Martin Jay
Trump is quite possibly mad - and for the first time, European leaders are speaking in such terms. But he is not stupid.
Trump's recent retreat on Greenland is interesting in that it was the jittery bond market and his own lacklustre poll ratings that pushed him back from executing the most banal piece of U.S. foreign policy in a century by any sitting president. The Europeans liked to believe it was their stand against him - with several countries sending troop contingents to show the one thing he could not have imagined: that while Trump may be happy to destroy NATO for his own political gain, no one imagined EU countries would do the same to take a stand against the crazy Donald.
So, backing himself into a corner and then using the smoke and mirrors of the Davos press pack to neatly extract himself from what would have been a disastrous move - alienating himself further from world leaders - could be described as an act of genius. He dodged a bullet from his own gun.
But Iran is different.
With two U.S. aircraft carriers now heading toward the Persian Gulf (or at least in that general direction), few, if any, know what Trump's next move will be - for the simple reason that even Trump himself is clueless. Seasoned commentators like Alastair Crooke rightly point out that Trump is looking for a neat, quick strike he can chalk up as a victory, but realistically this will be hard. Tehran has already stated that any attack will result in all-out war. No more measured responses.
With the midterms not far off, the last thing Trump needs now is a war in the Middle East with U.S. body bags arriving home. That would almost certainly push voters to oust his party from both houses, opening the door to court cases against him. This latter prospect might not irk him much, but it's worth noting.
The real issue is: how does he wriggle out of a massive standoff with the Iranians and pull off the bluff that he threw his weight around, threatened Tehran's leaders, and they buckled ? The answer is with an awful lot of fake news, which the Western media will obligingly provide. When the "armada" gets close to the Persian Gulf, our TV screens will be filled with images of fighter jets tearing down runways before launching into the skies, accompanied no doubt by CIA/Mossad video clips portraying Iran on the brink of collapse and the regime crumbling.
There will probably be hardly anything that is, in fact, true. Trump is heading toward Iran with the U.S. military and is going to pull off a coup de grâce of fake news. While it's true that much of Mossad's skulduggery in Iran has been exposed - protesters captured with all their Starlink devices now in the hands of the authorities - there is still some political bandwidth left for Trump inside Iran. Iranians are only too aware they are in a balancing act: trying to avoid supporting Israel and the U.S. by calling for change, while also wanting new leadership that can still keep those enemies far from its shores.
The left-wing commentator and economist Yanis Varoufakis recently wrote: "...the more educated and/or thoughtful were fearful of what is to happen. Of civil war, of a massive destabilization that would bode ill for the basic security of society. Literally no one I talked to defended the regime. But they feared, in the current domestic context of a lack of viable opposition and the international context of nefarious foreign forces, that there was little hope of a peaceful transition to a better government. I share this fear. Things could get much worse and many are just too knee-jerk against the regime to see the real dangers and limitations of this moment."
Trump may well be pulling off a massive bluff by moving the carriers closer. He is fond of, as SAS soldiers say, "putting your cock on the table," but it is unlikely he will engage with Iran. As more time passes, it becomes clearer that the June 12 campaign was an even bigger failure for both Israel and the U.S. than previously believed. The bombs dropped on Iran's underground nuclear plants were not even the so-called "bunker busters" and could not penetrate the caves where material was stored - material that had been moved out days earlier in any case.
The oddest thing about the bombing was that Trump knew it would have no consequential military significance whatsoever, which is why it was a perfect move for him. He is a man who likes to avoid fights and, like his father - who dodged the draft - makes his disgusting comments about British soldiers not doing frontline fighting in Afghanistan particularly vile. In his first term, the Iranians shot down a U.S. drone, and for a few brief moments he wanted to strike a military location. But when Pentagon chiefs told him the consequences, he quickly backed down.
Trump is quite possibly mad - and for the first time, European leaders are speaking in such terms. But he is not stupid and will not do anything to provoke Iran into striking Israel and the GCC countries, not to mention blocking the Strait of Hormuz for months. The latter stunt would impact oil prices so severely it could shake the bond markets even further - a scenario he can't risk. The U.S. and Israel have already suffered a major loss in Iran; their network of agents has been blown. Sending the carriers is largely a stunt to save face and possibly even trick Netanyahu into believing America stands with him and his lunatic idea of hitting Iran. But in reality, Trump is not prepared for even one single body bag.
And the Iranians know it.