By Walt Zlotow
Has Trump been trumped by large, powerful, resolute Iran?
Last June Israel attacked Iran, got blooded bad enough to beg Trump to negotiate a ceasefire. Trump got a reality lesson as well. Iran responded with its own attack to Trump’s one-off strike that did not “obliterate” Iran’s nuclear program, damaging a US base in Qatar. The message was clear. Any all out US attack could bring home hundreds, possibly thousands of US body bags.
Both Iranian responses demonstrate Iran has enormous firepower to both defend any US Israeli attack, but also inflict enormous damage on its attackers. And that damage would not only be to US and Israeli forces, it would shut down the Strait of Hormuz, likely wrecking the US, Israeli; indeed world economy.
Did Trump get the message? At first, no. He conspired with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in December to foment violent domestic protests to overthrow the Iranian regime. Trump planned a mid-January attack to push the protesters to victory. But when Iran crushed the protests, Trump backed down once again, realizing a strengthened Iranian regime would repel any attack just like in June.
That has left Trump in an impossible quandary. He’s put the massive US military armada on Iran’s doorstep knowing he cannot possibly succeed without incurring US, Israeli losses. But his credibility is destroyed if he admits defeat and withdraws the US armada.
What to do? Trump’s M.O. when cornered is to set up fake negotiations with his adversary to buy time and seek trifling concessions so he can claim a complete, overwhelming victory. That won’t work with Iran. His upcoming negotiations with Iran will fail worse than his failed negotiations with Denmark and NATO to gobble up Greenland. Trump’s demands going in are so extreme, essentially guaranteeing end of Iranian sovereignty, they are a non-starter.
Trump is also not the master of his destiny with Iran. He knows Iran poses no threat whatsoever to US interests. But Trump also knows he’s subservient to his Israeli masters who demand he attack Iran to destroy Israel’s last Middle East hegemonic competitor. Even major US casualties could serve Israel’s agenda by forcing Trump launch all out war to avenge those casualties as not dying in vain. It’s even possible that Israel would use their own massive casualties as a reason to drop a nuke on Tehran. Once Trump pulls the trigger on his armada installed at Israel’s behest, there is no reversal of the inevitable catastrophe for Middle East peace; possibly world peace.
It was a snap for Trump to bring his military up to Venezuela’s border and slaughter a few hundred folks with boat strikes and outright invasion to score a presidential kidnapping. Bringing that same military up to Iran’s border will be a criminal war too far for Trump. Either he blows up the Middle East, destroying US and Israeli forces along with Iran in a conflict that could go nuclear, or he admits defeat, turns tail and sheds his warrior credibility.
By caving to Israeli demands, Trump has left himself no satisfactory way out. Has he met his match in large, powerful, resolute Iran? Sure looks like it.
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL
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Walt, I can only hope you are correct, the alternative is not worth thinking about.
Will Schryver has an interesting take on this.
It must be understood that, in firmly rejecting US/Israel demands, Iran is effectively dictating terms — and this strongly confirms what many of us have argued since last summer: Iran was the clear winner of the 12-Day War. Israel knows it, the United States knows it, and Iran knows it.
I have no way of confirming the veracity of the following report, but it is unquestionably consistent with other confirmed reports emerging out of Iran these days.
Former UK ambassador and intelligence officer Alastair Crooke, on Geopolitika, writes as follows:
Over the past two weeks, two important messages were conveyed to Iran, both of which were rejected.
One came from the U.S. and the other from Israel. The former was: “We [the U.S.] will carry out a limited attack and you should accept it; or at least, give only a symbolic response.” Tehran rejected this request, saying that it would consider any attack to mark the beginning of a full-scale war.
Israel’s message, delivered through one of the various mediators, was: “We will not participate in the American attack.” It asked Iran therefore, to not target Israel. This request also met with a negative response, together with the explicit clarification that were the U.S. to commence military action, Israel would be immediately attacked. In parallel, Iran informed all states in the region that any attack launched from their territory or airspace, would result in an Iranian attack on whomsoever facilitated such U.S. military action.
These reports are actually quite astounding, for not only do they parallel perfectly what happened in the final 48 hours of the 12-Day War, but they reveal a profound degree of self-doubt and hesitation percolating in Washington and Tel Aviv.
The Pentagon and the Israel Defense Forces are coming face to face with something I have been shouting from the house tops for several years now:
There are no easy wars left to fight.
This gives us an insight into the behind-the-scenes shenanigans that go on in global politics.
Shenanigans that are rarely featured in the news media.
I predict that whilst Trump occupies Iranian attention with “negotiations” Netanyahu will facilitate an Israeli false flag attack on US Middle East assets resulting in significant US military casualties thus forcing Trump to physically attack Iran.
Israel has form when it comes to false flag attacks: The Lavon Affair (Operation Susannah, 1954), USS Liberty Attack (1967), Recruitment of Jundallah (2000s), WTC New York (Sept 11, 2001).
Why the US continues to provide aid and support to a country that has repeatedly attacked it is one of life’s enduring mysteries. What is it, one may reasonably ask, that Israel has over America that grants permission for that cesspit of zealous criminals to so egregiously keep biting the hand that feeds it?