“We’re going to beat the f—ing sh—out of them!”

Two short items on the US/Israeli War on Iran

Unlike the two year period that followed Hamas’ raid on Israel, Iran continues to over-perform in its war with the USA and Israel.

There are plenty of reasons for this, reasons that we can hash out at some point in the future. Suffice it to say that the Iranian military is not destroyed nor are their capabilities, especially those involving missiles, anywhere near such a state. Much of the country has been flattened thanks to US and Israeli attacks, but the regime continues to not just cling to power, but has also managed to rally and re-impose control on parts of the country where its presence was slipping. As of now, regime change seems like a distant prospect.

In fact, the upper echelon of the US military is describing the present state of affairs as a “stalemate”, which leaves egg on the face of President Donald Trump. Fresh off of their perfect decapitation of the Venezuelan regime, it seems that overconfidence set in, leading to the stalemate that the Trump Administration finds itself in today.

I want to draw your attention to two items, with the first one courtesy of the Wall Street Journal:

Now, as Trump moves to strike back after Iran’s surprise missile attack Tuesday, the president will decide how far to go. He could greenlight Cooper’s option of 10 to 14 days of intensive airstrikes intended to cripple Iran’s missile capability despite warnings that the U.S. is running low on air-defensive munitions. Or, he could opt for a more limited military strike in the hopes diplomacy could be pursued.

“Cooper” refers to Adm. Brad Cooper, head of the U.S. Central Command, who is stationed in Tampa Bay, Florida. He has put together a plan of action to break the stalemate with Iran, in the hopes that it brings Iran back to the negotiating table. There are significant problems with this approach, as we will see by way of the second item that I will share with you in just a bit. Back to the WSJ article…the “Go Big” approach:

For weeks, Trump has oscillated between stop-and-start diplomacy and expletive-laden threats to return to the sort of major combat operations that were featured at the beginning of the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran. On Wednesday, a senior administration official said that Trump “is in an escalatory mood” but was still contemplating “the depth of that response.”

The idea behind Cooper’s high-end option is to go beyond the smaller retaliatory airstrikes that have done little to deter Tehran from threatening ships in the Strait of Hormuz and lobbing missiles at American forces in the region by sharply escalating the war, according to people familiar with his thinking.

If the U.S. wants military action to be effective, Cooper has maintained, the U.S. must step up its air attacks, significantly blunting Iran’s missile threat, to try to break the stalemate. This “go big” approach, which is among a series of options he has developed, would reduce the need for the U.S. to use defensive munitions because Iran would have less capability to attack, he insists.

The risk of the Go Big approach:

Caine, who is described as more cautious, often alerts the White House to the “second and third order consequences” of military options, the people said. He has raised concerns about the U.S.’s dwindling supply of air defense interceptors, which are needed elsewhere around the world to defend U.S. bases and allies, as well as fend off Iran’s missile attacks. Caine believes that the low inventories wouldn’t preclude a resumption of major combat operations against Iran but would add to the risk, the people said.

Ukraine is panicking because it has run out of Patriot missiles to counter Russian attacks, but Trump informed Zelensky on Tuesday that he has no more to give him.

As Trump was considering launching the war in February, Cooper figured that he would need six weeks or more to complete the operation. He was given less than that.

The joint U.S. and Israeli air campaign began on Feb. 28. By the end of March, however, the president was growing impatient. Iran had declared the Strait of Hormuz closed and begun laying sea mines in the strategic waterway. Surging oil prices roiled the global economy and prompted the U.S. to eat into oil reserves to bring prices down.

On March 31, Cooper calculated that he still needed about 20 more days to finish the job, according to a person familiar with his thinking. But on April 3, a U.S. F-15E jet fighter was shot down over southwestern Iran, kicking off a high-risk rescue mission. While both airmen were retrieved, the incident contributed to Trump’s decision to clinch a ceasefire agreement just a few days later.

This was due to the fear of the oil shock finally sending prices of barrels to the moon.

