The Nuclear Question

I don’t actually think that Trump is going to use nuclear weapons against Iran, but I’m pretty sure Trump wants people to believe that he will, and that can create enormous problems:

And yet, assuming any strategy behind Trump’s rhetoric is a mistake.

Over the course of the war, the President has repeatedly declared that the Strait of Hormuz is of little consequence to the United States and that its opening should be handled by other countries. He has also suggested that the United States and Israel have already achieved their core war aims, and that the conflict need not last much longer. 

While the President believes his rhetorical unpredictability to be an asset, the “throw everything against the wall and see what sticks” approach can be self-defeating. 

From the Iranian point of view, there is little reason to believe that Trump is willing to destroy the whole of Persian civilization over access to the Strait when last week he could barely be bothered to harass US allies about access. 

Moreover, the Iranians already have enough experience with Trump to understand that any “deal” is of little value. Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA underlined his willingness to break agreements, and his decision to bombard Iran twice in the last year makes him an altogether untrustworthy negotiating partner.

This is the crux of the problem; Iranian leadership (whoever may be in charge at the moment) must believe that Trump is insane enough to carry out his threats but also trustworthy enough to abide by ceasefire commitments. 

The Iranians at the moment have good reasons to doubt both of these propositions; indeed, if traders on the New York Stock Exchange don’t take the President’s threats seriously, then why should the leaders of the Revolutionary Guard? 

We’ll know in several hours whether last-minute diplomacy can stave off a collision between President Trump’s rhetoric and Iran’s intransigence… and not long after, we may get a sense of exactly what the President is willing to do to bring this war to a close on his own terms. 

See also Hussein Banai on the box Trump has constructed around himself.