[Salon] A war that Trump is losing - ArabDigest.org Guest Post

A war that Trump is losing Summary: nearly three weeks into the Iran conflict Donald Trump is learning that a war he believed would be a quick win is shaping up to become one of those forever wars he promised to keep America away from. Today’s newsletter features excerpts from the transcript of our 18 March podcast with Sanam Vakil the Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House. You can find the podcast here. Sanam, something I do to keep myself sane is to flip on its head pretty much everything Donald Trump says. So, for example, in a recent Truth Social screed he called Ukraine's President Zelensky “P.T. Barnum,” okay, I flip that and the true circus salesman is Donald Trump. The President says the US is winning the war hands down. I flip that. So should I be thinking it is Iran that is winning the war right now? Well, I don't know if this makes me sane to think about things in converse ways but I think it's rather smart, Bill, for you to do so. Let me put it this way: I don't think that Iran is winning in a conventional sense. Iran's strategy is predicated on survival. It cannot win this war from a military perspective. It is taking blows, very heavy blows, day to day from the United States, the most formidable power militarily, as well as Israel, the region's military power. But for Iran, if it does survive, and if the Islamic Republic regenerates itself, that will be a win on its own. Oftentimes in the Middle East, and we've seen this in the history books, not losing to a superior, if not superpower, is a victory. So that's what they're trying to achieve. But what matters is not just survival but how Iran and how, specifically, the Islamic Republic survives. It needs a deal that guarantees its survival but prevents another war from resurfacing in six months or six years and ultimately it needs sanctions relief, and in this moment, it’s very hard to see how those objectives can be achieved especially from a US president who might be a circus salesman but he's definitely not a trustworthy one. Much of the criticism being levelled at the Trump administration is that it went to war without a strategy. That's a fair criticism and I'm just looking at my phone, Sanam, and Joe Kent, who is the head of the National Counterterrorism Centre, has just quit. He was a big Trump fan. He's left because he says Israel called the shots on this war. Is that a fair comment, that it was Netanyahu who pulled Trump into this war? I think it's easy to just lay blame for this war on the Israeli prime minister who certainly has had Iran in his sight since October 7. But I think we can't just assign full blame or responsibility to the Israeli prime minister. He certainly was influential enough to convince Donald Trump to go along with the war. And I think that the agency and the decision does lie with the US Commander in Chief. What's problematic, though, about this war that was clearly planned from many months ago, not just as a reaction to the protests and the brutal crackdown seen in Iran on January 8 and beyond, is that this war was organised and executed based on faulty assumptions. And what do I mean by that? I think this is where the Israelis are culpable, and of course, Donald Trump is guilty for falling for it. Rather than basing analysis on evidence, the Israeli system concluded, I don't know how but perhaps influenced by activists, that the Islamic Republic was weak and thereby this was an opportune time to get the job done and finish what was not completed after the 12 day war last year. And as this war began on February 28, President Trump intimated that it would be a four or five day war, and since then, has clearly expressed his surprise the war has lasted longer, that Iran's response has been much more fierce and we know that (the Americans) have not prepared for a longer term war or tried to plan or mitigate against the uncertainties of a war, the so-called known unknowns that Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, spoke about during the 2003 Iraq War. So, today, we've seen the cost of this war spread. Markets are reacting. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed. And there are many more risks on the horizon and this looks like it will be a longer war and one that Donald Trump, on his own, won't be able to decide when it's over. While the Iranian government is under immense pressure, the lack of a clear strategy or a unified opposition means the war may only result in a wounded but surviving Islamic Republic. There is much debate about the extent of support the Iranian regime has inside Iran, and there is an assumption made by Trump and others that the Iranian people will rise up. But on your feed X you asked a very good question: “who is providing the analysis for this assumption?” So how do you read the situation in Iran and how likely is it that the regime will fall anytime soon? Well, as I said earlier, I think this war has been prosecuted with faulty assumptions: that the regime was weak, that this would be a quick operation. And I think the third assumption is that the ground will be made fertile for a change in the regime or an Iranian revolution. And unfortunately I'm of the view that this war began without preparing the terrain or working with Iranians inside and outside to help nurture that outcome which is almost impossible to nurture anyway. It's still early days. And I do think that the Islamic Republic is very cognisant that it has a broad-based internal security threat. Iranians continue to protest. In January, we saw very serious protests across the country, thousands of people were killed and this war hasn't eradicated that threat to the regime. But to assume that this system would quickly collapse and Iranians would be able to work together and marshal an alternative is, I think, naive and not reflective of the reality on the ground. There is an opposition in Iran but it's been repressed; there is an external opposition but it's very divided. So we have to see what happens when the war comes to an end and how this war comes to an end. Because if the Islamic Republic gets what it wants out of this war, it will be its survival as well as a guarantee that somehow it won't be struck again. And that will, of course, leave the Iranian people - who have been hopeful for a change in governance and waiting for the death of Khamenei to perhaps see that through - it will leave them wholly disappointed and let down. Is there a way out? I have to say I'm personally struggling to think of what the way out is because obviously the off ramp, or the quick off ramp, is a deal but that deal will leave an empowered but wounded system in place and Donald Trump will have helped breathe life back into a weakening Islamic Republic. And you know for Iranians I think that is a devastating outcome. But ultimately I also think that prolonging the war is not going to deliver the positive outcomes for the region more broadly and also for the Iranian people. I'm caught between my hope and impulse to support change in Iran and hampered by the reality of the facts on the ground and so it is hard to see how this is going to end but I do think it does have to end.