Trump is playing a dangerous game with Iran
Recent aggressive moves by the Trump administration have clearly been meant to threaten Iran. While this pressure might be an attempt to intimidate Iran into nuclear concessions, the threat of all-out war appears to be growing by the day.
While Israel continues to ratchet up tension and anger throughout the Arab world with its escalating genocide in Gaza, its thoroughly unprovoked attacks on Lebanon and Syria, and its growing aggression on the West Bank, the United States is playing a very dangerous game with Iran.
The U.S. has been bolstering its presence in the Middle East, with deployments hitting record highsin recent weeks. A great deal of equipment seems to have been transferred to American bases in Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan.
More ominously, the U.S. has also sent at least six B-2 bombers to its base on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The B-2 is the plane used to deliver the newest version of so-called âbunker busterâ bombs, which are designed to penetrate deep into the ground, threatening Iranâs subterranean nuclear facilities in a way Israel is not capable of.
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Is Trump preparing for an attack or merely posturing?
Donald Trump is very clearly using these new deployments to threaten Iran. But does he intend to launch a massive attack, or is he trying to frighten Iran into conceding to his demands about their nuclear program?
As usual with Trump, there may not be a grand design at work here, and the signals he is sending are mixed.
Gulf Arab states have reiterated their absolute rejection of the use of their air space to attack Iran. That remains something of a deterrent to Trump.
Yet that refusal is exactly what makes the deployment of the B-2s to Diego Garcia so ominous. That island is in the Indian Ocean, about 2500 miles from Iran. Planes launched from that base need not fly over any Arab air space to reach Iran.
The planes would have a longer flight, but itâs well within the range of the B-2. The flight would also be over Iranian airspace for a longer period, but the B-2 has advanced stealth technology, so it will be harder for Iranian air defenses to detect and target it.
The additional troop and equipment deployment to American air bases are likely being carried out in anticipation of Iranian retaliation to an attack. It is unlikely that Iran would respond with an attack on Diego Garcia, given its distance from Iranian forces.
It is more likely that Iran will attack American bases in the Gulf. In that case, Arab resolve to forbid attacks being launched from their territory is likely to weaken. Should Iran decide to retaliate by attacking oil fields in the Arab Gulf countriesâa response that would likely be felt more keenly in Washington than an attack on troopsâit is even more likely that there would be no restraints on any American response. Moreover, even if there was, the U.S. would be very likely to ignore them.
Given all of this, there is every reason to believe that the Trump administration is gearing up for war.
Is Trump trying to force Iran into concessions?
There are also signs that Trump may be doing all of this to get Iran to cave-in to his demands. There are good reasons he might want to avoid a full-scale attack on Iran.
Trump sells himself as the anti-war president, which we can easily write off as nonsense. But he does gather a good deal of support from sectors that, while they might love seeing the U.S. bomb helpless people in Yemen, are very strongly opposed to seeing American soldiers fighting and dying in Mideast wars in which they see little gain for the U.S.
As cowardly as that attitude isâitâs fine to kill foreign civilians as long as no American blood is spilledâit seems to matter to Trump.
On Monday, while this massive military buildup was reaching its peak, Trump announced that he would be visiting Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar in May. The timing of that trip seems odd if he intends to literally set the Gulf aflame with an attack on Iran.
Indeed, Trump set a two-month deadline in mid-March for Iran to agree to dismantle its nuclear capabilities. The warning was vague; Trump didnât specify when the clock would start ticking on the two months, and he didnât clarify what exactly he sought in a new nuclear deal.
Iran has rejected negotiations under threat of attack and direct talks with the Trump administration in general. However, Tehran has shown an openness to indirect talks with Washington.
Trump is said to be seriously considering indirect talks. Itâs not his preferred method, as it gives him less of an opportunity to grab center stage. But Trump is likely cognizant of the fact that he can claim to have won concessions from Iran by his âshow of strength,â whether that leads to direct or indirect talks. The outcome will concern him more.
Itâs a tactic not lost on Iran, either. On Monday, Ali Larijani, a senior advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Iranian television that the Islamic Republic would âreconsiderâ its position on nuclear weapons if faced with overwhelming force. That implies that the Supreme Leader would consider revoking his fatwa against nuclear weapons.
Larijani is a relatively moderate leader, someone who has always offered pragmatism and been less inclined to the sort of fiery rhetoric that tends to be employed by hardliners in the Iranian government. There is a lot to be read into the fact that he was the one to make this statement.
