I’ll first repeat what I have offered in earlier notes: first, that the only objective that reasonably supported President Donald Trump’s order to initiate hostilities against Iran was to effect regime change from the Ayatollahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) (collectively hereafter, the “Iranians,” to be distinguished from Iranian civilian citizens unless the context indicates otherwise) to a government more philosophically aligned with the other Middle East nations (any lesser outcome, even if it seemed to make the Middle East temporarily marginally more stable, was but a bandage); and second, that the President’s calculation that if he initiated hostilities, events would coalesce to bring about the fall of the regime, was not entirely unfounded.
But didn’t work.
As this is typed, the Strait of Hormuz (the “Strait”) is again effectively closed although the two sides are refraining from active exchanges of fire. The price of oil is going up and financial markets that have been inexplicably sucking up Mr. Trump’s joy juice over the last five months may – I can’t give them greater credit than that — be slowly waking up to the fact that Mr. Trump seemingly has no way out. The Iranians are crowing Iran “has taken America’s best shot” and the regime is still standing. (Now, the Iranian-allied Houthis are trying – so far unsuccessfully — to shut down the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to block the export of Saudi Arabian oil through the Red Sea, which, if effective, will really bollix things up.) Mr. Trump has again threatened to launch a “massive attack” on Iran. If this “massive attack” simply amounts to more bombing, I think one can reasonably presume that this assault will be as futile at subduing the Iranians as the preceding gazillion attacks have been.
Let’s look at the situation first substantively and then psychologically/politically (the factors making up the latter perspective intertwined).
Substantively, the notion that Iran has withstood America’s best shot is probably hogwash. Put aside nuclear weaponry; if the President was willing to launch a full-scale ground invasion of Iran, deploying the appropriate number and type of American troops accompanied by air power and naval strikes, I would venture that Mr. Trump would, ultimately, effect regime change and the Strait would be open. (My “probably” qualifier arises from some reports that given Mr. Trump’s past spasm of attacks, America is actually now running low on available munitions; a recent report indicates that the Trump Administration agreed to the current pause in hostilities in part because key elements of its stockpile are dwindling.) That said, such an initiative would obviously involve heavy American casualties and, based upon our experiences in Vietnam and Afghanistan, the government we installed would have a life span of exactly as long as we maintained ground troops to sustain it. Inasmuch as there is overwhelming American consensus that Mr. Trump chose to start this conflict, the American dead and wounded that would result from such an invasion would be considered his fault and mean the de facto end of his presidency. Even as of July 23, the PBS News Hour reported, “Nearly 1 in 5 self-identified MAGA voters believes the U.S. should end the war with Iran, regardless of the costs.” I would pose that at least half of the President’s MAGA base would desert him as American casualties mounted. (While I’m pretty confident that Mr. Trump is refraining from an invasion because he fears for his own political standing, I’m thankful that he is forbearing because we have already lost enough lives to this narcissistic, delusional charlatan’s grandstanding.)
There have also been suggestions that a prolonged American blockade of the Strait would ultimately cause Iran to buckle to American demands. In May, I saw former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and retired four-star Navy Admiral James Stavridis opine, “[The U.S. can blockade Iran] with air and naval forces and you continue to strangle the Iranian economy.” He thought such a strategy would take “… months, but not years [to be successful].” While noting that an impasse in the Strait would have greater immediate effect on the American economy and American electoral sentiment than on the Iranians, he observed, “There is a limit for [the Iranians]. …. I don’t think we’re in a quagmire yet – but I can see one from here.”
I include the Admiral’s comments because I place great store by his military assessments. That said, for reasons outlined below, I have the temerity to suggest that I’m not sure that I agree that an American blockade against Iran would work, even if did bring about the collapse of the Iranian economy and even if Mr. Trump had the patience and willingness to accept the attendant political and economic pain, which he doesn’t.
I do think there’s consensus that if we weren’t in a quagmire in May, we certainly are now.
So much for substance. With due apologies to the accomplished psychologists whom I am honored occasionally read these pages … let’s move on to psychology.
As all who care will recall, when the Trump team signed its Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) with Iran in mid-June, the MOU was lambasted – even in some quarters of the alt-right media – as being wildly tilted in Iran’s favor, since it included no restrictions on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities while eventually providing Iran hundreds of billions of dollars in reconstruction costs. It is seemingly beyond dispute that the MOU would have provided the Iranians colossally more than any deal that the Obama Administration, in the face of withering Republican criticism, ever made with Iran. The projected influx of funds to Iran would over time have arguably made it an even more dominant force in the Middle East. It didn’t take much acumen to surmise that the prospect terrified the other nations in the region, and would certainly not be in America’s interest.
At one point, MSNOW’s Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough called the arrangement a “bribe” by the Trump Administration to Iran. Mr. Trump was obviously willing to essentially capitulate to get the Strait open before the global economy seized up and to avoid torpedoing whatever electoral prospects Republicans retain for November’s midterm elections.
