U.S. President Donald Trump has no solution for the chokehold that Iran is putting on global markets and if he escalates the war further, he would make the problem even worse, says Vali Nasr, professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and a former U.S. State Department Adviser. In an interview with The Hindu, Mr. Nasr says Iran might be open for a deal on its nuclear programme but not on its missiles or its control over the Strait of Hormuz. Once the war is over, Persian Gulf countries will have to reassess their security relations with the U.S., he added. Edited excerpts.
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Mr. Trump has made several contradictory statements in recent weeks. He claimed that he had destroyed Iran’s military capabilities; he sought help to reopen Strait of Hormuz; then he said he did not need help; and now he says he doesn’t bother about the Strait. How do you make sense of Mr. Trump’s approach?
The way I look at it is that he’s at a he’s at a strategic dead end. He’s like a chess player who has been checked and has very few moves in front of him. I mean the Iranian ability to close the Strait of Hormuz, to put pressure on global energy markets, to put pressure on global trade, took the United States by surprise. It was unprepared for it and has no solution to it. And yes, the United States can escalate by either bombing Iran’s infrastructure or try to invade an island and capture an island. But it cannot prevent Iran from escalating further in the Persian Gulf. Iran could hit energy infrastructure, it could attack more targets in in Gulf countries, and that would even increase the pressure on on the global economy. And even if Mr. Trump was to attack an Iranian island, it would only prolong the war. Iran would retaliate. The energy prices would go even further. And perhaps it would become even more difficult to get the global economy back to normal. So in a way, he started a war anticipating that it would be quick. There would be a quick victory. Either the Islamic Republic would fall or that the Islamic Republic post-Khamenei would be something like Venezuela. New leadership would come to terms with America. He had not anticipated this war, and right now he has no solution for the chokehold that Iran is putting on global markets. So he can escalate at a great risk or sit down and negotiate with Iran, which is not going to be easy, or he can just abandon the war, which still does not relieve pressure on the global markets.
