U.S. President Donald Trump speaks from the White House on Wednesday.Alex Brandon/Reuters
What was that?
Donald Trump asked American television networks to give him a slice of prime time on Wednesday night to address his war against Iran. The run-up to the speech set off 24 hours of fearful speculation about what the U.S. President would say, and all the heavy shoes he might drop.
Would he abruptly declare victory and bug out, leaving Persian Gulf allies in the lurch and Iran in control of the Strait of Hormuz? He’s been teasing that option for weeks.
Would Mr. Trump, in a fit of pique and frustration, lash out against the European and Asian allies he never consulted and claims he doesn’t need, but who he now demands rescue him from this cul-de-sac? That’s become a staple of his posts on Truth Social, and impromptu phone calls with journalists.
Trump delivers contradictory messages on Iran war in White House address
Would he promise to redouble the war on Iran until attainment of the victory he claims to have already won?
Would he change the subject by – more pique and frustration – pulling out of NATO?
It was expected that on Wednesday night, Mr. Trump would announce … something. Some new strategy or approach for dealing with the painfully large elephant in the room, namely the closed Strait of Hormuz. And the fact that Iran is now in a strategically stronger position than it was on Feb. 27, the day before the war started, while the U.S. is in a worse strategic position.
Yes, the U.S. and Israeli militaries have, to use Mr. Trump’s favourite phrase, totally obliterated a lot of Iran’s military kit: aircraft, ships, missile launchers, factories that make missiles and drones, and so on. They’ve also killed many senior members of the Tehran regime. American and Israeli planes can bomb at will, and they have hit thousands of targets in Iran.
Artemis II and Iran: Two strikingly different missions define the U.S.
Yet for all that, Iran has cut off most exports of oil, gas and fertilizer from its Persian Gulf neighbours, while the U.S. – in a desperate attempt to prevent rising oil prices from rising further – is facilitating Iranian exports.
The Gulf countries, with the possible exception of Saudi Arabia due to its pipeline to the Red Sea, are losing huge amounts of money because of this war, while high oil prices and Washington’s assistance means that the Islamic Republic is making bank.
U.S. strategy is failing. Hence the expectation that Mr. Trump would use his Wednesday night address to announce … something. Possibly something irrelevant, or misdirected, or foolish. But still: something. Some change in policy or direction.
Nope.
What we got was a medley of Trump social-media rants.
U.S. President Donald Trump told the nation in a televised speech on Wednesday night that the U.S. military had nearly completed the goals it had set out to accomplish in its war with Iran and that the conflict would soon be ending.
Reuters
The Islamic Republic of Iran is a bad regime. It had to be stopped from pursuing nuclear weapons. That’s what we’re doing. And we’re winning. We’re blowing up Iranian military assets like nothing the world has ever seen. They’ve been decimated. The war is basically over.
Also, if Iran doesn’t give in, in this war that is already basically over and won, we’ll continue bombing until we win. Which we already have.
“We have all the cards. They have none.”
As for the small issue of the closed strait, Mr. Trump told other countries to work up the courage to just “grab it,” because “it would be easy.” The U.S. has done all the heavy lifting, you see.
“And in any event, when this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally.”
Doug Saunders: The conflict in Iran is a war without interests
The speech went on and on in this vein, peppered with detours into topics such as Venezuela. Mr. Trump bragged about turning a corrupt and repressive anti-American regime into a corrupt and repressive client regime that reports to him, and that will allegedly be sharing its (currently meagre) oil wealth with the U.S.
The main takeaway from all this is that Mr. Trump has no coherent or considered strategy in Iran. That’s because Mr. Trump does not do geopolitics; he does ego-politics. Wounded ego-politics.
His ego and id are driving this car, and nobody dares tell him that the gas tank is low.
People worried that former president Joe Biden was suffering from cognitive decline, but Mr. Trump suffers from something worse: a growing detachment from reality.
Surrounded by a cabinet of yes-men, an echo chamber that repeats the President’s delusions back to him, the process of policy formation, analysis, explanation and correction has broken down.
Reality has been subsumed by reality TV. And Mr. Trump is no longer just the executive producer of a show for gullible voters. He has become, like a dealer hooked on his own poisoned supply, the main customer.