For a quick chuckle:

In a press conference soon after the ceasefire was declared, Hegseth, who also attended last week’s Air Force One meeting, boasted that Iran’s missile program had been “functionally destroyed” with its launchers and missiles “depleted and decimated.”

Prioritizing air defenses:

While Caine had informed the White House of the limited number of air defense interceptors in the U.S. inventory, Cooper’s reasoning was that powerful airstrikes would greatly diminish Iran’s missile capabilities and its ability to retaliate. Under Caine’s approach, U.S. air defenses could be realigned in the region to buttress the defense of key sites.

We have already seen the USA evacuate bases in the region due to Iranian missile attacks. This has resulted in some reputational damage. The greater reputational damage has come about due to the USA’s inability to defend all of the GCC. Bahrain especially is a sitting duck. The UAE is now trying to make amends with Iran (or at least pretending to) out of fear that its energy sector and infrastructure will be blown sky high in retaliation for any future American and/or Israeli attacks on Iran.

The second item comes courtesy of a Professor at John Hopkins and explains why Iran refuses to budge, and why it launched a symbolic attack while Bibi was at the White House this week:

Iran's latest ballistic missile attacks and the continued rejection of compromise solutions on the Strait of Hormuz might seem like indications that "hardline" thinking is dominating Iran's national security strategy.

But my conversations with counterparts in Tehran suggest that something else is at play. Iranian decision making is increasingly shaped by an intense pessimism about what diplomacy with the U.S. can achieve. Most senior figures, whether pragmatists or hardliners, simply do not believe a deal is possible. This pessimism has gotten worse since the MOU was signed.

Why the pessimism?

Part of this is about the repeated experience of U.S. escalation during the course of negotiations, but the pessimism is no longer confined to the question of "does Trump want a deal?" Increasingly the belief is that "Trump can't do a deal, even if he thinks he wants one."

Policymakers in Tehran are looking at several things. At a technical level, the Trump administration was unable to execute even the most basic confidence building measures of the MOU. No assets were released and the oil waiver was never really operationalized. Iranian leaders are also looking to other contexts. Even in Venezuela, where the administration has complete political control and a full court press approach to economic reengagement, sanctions relief has floundered (eg. it took a whole month after the massive earthquake for FinCen to take proactive steps to try and provide banks comfort to support humanitarian transactions).

Was this not done on purpose? Or was it bungled?

The political level:

At a political level, the Iranians have seen the overblown reaction to the MOU from the full range of politicians in Washington. Democrats eager to score political points attacked provisions in the MOU that would be fundamental to *any* viable agreement with Iran. The Iranians are also watching the growing rift between the Rubio and Vance camps and are concluding that the administration is inherently dysfunctional. During the Biden years, the issue was whether the president could defend his deal from political rivals in Congress. Now, the rivals are within the cabinet itself.

Despite outward displays of unity, there is tremendous pressure being placed on Trump to placate the Hawks in Congress.

Erratic Trump:

At an individual level, there is also a growing sense that Trump is too erratic to stick by his own deals. Even Saudi Arabia, the country with perhaps the greatest influence in the White House after Israel, could not shield its own nuclear deal from Trump's excessive demands.

He concludes with the following:

This may be an unprecedented situation. The U.S. has started a war it does not know how to end. Meanwhile, the arguments for diplomacy in Tehran have been reduced to "this has a low chance of succeeding, but we have to still try." That's not a strong, positive case for diplomatic engagement and understandably the strategic thinking is tending towards the idea that U.S. dysfunction will continue to manifest in the form of economic pressure and kinetic action against Iran for a long time to come.

It’s clear that the USA thought that the regime would buckle under quickly. It’s also clear that Washington has no desire to send in a ground force, much less the massive one required to succeed in toppling and replacing the regime in Tehran. Proxy forces sponsored by the USA and Israel haven’t budged an inch. The USA can keep pounding Iran and squeezing its economy, but Iran’s ability to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed and to shake up the oil market is a big, big headache for Team Trump….and Midterms are not that far away either.