5 hours ago
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Donald Trump would like you to know that he is winning the war with Iran. So comprehensively, in fact, that he now needs Nato’s help. The western alliance, he warns, will have a “very bad” future if its members refuse. Germany’s defence minister had a brisk reply: this is not our war. Meanwhile, tankers pile up outside the strait of Hormuz as Britain promises, in an understated way, to keep “looking” at its options. Mr Trump has found out that starting a war without a coalition of the willing is easier than finishing one with it.
Along with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, the US president started with an illegal attack on Iran in which the country’s supreme leader was assassinated. American forces have established overwhelming military superiority. By hitting military targets but sparing key oil facilities on Kharg Island, Mr Trump is sending a blunt signal: the US can wreck Iran’s economy. It just hasn’t decided to – yet.
He is signalling that things will get worse unless Tehran negotiates. Bad things have already happened. On the charge sheet is the sinking of an Iranian frigate in international waters and the bombing of a school that reportedly killed 168 people, mostly young girls. No wonder allies balk at fighting what the Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth, proudly calls a politically incorrect war.
Iran knows that it cannot beat the US in a conventional war. Its strategy is to make the war impossible to sustain. So it widens the war – attacking US military bases in the Gulf, choking off Hormuz tanker traffic and sending shockwaves through energy markets. In a strait that carries about 20% of global oil trade, even a handful of mines can shut it down. The fallout turns a military contest into a political one. The strategy is to stretch the war until US alliances crack.
Mr Trump’s argument is that countries that depend on Gulf oil should help secure the strait. But many are cautious – and for good reason. Naval escorts would come under fire from Iran’s drones, missiles and swift boats, as well as having to navigate mines. Participating navies would find themselves in an illegal war. The US could attempt to secure shipping through the strait alone, but doing so without its traditional allies would expose Washington’s isolation. Europeans also have to weigh domestic reaction – a dilemma shared by Gulf nations caught between US alliances and public sentiment.
This is further complicated by Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, which has displaced nearly a million people as it tries to finish off Iran’s proxy Hezbollah. Once wars spread across several fronts, no one controls escalation. And then there are the Houthis. If Tehran’s Yemeni allies join the fight, the conflict rages from Lebanon to the Gulf to the Red Sea. Each new theatre of war adds grievances and risks.
The dynamic is not unfamiliar. The war appears to be following the historian Robert Pape’s “escalation trap”. The stronger power wins the opening exchange. The real struggle shifts elsewhere – to oil markets, shipping lanes, alliances and domestic politics. The United States could make Iran suffer far more. But doing so risks widening the political and economic fallout that Tehran is trying to create. Mr Trump’s demand that allies reopen the strait of Hormuz does not signal military weakness. It shows the war has moved to a battlefield where military strength matters less.
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