A woman crosses a street near a billboard on the facade of a building depicting the Strait of Hormuz with a caption in Persian reading 'Forever in Iran's Hand', at Vanak Square in Tehran on Wednesday.-/AFP/Getty Images
The war of bombs has become a war of bombast. With the ceasefire reaching the one-month mark this week, the outcome of the conflict remains more unclear than ever.
As the war of words largely supplants the more dangerous war of arms, the fighting in Iran has moved from military struggle to political stasis. Sorting out who has the advantage, measuring the damage to both sides, contemplating the direction of negotiations − all that has become clouded by threats and rhetoric.
In this “phony war” phase, there is frustration all around.
It’s not only because the two sides speak different languages; it’s also because the two sides are using language as a weapon to accompany their standoff on the high seas.
In the past, language differences, including conflicting translations of terms, have had major implications. Colliding translations of a single verb in the 1889 Treaty of Wuchale between Italy and Ethiopia, for example, prompted a major territorial dispute.
In the case of the Iran war, the two sides are speaking with each other as they also speak around each other − and as a result are speaking past each other.
The Iranians say they have won the war. U.S. President Donald Trump insists America has won the war. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that “Operation Epic Fury is concluded.” A day later, Mr. Trump said that if an agreement is not forthcoming, “the bombing starts … at a much higher level and intensity.”
Then there is the spectacle of perhaps the most bellicose Pentagon chief in history, Pete Hegseth − who has popularized the phrase “lethality, lethality, lethality” − saying this week that, in the push to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, “We’re not looking for a fight.”
In neither Farsi nor English does the situation that now prevails − with missiles still flying this week − conform to the strict definition of the term “ceasefire.”
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This war of words is actually a proxy for a war over the definition of another term central to military conflicts: victory.
For Iran, victory is survival as a sovereign country, with its oil industry substantially intact, its nuclear-weapon program able to continue and credible hope of rebuilding its infrastructure and restoring some semblance of normal life for civilians whose homes have been reduced to rubble and whose economic prospects are severely compromised.
For the United States, victory, once defined by a score of heady goals − including the overthrow of Iran’s theocratic government − has now been distilled down to an end, or at least a lengthy postponement, of the prospect of an Iran with a nuclear arsenal.
It is now also an economic war of attrition.
Food shortages and inflation in Iran have produced soaring prices for rice and bread.
“Every time I speak with my family in Iran, they talk about the prices for milk, yogurt, meat and eggs,” said Saeid Golkar, a University of Tennessee at Chattanooga expert on Iran who taught at Azar University in Tehran before emigrating to the U.S. in 2010. “But that doesn’t mean that Iran is about to give up. Economic hardship will not force a government that is very good at negotiating to bend right now.”
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In the U.S., the most visible effect − the one threatening Republican fortunes in November’s midterms − is the price of gasoline, which settled at US$4.54 a gallon Wednesday, according to the American Automobile Association.
U.S. voter disapproval of the Iran war has soared to the levels of the Iraq and Vietnam conflicts, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll. The survey also showed that three-fifths of Americans believe the war was a mistake.
At the same time, satellite imagery released this week in The Washington Post shows that Iranian air strikes have wreaked far more damage on U.S. military assets in the Middle East than previously acknowledged. These include at least 228 structures such as hangars and barracks and equipment such as aircraft and communications facilities.
And U.S. military strategists have expressed grave concerns about the depletion of American weaponry in the war, especially long-range cruise and Tomahawk missiles.
In its latest phase, the war of words is being conducted in a flurry of papers − or, more specifically, a single page.
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Both Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan insisted on one-page memoranda. In Churchill’s case, to force British officials in the Second World War to be precise and concise; in Reagan’s, to discourage needless verbosity for a president known for a short attention span and a preference for verbal briefings over written communications.
The possible reduction of elements of a settlement may reflect American willingness to achieve a simple resolution to the conflict, a sign that Mr. Trump may be more eager for a cessation of hostilities − and the eventual reduction in gasoline prices that he has repeatedly promised Americans − than the Iranians.
Both sides may see value in the ambiguity that could be a feature of an agreement reduced to a single page − a marked contrast to the thick, leather-bound documents of the 1973 Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam that required U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers to sign his name 62 times.
The United States and Iran are closing in on an agreement on a one-page memorandum to end the war in the Gulf, a source from mediator Pakistan and another source briefed on the mediation said.
Reuters