In Iran, the U.S. Appears Headed for a Strategic Defeat, Allies Fear
With none of President Trump’s aims accomplished and the Strait of Hormuz closed, U.S. allies see dysfunction and vulnerability from the war.
To America’s allies, President Trump’s war in Iran, now in its sixth month, seems headed for a strategic defeat.
They worry that the inability of the United States to turn military superiority into a sustainably changed Iran has displayed a vulnerability that Russia and China will welcome. In addition, Mr. Trump’s goals remain unmet, and the U.S. military is running short on key armaments that it needs for global reach.
For the moment, Iran is seemingly resolute under a more radical government, its nuclear and ballistic missile programs are degraded but not destroyed, and the Strait of Hormuz is effectively under its control. The war has left both the United States and Israel in weaker positions — and blaming each other for the mess.
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With Mr. Trump’s aims shifting, Washington is losing credibility both militarily and diplomatically, analysts said. Its conduct in the war underscores the impression that the United States is an unpredictable instrument of global disorder, they said.
The war may evolve, but so far the result has been “a strategic loss and an embarrassment,” said Robin Niblett, a former director of Chatham House, a think tank in London. “For U.S. allies and those who rely on the U.S. for security, this is confirmation that you can’t trust the United States.”
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European allies remember Mr. Trump’s vow to seize Greenland from a NATO ally and his threats to leave the alliance unless other allies met his spending goals. Middle Eastern allies see their own security undermined by this war, even if they are too committed to Washington to abandon partnerships with the United States. But they are already hedging, looking for repaired ties with Iran and better relations with Europe, China and Russia, said Ali Vaez, the Iran project director for the International Crisis Group.
...“Now America has confirmed itself as a force of disorder and everyone is drawing lessons from it, and trying to be less dependent,” he said. “No one wants to be subject to a whipsaw foreign policy that doesn’t know its limits, and that is a strategic defeat.”
“The Saudis do a nuclear deal with Trump that he walks back in 24 hours,” Mr. Vaez said. “This is the crisis of credibility of the U.S. Neither its military prowess nor its diplomatic promises can be trusted.”
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...Washington finding a sufficient reason to cut its losses and go home.
...the conflict “has undermined U.S. deterrence and credibility, antagonized America’s allies and delighted its adversaries,” said Aaron David Miller, a former American negotiator and now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “And if the Strait of Hormuz falls under Iran’s leverage and control, it will constitute nothing less than a strategic defeat.”
A severe shortage in crucial air-defense munitions like Patriot missiles is having a secondary effect in Ukraine and showing Russia and China — as well as NATO — that the United States will be less capable for years at least to both resupply its allies and fight a lengthy war.
The war has also badly damaged the vital alliance between the United States and Israel, said François Heisbourg, a French security analyst.
...Netanyahoo...overly optimistic while convincing Mr. Trump that the war would be quick and decisive.
Added to already negative views of Israel and Jews more generally stemming from the long conflict with Hamas in Gaza, which some call genocide, this war has increased antisemitism in the United States and beyond, some polls show.
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“This may be the end of the law of the sea as we’ve known it,” said Mr. Heisbourg. Freedom of the seas has been an American vital interest from its founding...
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“Iranian leaders have become intensely pessimistic about what diplomacy with the Trump administration can achieve,” he said. He noted that many of them view Mr. Trump as erratic and have a hard time seeing how they could reach a deal with the United States when it has undercut its own allies.--Esfandyar Batmanghelidj of the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, a research institution focused on economic diplomacy.
Washington has started a war it does not seem to know how to win or end, while Iran is mistrustful that any deal reached will be implemented. The coming weeks are likely to see a continuing cycle of ad hoc truces and escalation, Mr. Vaez said, a new form of forever war.
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Mr. and Ms. Toilet Nation got exactly what they voted for and are being flushed into the sewer where wretched refuse goes.