On TV, General Wesley Clark seemed to perfectly sum up President Trump’s announced agreement with Iran for a two-week ceasefire if that country will open the Strait of Hormuz: “Iran has never lost a negotiation and never won a war.” The point being that, if Iran continues to charge ships to traverse the Strait of Hormuz, then Iran will be the clear winner in its standoff with Trump.
Now, I don’t know if that’s the case – that Iran will charge transit tariffs — but the general has a valid point. For the president’s part, he was clearly facing a roadblock of his own making. His air campaign had leveled most of Iran’s military assets and eliminated several top leaders, but he was in need of an immediate vehicle to end the war.
The world economy, as I noted earlier in an opinion piece, would probably suffer a depression if Trump bombed Iran into the Dark Ages, and if it then continued to block the Strait of Hormuz, inland devastation notwithstanding.
Given that grim scenario, Trump had to reach a deal, even if Iran is going to police the strait and expect payback on vessels traveling off its coast.
“A million here, and a million there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money,” as Senator Everett Dirksen once famously noted about the U.S. budget, except he said billion, not million. This adage applies to Iran and its demand for war reparations. Wanna use the strait? Pay up!
Details on the ceasefire are still emerging, but I honestly believe that Trump’s hands are tied, whereas Iran is playing with house money, so to speak. Iranian leaders are more than willing to sacrifice the country’s infrastructure and use its citizens as human shields, so long as they can remain in power.
And stay they will. We’ll have to see about tolls on the Strait of Hormuz, but one thing you can be sure of. These two weeks aren’t going to end anytime soon. The war is over for Trump, barring some Iranian assault on U.S. forces.
