A Major Address?

Used to be that you had to win a war in order to declare victory…

President Donald Trump will use a primetime address Wednesday night to declare that the month-long war in Iran is winding down, against a backdrop of spiking oil prices and increasingly dismal poll numbers.

The president has telegraphed that message in interviews, social media posts and public comments over the past 24 hours, laying the groundwork for a speech that is expected to claim that all military objectives have been met, according to six people familiar with the planning and granted anonymity to speak candidly. He also intends to harshly scapegoat NATO allies for the biggest unresolved matter of the war, Iran’s ongoing restrictions of shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Steve Bannon, Trump’s former White House chief strategist, said the president will essentially declare victory, laying out what he’s achieved in Iran and what he will do before the U.S. leaves along with “dumping on the NATO allies – it’s their issue.”

“Two, three weeks, definable objectives. ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’ — and we are hanging around a couple of weeks to conquer some more — maybe even then a ceasefire, while reiterating that the Hormuz situation is the Gulf Emirates’ and the Europeans’ to solve, and declare victory,” he added.

I want to be very clear; the United States is in a worse position now than it was a month ago. Iran’s navy has been destroyed, its leadership culled, its stocks of missiles and drones depleted, and its defense industries attrited. All of these are things to be expected in a war. In return, Iran has asserted military control over the Strait of Hormuz.

This latter thing is more important than all of those former things, by a country mile. The Islamic Republic appears to remain in firm control of the country. It can easily reconstitute the military capabilities that have been depleted. Its nuclear program may have been further degraded over the last month but the key components- human capital and enriched uranium- remain in Iranian possession.

In other words, US achievements are minimal and are likely to be less enduring than Iranian gains. In the best case scenario the US has bought itself another war is 10-12 months, very possibly against an Iran that will be more formidable than the one we faced on February 28. See also this RUSI report on four potential futures for Iran… although we’re steering hard for #2.

I won’t be sad if the President insists the war is over, if only because all of the steps we can take from here are worse than where we’re standing. But this war is quite likely the worst foreign policy decision made by an American President in my lifetime… which is saying quite a lot.

Anyway, let this serve as an open thread for