Iran, which, along with its proxies, not only posed an existential threat to its ally Israel, but also threatened the region with its ballistic missile capability. As such, while Iran’s nuclear enrichment may have been the casus belí that America picked in this ‘war of choice’, the intended end game may have been substantively and qualitatively different from the one it is likely to achieve under present circumstances.
Trump jumped into the conflict with Iran, buoyed by his clinical success in capturing Maduro in Venezuela but it was a completely different fight in Iran. After record military operations over Iranian skies Israel and the US may have decimated Iranian capacities for now but whether it will be enough to stop the war remains to be seen. Which ever way, this word ends, the world is going to witness a different Middle East in many regards. Rebuilding Iranian infrastructure that has been damaged in the war, critical supply lines inside the country, energy facilities and other damages that have been incurred by Iran in the last three weeks is going to be a massive task. If Iran is not provided the guarantee against future attacks, it is likely that Iran might not declare a complete ceasefire, keeping the world’s energy supply on tenterhooks. In the event that AC fire is achieved, the Middle East countries specially Saudi Arabia and the UAE are expected to take drastic measures to not just boost their own security but also prevent Civil and defence mechanisms against engagements with Iran.
Trump’s volte-face on talks with Iran depicts the intractability of his situation that his administration may have boxed itself in.