Trump's disastrous war on Iran
By Anders Aslund US President Donald Trump’s war on Iran has now lasted for four weeks, but he has failed to establish why he went to war. First, it was
By Anders Aslund
US President Donald Trump's war on Iran has now lasted for four weeks, but he has failed to establish why he went to war. First, it was supposed to be about regime change, but the regime survived. According to the mediating Oman foreign minister, Iran was ready to accept limitations on its nuclear developments and long-distance missiles, when the US suddenly attacked during their negotiations. According to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the reason was that Israel would have attacked in any case, so the tail wagged the dog.
As Edward Luce has pointed out in the Financial Times, Trump had only a Plan A: that the Iranian regime would fall within 72 hours. When it did not, Trump was lost, because he is not in the business of planning – only improvising – so any Plan B was beyond him. Therefore, Trump has lost the war.
This war has already had many serious unintended consequences. The most important is that Iran has seized control of the vital Strait of Hormuz, channeling one-fifth of global oil and gas transportation as well as more of helium and nitrogen fertilizers, and the Gulf states live on imports through that strait.
The Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz has had horrendous impact on the global economy. Prices of all forms of energy and fertilizers have skyrocketed and will stay high, hiking inflation all over the world, most of all in developing countries. Interest rates will stay high or rise, while economic growth will decline.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) just foresaw a decline in global growth this year of 0.4 percentage points because of the US-Israeli war on Iran. The whole world is suffering, but the US less so than Europe and Asia, since it is producing so much energy itself. Yet inflation hits the US as well because energy prices are global.
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Another consequence is that the Gulf states, which all host US military bases, have realized that such bases do not actually protect them but render them vulnerable. They have all been bombed by Iran. Presumably, many countries around the world will rethink their hosting of US military. After Trump repeatedly claimed to have obliterated Iran's missiles, Iran shot back in the hundreds, so Trump turned out to have lied as usual.
The US only informed Israel that it was going to attack Iran. The Gulf states and all US Western allies were left in the dark. Even so, Trump demanded that they should assist him after a few days, when it became evident that his attack was not very successful.
Rather than asking politely, he insulted them as is his habit. Nobody but NATO's Secretary General Mark Rutte was gullible enough to say that they would help. With his many baseless insults against NATO and NATO members, Trump has in effect finished NATO, if his calls for the US annexation of Canada and Greenland had not already done so.
Insults for all except Putin
Trump's support for Russia has never been more evident. Russian President Vladimir Putin is the only leader Trump never insults. When it became public that Russia provided Iran with target intelligence, Trump, Rubio and US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth astoundingly dismissed it as irrelevant. They barely reacted at the information that Russia delivered arms to Iran over the Caspian Sea. Instead, Trump ended the oil sanctions on Russia, offering his friend Putin a massive windfall.
The US war in the Gulf has been enormously uneconomical in contrast with Ukraine's agility. The US has shot down $25,000 Iranian Shaheds with 800 Patriot missiles each costing about $4 million in the first three days of the war, while the US had only delivered 600 patriot missiles to Ukraine during four years, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Ukraine produces masses of cheap drone interceptors for $2,500 – as many as 2,000 a day. Zelensky repeatedly offered Trump his assistance, but as is his habit, Trump just insulted Zelensky. Sensibly, Ukraine is instead working with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait, while the US continues its uneconomical folly. NATO was supposed to buy US arms for Ukraine with EU financing, but in the latest deal, the US says that it will not deliver arms for Ukraine for $750 million. Europe and Ukraine need to avoid the US.
On April 12, Hungary holds parliamentary elections. There is good hope that autocratic and corrupt Prime Minister Viktor Orbán – who has focused his campaign on attacking Ukraine – will finally lose. Orban's main supporters are Trump, Putin, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right-wing French politician Marine Le Pen, far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders, and other rightwing extremists. This collection shows just how low the US has fallen under Trump.
Squandered trust
A major consequence of the war in Iran is that not only Trump but the US has lost all credibility through Trump's lies and misdirection. If you work for Trump, you must lie. Hegseth lied that the US had too few Tomahawk missiles because former US President Joe Biden had given too many to Ukraine. In fact, Biden never gave any Tomahawks to Ukraine.
It is nearly impossible to negotiate with somebody who lacks all credibility, as is the case with the US under Trump. Market observers claim that he depresses stock markets with bad news at the end of a week, and then in the early hours of Monday invents good news. The stock market recovers and somebody close to the White House makes a major fortune. The US has never had such an evil and corrupt regime.
Last Monday, Trump claimed that he had been called by a very senior Iranian, who wanted to open the Strait of Hormuz and stop all nuclear developments. Given Trump's patent mendacity, the world waited for confirmation from Iran, and the Iranian government responded that no conversation had taken place. Trump has continued to claim that the Iranians are “desperate” to come to an agreement, which with Trump's normal deflection means that he is desperate to be able to end his unnecessary and disastrous war.
