Six Months In, Iran’s Regime Stands

As noted in a prior post, the Felon is desperate to keep the news media from reporting on his lost war with Iran - something which alone makes it worth writing about - and is busy creating chaos with his new trade war with Canada (which seems to have been planned as poorly as his Iran adventure if Canada can turn off electricity and block Great Lakes marine traffic if it wants to do so) and, of course bloviating about "election fraud."  The reality is that the Felon has made a huge mess with his war of choice which has left the USA looking diminished, short on critical munitions, some allies trying to make accommodation with Iran, viewed as more untrustworthy, with Iran in control of the Straight of Hormuz, and Americans suffering economically at home. Much of what we are witnessing was predicted, but the Felon in his typical narcissistic and hubris filled nature ignored all such advice. The end result is that there is no end in sight to the conflict, Iran is left able to attack shipping at will - thus putting the conflict back on the front page - and a weakened USA is reduced to imposing more economic sanctions in the likely false hope that it will force Iran to surrender. The whole debacle is a masterclass in what not to do.  A piece in the New York Times reviews the current stalemate:

It was supposed to be quick. Still, six months after the U.S. and Israel launched massive airstrikes on Iran, the conflict drags on. The Trump administration has replaced its military war with an economic one, but the result is likely to be no different, analysts said, with a lack of American clarity about goals, a decline in American credibility and a strategic defeat.

One thing remains constant, however. The ordinary people of Iran are bearing the brunt of the war, victims of both the United States and their own leaders.

The Iranian leadership, increasingly dominated by military men, sees its own survival as the nation’s, and it considers the sacrifices of ordinary Iranians as a necessary act of patriotism and even martyrdom. It has been ever more ruthless in stamping out the slightest signs of dissent.

It is hard to dress up what has clearly been an American failure to bend Iran to its will, despite the might of the combined American and Israeli militaries. Not only has the Islamic Republic survived, but it effectively controls the Strait of Hormuz. It has strengthened its influence in the region, with even the countries it was bombing a few months ago trying to reinvigorate ties with Iran.

“The war has failed to deliver U.S. objectives,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House.

Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert and head of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, judged the war a failure. “We did a lot of damage to Iran, but they have come out stronger than before,” she said. Iran’s neighbors have decided they must find a modus operandi with an Islamic Republic that is not going away.

American credibility among allies has suffered along with Mr. Trump’s own reputation for avoiding costly, interminable wars in the Middle East and promoting “affordability” at home. And it has made his promise to liberate ordinary Iranians look hollow.

“This war has really overtaken the Trump presidency,” Ms. Maloney said.  “Operation Epic Fury” began with a joint American-Israeli surprise attack on Iran, which killed the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and many of his officials, while badly wounding his son and now successor, Mojtaba.

Weeks of intense bombing destroyed much of Iran’s air force and navy and badly damaged its missile program. But the population did not rise up and the leadership did not fracture.

Iran’s military restored many of its missile launchers and attacked key American allies in the region as well as American bases, which were inadequately defended. It effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz and caused global economic disruption.

The original “Operation Epic Fury” has been replaced with what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday announced as “Operation Economic Outcast,” designed to isolate Iran further and crash its badly damaged economy. . . . . Despite rhetorical flourishes about D-Day and the fall of the Berlin Wall, Mr. Bessent did not indicate how long this economic war will last, what instruments it will use or what it aims to achieve.

“There is no clear articulation of America’s goals,” said Esfandyar Batmanghelidj of the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, a research organization based in London. “But if you don’t define behavior change, sanctions as coercion fail.”

Iran, already the target of many thousands of sanctions, is considered unlikely to surrender because of a few more. More likely, analysts said, is that the country will respond in time by escalating its attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf and on American allies, which could produce another round of American bombing.

With American objectives unclear, the confusion is real in Tehran, too, said Ali Vaez, the Iran project director for the International Crisis Group. They will wonder, he said: “Does the U.S. want to achieve collapse, capitulation or compromise?”

Given that Iran’s leaders see the effort to strangle them as another form of warfare, Mr. Vaez said, the new American strategy has two risks. If it fails, the only option left is to return to military escalation. And if it works, it may lead Iran to escalate to break the U.S. naval blockade.

Iran’s public-facing leadership, including President Masoud Pezeshkian and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the parliamentary speaker, has been blunt about the economic imperatives to ending the war. They have warned of the consequences of hungry people and economic collapse.

They nonetheless take a consistent line on negotiating with Washington, insisting on a return at minimum to the June Memorandum of Understanding, which Mr. Trump signed but now says is “over.” They also continue to negotiate with Oman about managing the strait in a way Washington is unlikely to accept.

But the stalemate is also risky, said Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations. “There is an increasing view in the White House that you can’t deal with this Islamic Republic,” she said. “It’s a dangerous moment, with both Tehran and D.C. concluding that no deal is possible with the other.”

Jeremy Shapiro, a former State Department official now at the European Council on Foreign Relations, remains puzzled why Mr. Trump has not taken any of the available offramps to ending an enormously unpopular war at home. By pushing even more economic sanctions, he said, Trump officials “are pretending they’re still fighting instead of pretending that they’ve won” — or admitting that they’ve lost.