Even so, the deal started to unravel almost immediately – sooner than the Trump Administration was willing to concede. As the Iranians first began to get restless, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has brain if not spine, must have been pointing out to them that the MOU was a far better deal for them than any future American president would ever agree to – or indeed, better than any arrangement Mr. Trump himself would approve after the November U.S. mid-term elections.
So why did the Iranians turn their back on it?
I will venture that in offering his “bribe,” Mr. Trump didn’t recognize that the Iranians are totally saturated by the same force that is the foundation of his political power.
Hate.
Let’s start with the observations of the greatest propagandist of all time – tenets upon which Mr. Trump has established and maintained his political base over the last decade:
“The broad masses of a people consist neither of professors nor of diplomats. The scantiness of the abstract knowledge they possess directs their sentiments more to the world of feeling. That is where their positive or negative attitude lies. … Faith is harder to shake than knowledge, love succumbs less to change than respect, hate is more enduring than aversion, and the impetus to the mightiest upheavals on this earth has at all times consisted less in a scientific knowledge dominating the masses than in a fanaticism which inspired them and sometimes in a hysteria which drove them forward.” [Emphasis Added]
While any American administration trying to reach an arrangement with the Iranians must overcome their underlying hatred for America, the “Great Satan” – a hatred which, through a half-century of indoctrination, has become engrained “in a hysteria,” to quote Hitler – where we are now seems deeper water than that. Recall that a decade ago the same regime agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with the “Great Satan,” and many objective observers considered the Iranians to have largely abided by the arrangement until after Mr. Trump withdrew from it during his first term.
I would suggest that the Iranians’ current bellicose recalcitrance arises from its specific hatred of Mr. Trump. In his first term, he ordered the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, reportedly the IRGC’s most recognized military commander, and then on two occasions in his second term unleashed bombing and assassinations upon Iran while the Iranians were in discussions with the Trump negotiators. In this context, it doesn’t matter whether the Iranians were negotiating in good faith; they almost certainly weren’t; but from their perspective, Mr. Trump has laid one deadly provocation upon them after another.
These are not exactly “turn the other cheek” kinds of guys.
Since the Iranian regime released the American diplomatic hostages in 1979, its attacks at American interests have been sporadic and, from the standpoint of the American public’s attention, not very effective – proxy strikes upon American and American-allied installations around the globe. Even those which resulted in the rare American soldier’s death or injury were one-day stories in the American media, easily ignored by the Trump Administration.
Now, the Iranians have seemingly realized that they can really hurt Mr. Trump directly by crippling the world economy, jacking American inflation, and ensuring that he suffers a rebuke at the polls this November that not even MAGA attempts to subvert the results can overcome. They are politically strangling him. They have already held out for five months; they only have to hold out forabout three and a half more.
Who doesn’t think they can do it?
Is such an approach apparently against their own long-term geopolitical strategic interest? Arguably. Do they risk the collapse of their economy? Seemingly. But as Hitler noted over a century ago: knowledge has less impact than fanaticism; hate is more enduring than aversion.
I and many others have expressed puzzlement over the years as to why a good third of our populace continues to support Mr. Trump although he’s seemingly done nothing for the vast majority of them. He hasn’t brought down inflation – indeed, has arguably made it worse through his tariffs and the Iranian attack. His tax cut made most of them but pennies while increasing a deficit that will ultimately result in a reduction of their Social Security and Medicare benefits. He has cut back on the Medicaid many of them rely upon. He has refused to release all of the Epstein files, upon which many of them have been obsessed for years – a refusal which I suspect all but the densest MAGA suspects arises from his knowledge that full disclosure would be devastating for him. His ICE agents have shot two – wait for it — white American citizens, one of them – wait again – allegedly because he had a firearm which he was legally authorized to carry and hadn’t drawn. Mr. Trump even churlishly tried to slap his name on the Kennedy Center, which for older voters, even MAGAs, represents a monument to a martyred president who is no longer identified with partisan politics.
So why does this third of our citizenry stick with him when he’s done nothing for them? Why don’t they rush madly to support candidates — even if there are some objective concerns about their policies – who claim that they will bring down inflation, tax the rich, protect federal benefits, and release all of the Epstein files?
Because they are more interested in beating down anything contrary to their view of America – which is of a white, straight, Christian English-speaking people who live in the Cleaver neighborhood and walk through amber waves of grain contemplating purple mountain majesties — than pursuing what is objectively in their own best interest.
Mr. Trump has always understood this. That is why he should understand why the Iranians wouldn’t take his bribe, won’t act in what is seemingly their own best geopolitical interest, don’t seem to care if their economy collapses, are ignoring how many of them die. He is confronting the same kind of hatred that he has stoked to propel his political career.
But what, you ask, of the Iranians’ agreement to a pause every once in a while?
It gives them an occasional breather to reinforce their military positions; but I think that mostly, they’re just messin’ with him.
We’ll see what happens.
