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Your guide to what Trump’s second term for Washington, business and world means
Going to war is always a gambling. Iran, Israel and now the United States have all rolled the cubes.
In the short term, it looks like Israel’s gambling has achieved. Benjamin Netanyahu’s government managed to kill a large part of the military leadership of Iran and to cause serious damage to the country’s nuclear and military infrastructure. Israel has also managed to fight the United States.
Donald Trump’s decision to join the conflict was partly a reaction to the early Israeli successes. The US President is always interested in how a winner to look and, according to the US bomb attacks on Iran, claimed a “spectacular military success”.
In contrast, the Iranian government’s gambling that could lead an “axis of resistance” to Israel – while the open confrontation is avoided – failed badly. For decades, Iran has skillfully advanced its interests in the region by sponsoring proxies such as Hisbollah, Hamas and Houthis while working on his own nuclear program.
The Iranian strategy has looked both subtly and effectively for many years. In the Gulf States, it was generally complained that four Arab capitals were chosen, Baghdad, Damascus and Sana’a (in the Yemen) von Pro-Iranian forces. Iran had also come much closer to the ability to develop a nuclear weapon.
But this long -term strategy is now in ruins. The Assad regime fell in Syria and Hisbollah and the Hamas were badly damaged by Israel. Now the Iranian regime itself is directly attacked.
However, the middle and long -term consequences of this war are much less clear. Israel will have difficulty converting short-term tactical successes such as spectacular and long-term security. The United States has long and bitter experience with seeing initial military victories to abandoning, endless wars. Iranian theocracy is under unprecedented attack. However, bomb campaigns rarely lead to the change of regime. So the regime could hold on well and live to combat another day.
The top leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and what is left of his military is now exposed to a menu with deeply unsavory decisions. They will want to hit back emotionally. But Trump has promised that Iranian retaliation will lead to more intensive US attacks.
In the interest of his own survival, the leadership in Tehran could choose a minimal retaliation and then reach for the diplomatic option. But the Iranians will also fear that the American neoconservatives like to say “weakness in provocative”. A failure of the reaction could invite further attacks by Israel and encourage Iran’s domestic enemies.
Tehran will also know that Trump has made the decision to bomb against the deep concerns of his own supporters – they fear that the United States will enter another “war” forever. When Iran hits American goals in the Middle East – or forces the oil price by closing Hormuz’s street – these concerns and departments will increase in America. Trump’s first reaction would be to retaliate. But he is volatile and can turn around at a moment, especially if he is under domestic political pressure.
It is also known that the United States withdraws from tension from the Middle East in view of the serious losses. The bombing of the US Marine barracks from 1983 in Beirut, which Hisbollah was responsible for, cost the life of 241 Americans -and led to a US decision to withdraw from Lebanon instead of escalating.
Memories like underline the risks that Trump takes. The only end result that would make it possible for the United States to credible would be if Iran was completely and thoughtfully dismantled its nuclear program, and if the current Iranian regime were somehow replaced by a stable, pro-Western government without the desire for further conflicts with the USA or Israel.
These results seem very unlikely. The more likely alternatives are a heavily wounded, but still enemy Iran – which could come back in an unpredictable way. A second option would be the collapse of the current regime, followed by bourgeois conflicts – which could attract outsiders or that they could enable terrorists to establish safe ports. Both of these results would risk the United States to move the United States to another Middle East War, including the commitment of soil troops.
The uncertainty about the options of Iran and the permanent power of America underlines the fragile nature of the current successes of Israel. The Netanyahu government is currently on several fronts – in Gaza and Iran and to a lesser extent in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and in the occupied West Bank. It has no clear vision to end one of these conflicts.
Israel has put a long way as a superpower of the Middle East. It has (not declared) nuclear weapons and the support of the United States. In the long term, however, it is unsustainable that a country with 10 million people dominates a region with a population of several hundred million.
Israel also takes great risks with his relationship with the United States. His brutal war in Gaza has badly damaged his reputation with the Democrats. If the Netanyahu government is now accused of waging the United States to another war, the American counter -reaction against Israel could become two -party and durable.
In their different ways, Iran, Israel and the United States all played to war. The risk is that they all end as losers.
