Making Sense of the Iran War

As the war in Iran drags on, I wanted to share some thoughts on the appropriate context in which to view the conflict. Donald Trump lost this war from the first days. Everything that happened in the last few weeks – the threats, the negotiations, the live social media breakdowns – was all about trying to break free from this reality. This is not a political attack. This is simply an accurate assessment of what we all see. More importantly, it’s the only way to understand what’s happening right now. Everything that is happening today and for weeks is aimed at breaking Iran’s hold on the Strait of Hormuz, which it did not have before the start of the war. This is the definition of failure: waging a war and continuing the war to clean up the mess that the chosen war actually created. By this measure, the best way to achieve what is now the central objective of the war – the opening of the Strait – would have been simply not to start the war in the first place.

You can see the reality of the balance of power in the visible fact that Trump wants negotiations and an end to the conflict more than Iran. He never stops asking or demanding them. Iran is holding back. They have the upper hand, despite all the considerable damage to civilian and military infrastructure that Iran has suffered.

This all comes down to the basic fact that Trump lost control of the situation and lost the conflict itself from the very first days. Since then, everything has been an effort to ignore, boast or deny this fact. Trump wants out of the war and is therefore unwilling to use the level of force that could prevail on the Iranian blockade. Iran’s leaders see this as clearly as anyone else. And while he waits, he and the global economy are taking damage. He is stuck and because he does not recognize this fact, the conflict and massive damage to the global economy continues, even if the scale of the fighting, for the moment, does not change.