The real worry now for Iran, China and the rest of the world is that Trump’s second term in office is more isolationist.
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June 2019 was a critical moment in Donald Trump’s first term as president where, he was told that Iran had shot down a U.S. drone in international waters in the Persian Gulf. It is reported that he instructed the Pentagon to carry out a number of strikes against Iranian military installations but then was told by a general that if he did that, this would invoke a world war and that many U.S. soldiers would die as a consequence. He backed down, after weighing up the consequences and probably considered that the Iranian downing of the U.S. drone was probably within Iran’s airspace after all.
For those who know Trump, this was quite a salient moment. Many would argue that Biden would not have backed down and that a war with Iran – and Iran alone in those days – would have been a huge defeat for the U.S. in that it would not win, thus only suffering from defeats on the battlefield would make it a loser. Was it not Kissinger who said that “The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose.” The quote, of course, is perhaps poorly aligned with the reality of a war between the U.S. and Iran, as the latter can hardly be described as a guerrilla organization, but the point is that America cannot win against Iran simply because of the ratio of body bags and collateral losses of material. Iran can lose 1,000 soldiers verses America’s one, in terms of the negative impact on Trump’s decision to go ahead with the war in the first place. For the U.S. to fight Iran, even with partners, it would need to have only one plan, which would be the entire inhalation of the country and its regime. Given that the U.S. cannot even defeat the Houthis, it’s hard to see how even the most hard-core sycophant in the Pentagon that Trump has, indulging themselves to this level of fantasy.
Has Donald Trump reinvented his own political doctrine in his second term? Given that we are always led to believe that he doesn’t like the distraction of foreign wars, it’s hard to take him seriously with the threats he has made to Iran in recent days. In 2019 Iran’s ballistic missile defence system was considered too sophisticated and impenetrable for a U.S. attack. Six years later it is even greater than it was and Tehran now has both China and Russia as security partners. Add to that, Iran is believed to have purchased Russia’s S-400 air defence system, in exchange for it supplying Russia with ballistic missiles, which presents the possibility of an air strike by either America’s B-52 bombers or even fighter jets as a mission impossible – as they won’t be able to enter Iranian airspace as was the case in October 2024 when Israeli fighter jets attempted a massive attack but failed on a grand scale.
But then while Trump mulls over the idea of what a massive embarrassment such a failed operation would be, both politically at home but also in the region, military experts will no doubt point out that Iran has hypersonic missiles, which are not only impossible to shoot down, due the their speed (which we saw last year when they penetrated Israel’s airspace and struck at a number of military bases), but will be a game changer for the U.S. The ease of how one of those missiles could sink a U.S. aircraft carrier in the region should not be underestimated.
So what is the real story here? Is Trump’s threat that if Iran doesn’t comply with the latest demands over a nuclear deal, a real one? The Iranians themselves don’t seem to be taking the threat seriously but they are taking the negotiations at face value as an opportunity while they now have 60% enriched nuclear grade uranium. And they are right not to.
It’s unlikely Trump is serious about an attack on Iran, as, according to a number of credible sources and despite appearances, he wants Netanyahu to back down from his ambitions of a war with Iran which would involve U.S. troops. In reality, what we see in front of the cameras is a theatre. In reality Trump is unhappy about Netanyahu’s plans and his bigger ruse to draw the U.S. into a war with Iran. The real story here is that Trump does want a better deal from Iran which gives him a longer ‘break out’ period for Iran to develop a nuclear bomb and some sort of curtailment on Iran’s ballistic missile program – his demands back in 2018 when he pulled the U.S. out of the JCPOA deal – but also wants to use the negotiations as a tool to both control Netanyahu and the Jewish lobby in DC. The talks, although in theory have only a one month deadline left to respect, could of course go on for months and perhaps even years, as it is already looking the case with the Ukraine so-called peace deal. Of course, the real threat is miscalculation which is very much a possibility with someone like Trump’s delicate ego, as we have seen with the recent tariff escalation with China – which itself could even provoke Xi to raise the stakes in the Iran escalation. Miscalculation where the Iranians call Trump’s bluff and force him into a confrontational mode where he is blinded by his own rage and maligned dogma for being a buffoon who only thinks through a narcissistic prism of his own image, is a real threat to both the region and America’s economy. A new China Crisis is really the last thing Trump needs right now as he lowers himself into an acid bath of his own making. The real worry now for Iran, China and the rest of the world is that Trump’s second term in office is more isolationist. He doesn’t have the doubting Thomas’s around him warning him of the consequences of some of is foolhardy decision and the foibles that cling to them. While he flips a coin on over simplified half-baked policies like tariffs the Chinese look at a chess board looking at the next moves.
