You’d think when your country goes to war you’d want it to prevail, but these are topsy-turvy times. Thus the dominant American commentary on Donald Trump’s ‘excursion’ in the Middle East – or should we call it a ‘special military operation’? – has come from pundits who yearn for Epic Fury to fail. Close-up and personal antipathy for their President far outweighs theoretical distaste for a tyrannical theocracy in another hemisphere. For these critics, the glaring deficiencies of the ‘Memorandum of Understanding’, Trump’s already shaky negotiated peace deal, are gratifying.
I’m not one of those people. Something about those huge, hoary, hairy portraits of ayatollahs in Tehran’s public murals looking down on an immiserated populace with contemptuous would-be wisdom has for years triggered in me a deep loathing akin to the Trump Derangement Syndrome suffered by US Democrats. I think: life is hard enough, and you disgusting, buzzkill twats destroy the possibility of joy for 93 million people.
It was no coincidence that in 2014 the regime ordered mass arrests when young men and hijabless women began dancing on rooftops to the ebullient beat of Pharrell Williams’s hit pop song ‘Happy’. These crusty, crabby theocrats are anti-life. I was euphoric early in this war when the Supreme Leader and more than 50 other Iranian top officials were whacked in air strikes. Couldn’t have happened to nicer guys.
Yet until now I’ve kept schtum in print. From the beginning of this American effort to extract a 47-year-old thorn in the side, it was obvious that nothing short of merciless commitment to utter devastation of the regime would make a lasting difference. Given past performance, the chances of Trump truly following through on what he started, risking his base’s displeasure and control of Congress, were immeasurably wee.
Sure enough, Trump has retreated before achieving any of his objectives. I have plenty of company in assessing the details of this ‘memorandum’ as far worse than the state of play before the US and Israel dropped a single bomb in February.
Owing to fortnightly publication, I’m late to this party, so you can doubtless list the disappointments yourself: no agreement on limiting missile stocks, no promise to curtail support for terrorist vassals, only opening the Strait of Hormuz for free for 60 days, like one of those supermarket loss leaders – a too-good-to-be-true special bargain to get you in the shop – after which Iran can again charge millions per ship for transit through a so-recently unimpeded international waterway.
National humiliation on this scale has emotional knock-on effects for any American paying attention
More, a bulging goodie bag! Sanctions lifted and billions of frozen funds released, enabling Iran to start reconstituting its vast missile stocks and to resume funding Hamas, the Houthis and Hezbollah right away. A gonzo $300 billion reconstruction fund that for reasons beyond me the Gulf states are meant to pool in gratitude for Iran having repeatedly bombed their airports and fuel infrastructure. Why, this package is so profitable for a country whose very civilisation Trump threatened to obliterate that other nations will soon be clamouring for the US to attack them, too.
We’ve gratuitously alienated the Israelis by promising to bully them into laying off Hezbollah. Trump’s overweening goal of taking out Iran’s nuclear programme for good is delayed vaguely for further pointless jaw-jaw. Tell me, in trade for all these concessions, what did J.D. Vance get for our side? That we didn’t have before this debacle commenced? I cannot name one thing. We can’t even count all that destruction of Iran’s missiles, air defences and navy as a win if we’re already raising a kitty to restore what we wrecked (at considerable expense). Even by proxy, reparations imply apology: whoops, looks as if we made a right mess of your hang, so here’s a fat cheque to cover the cleaning bill and inconvenience.
So I’m suffering my own Epic Fury. I can’t remember when I was last so disgusted. And here’s the thing: we all know that while I despised Kamala Harris, I’ve never been a Trumpster. I continually wince at his gaucheness and thin-skinned vengefulness (etc – nothing’s more tedious than railing about Trump). Yet just as I hoped the Iran war would be victorious, I’ve broadly wished himwell. I fancy his opposition to DEI and closure of the southern border. But this is the limit. A climbdown with Iran dwarfs the small-beer crassness of being nasty and narcissistic about Rob Reiner’s murder. This stuff has big-boy consequences.
National humiliation on this scale has emotional knock-on effects for any American paying attention. The embarrassment of a president who so backtracks that he suddenly shrugs off Iran’s massive remaining missile stores – because, after all, every country has a right to defend itself (‘If other countries have them, it’s a little unfair for them not to have some’), and who cares about a little ‘nuclear dust’ when weeks ago confiscating Iran’s enriched uranium was his driving purpose in order to save the world – well, these stunning reversals become personally embarrassing for the citizens in whose name Trump purports to act.
So much of this was foreseeable. Iran’s blocking the strait was foreseeable (it tried to in the 1980s); Trump’s former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster claims the Pentagon has gamed how to keep that waterway open during ructions with Iran for decades, so why wasn’t a plan in place?
It was foreseeable that a demoralised, unarmed populace with no organised opposition couldn’t overthrow a murderous government. It was foreseeable that deranged, corrupt religious fanatics – busy paving the way for the return of the 9th century’s 12th imam Muhammad al-Mahdi by bringing down the West; you know, the usual eschatological nonsense – will lie to get what they want and break their promises, so you don’t negotiate with parties like that in the first place. The regime’s failure thus far to leap to secure and abide by this cushy deal is alone proof of its irrationality.
This semiquincentennial, then, I’m under-festive. Sheets of American-flag-blue sealant floating up in Trump’s newly refurbished Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool signify the chronic problem with his initiatives: lousy sticktoitiveness.
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