Larijani reiterated that Iran currently has no nuclear weapons program. Crucially, this remains the conclusion of the United Statesâ own intelligence community. While it was not widely publicized, in testimony before Congress on March 25, Trumpâs Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said, âThe IC (Intelligence Community) continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamanei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.â
Iran has, however, enriched uranium to as high as 60%. Weapons-grade uranium is enriched to 90%, but there is no need to enrich nearly as high as 60% for civilian use. It has also stopped cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Both of these steps came in response to the United Statesâ unilateral abrogation of the 2015 nuclear deal and the subsequent policy of âmaximum pressure,â including crippling sanctions, that were imposed on Iran under both Trump and Joe Biden.
Larijani putting out a warning that Iran might consider pursuing a nuclear weapon can be interpreted as laying the groundwork for forcing Trump into a more reasonable position if war is averted by an agreement.
A dangerous game and surprising boost for hopes of a resolution
The dangers of this sort of mutual posturing are obvious. A misstep, a misunderstanding, or another actor triggering an incident that could spark a war is far more likely in an atmosphere charged with this much weaponry and chest-thumping. And with this much bravado in the air, even if a conflict starts by accident, it will be difficult to pull back from the brink.
Several possible actors might be involved in setting off this powder keg. The most obvious one is Israel, where Benjamin Netanyahu has been pressing for a war of regime change against Tehran for four decades. Other non-state players who view the United States and Iran as enemies could also find ways to trigger a conflict.
Trump indicated on Thursday that Netanyahu could come to Washington as soon as next week. Whether it is in person or over the phone, we can rest assured that the Israeli Prime Minister will do all he can to convince Trump to strike Iranâs nuclear facilities hard and fast.
Ironically, some of the voices in the Trump administration that have been pushing the hardest for a military response to Iran got dealt a bizarre setback on Thursday.
The far-right extremist Laura Loomer got an audience with Donald Trump, which was also attended by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. Waltz, of course, is on shaky ground with Trump in the wake of adding The Atlanticâs editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a Signal chat group that was discussing an assault on Yemenâwhich included blatant war crimesâin real time.
Waltz and much of his NSC staff are major Iran hawks. They do not share Trumpâs preference for avoiding foreign wars. Loomer, for whatever reason, decided that she was going to show her loyalty to Trump by denouncing and calling for the dismissal of âneoconsâ in his administration.
The next day, three prominent members of Waltzâs staffâBrian Walsh, Thomas Boodry, and David Feith, son of prominent neoconservative and former George W. Bush Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feithâwere fired. All three were, like Waltz, advocates of military action against Iran, a policy which many âAmerica Firstersâ dislike.
While the silencing of these voices, and Waltzâs own diminished stature, lessens the pressure on Trump to go to war with Iran, it has not resulted in any reversal of the war preparations and deployments. But it does increase the impression that, at least for the moment, Trump is inclined to try to find a way to force Iran to concede to his demands without a full scale attack.
Netanyahu will certainly do all he can to dissuade Trump from that course. Will he be able to move Trump? It really depends on what exactly Trump considers victory over Iran. If Trump can get what he wants without war, he may well choose that route, although he may well be amenable to assisting Israel in what would inevitably be a lower-scale attack.
The trouble is, outside of preventing an Iranian pursuit of a nuclear weapon that doesnât exist in the first place, we donât know what Trump wants from Tehran. Does he want a full dismantling of the entire Iranian nuclear sector, including civilian plants? Iran relies on nuclear power for a significant amount of its domestic energy consumption, so this would have an enormous economic and social impact. Tehran is not going to agree to it.
Will Trump insist on Iran reigning in Ansar Allah in Yemen? It is an open question if Iran is even capable of doing so. Will Trump demand major concessions on Iranâs ballistic missile program? It seems unlikely that Iran would risk diminishing its conventional weapons capabilities in the face of such enormous hostility from both the U.S. and Israel.
But if Trump is content to get Iran to limit its uranium enrichment program and grant full access to IAEA inspectors again, to shutter some of its higher-enrichment facilities, and, in short, to agree to something like the old nuclear deal with a few fringe details added to allow Trump to claim he got a better deal than Barack Obama did, he could do that without a war.
As it so often does, it comes down to what Trump wants, and that changes from day to day.
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