Kamikaze from Mar-a-Lago: Despite all the death and destruction, it's Advantage Iran

The theme of Trump's update on the war: Mission Not Quite Complete. The US-Israel military campaign against Iran will go on for another 2-3 weeks, and possibly escalate. He threatened to hit Iran 'extremely hard', including its power plants and oil fields, if a deal to end the war remained elusive.

Trump announced no new policy on mediation, no vision for what the day after might look like. He rehashed his Truth Social posts, including the challenge to European and Asian allies to force open the Strait of Hormuz and get their own oil.

The speech was a victory lap, but also a declaration to escalate, since Iran's ability to strike back remains potent and its uranium stocks remain hidden. US deployment of thousands of Marines, Navy SEALS, and paratroopers to the area doesn't signal an early end to the deadly and costly 'excursion'.


Meanwhile, the two masters of war, one who flails at Nato one day and asks China for help the next to free Hormuz, and another, whose blood-curdling declarations of 'no quarter, no mercy for our enemies' in the name of Jesus Christ even forced the pope to intervene, will continue to improvise as they go along.

Bottomline: They broke it, but you own it. The world has been forced to 'own' this war of choice in a reverse of the so-called 'Pottery Barn' rule (You break it, you own it). Former US secretary of state Colin Powell used it to warn George W Bush about the dangers of invading Iraq. Bush did it anyway under Dick Cheney's dark gaze. After Iraq's descent into chaos, 3 lakh Iraqi and 4,400 American deaths, prolonged instability, and birth of Islamic State (IS) and assorted terrorist groups, cheerleading neocons finally admitted the war was a strategic disaster for the US and the world.

The Iran war could be bigger. US generals in the past have shot down political fantasies of invading Iran to punish its hardline theocratic government for 47 yrs of sins. Sensible White House advisers did the same even at the peak of the US' unipolar moment in the 1990s. Attacking Iran was like playing with fire. Tehran had the capacity to set the region alight and squeeze the global economy. Now even more so after years of preparation and Chinese help.

Trump is finding out the hard way, as is Pete Hegseth, his secretary of war and hardcore Christian nationalist. Hegseth says this is jihad. No strategy can come in the way of 'Deus Vult', an 11th-c. Crusader slogan in Latin tattooed on his arm. It means 'God wills it'. Check your expertise at the door before you join his monthly prayer at the Pentagon and vow to 'break the teeth of the ungodly'. Hegseth can battle Iran's mullahs in the religious pit. And, yes, the line between church and state is officially blurred, if not erased.

Despite the 'death and destruction' US machines unleashed, it's Advantage Iran. The hardline leaders - those who survive - have 'won' Hormuz, world public opinion, and may be more of their people at home, if not abroad. They have extracted more than their pound of flesh even as Iran's industrial base, schools, labs, hospitals, residential buildings and universities are under attack.

Most US bases in the Gulf are unusable, logistics hubs are damaged, and staging areas in Bahrain and Kuwait are disrupted, to say nothing of billions of dollars of expensive planes, radars and drones destroyed. Iran's nuclear programme hasn't been eliminated.

And Pakistan is having its moment in the sun, trying to talk to Iran's leaders with American and Chinese blessings. Two patron saints and the luck of geography have given Asim Munir an opportunity to play in the big league. Whether Pakistan can deliver is a big unknown. A joint proposal has been sent to the bunkers in Tehran, and the early response was negative. Language of threats and deadlines was declared unacceptable by the battered.

Iran's president Masoud Pezeshkian's direct appeal to the American people to look beyond 'the machinery of misinformation' and see the true picture was interesting, and civilised. He asked them to recognise how the US was 'influenced and manipulated' by Israel. It's a careful and selective pitch, where no responsibility rests with Tehran's ayatollahs for fanning extremism or sanctioning terror attacks.

Is there a middle between the maximalist aims of Trump and Netanyahu and Iran's Hormuz swagger? All said, Hormuz is vital leverage for Tehran, and an attractive revenue stream on a platter. Today, Iran technically controls more of the world's oil (20%) than Russia produces (11%), to say nothing of other commodities that sail through the strait.

Robert Pape, a University of Chicago professor and military specialist, projects that Iran could emerge as a new global centre of power over time and 'dwarf Israel' because of the strategic consequences of this war. To expect Iran to just give up that power is unrealistic. Pape also says the US is caught in an 'escalation trap', where early success creates the illusion of control (US and Israeli air dominance), the other side retaliates (Iran taking the war to GCC countries), pressure builds to expand (US sends more troops), and soon the two sides are in a wider war.

P.S. We are in Week 5 of the war.