For his speech to the nation, which some imagined would announce the end of the war or the commitment of ground troops, Donald Trump predicted to hit Iran hard for more “two to three weeks”. “We’re going to send them back to the Stone Age”promised the president. And as if to carry out its threat, the United States immediately bombed a civilian objective, in this case a bridge, the longest and highest in Iran, in a suburb of Tehran. Apart from the fact that this could lead to an Iranian response to works of the same type in the Gulf countries, this escalation comes at a time when the war has taken a worrying turn.
The Iranian response to the joint attack by the Americans and Israelis on February 28 has continued to surprise observers. No one expected Iran to have this level of military capability or strategic audacity. Although we have just passed the first month of war, Tehran is still challenging America and Israel. Trump may repeat that his opponent is destroyed, that the Iranians are begging him to find a way out, but every day that passes demonstrates the opposite. Because Iran is unlike any adversary that the United States and Israel have had to fight until now. Whether it is the Taliban, Al-Qaeda or Daesh for Washington, Hamas or Hezbollah for Tel Aviv, these asymmetrical wars have always proceeded from a principle of attrition of the strong by the weak.
During Iraq or Afghanistan, the offensives in South Lebanon or Palestine, the strong acted, endowed with infinitely superior technological power, the weak having to be content with guerrilla actions: ambushes, suicide attacks, mines under the roads, while enjoying the old Maoist principle of the fighter who evolves among the population like a fish in water. What the West took a while to realize was that by dying at the hands of soldiers equipped with the latest equipment, the weak had ended up obtaining it too. However, even if the enemy has caught up, it will still lack aviation, satellites and cyber detection means. However, this is not the case with Iran, which shows itself capable of responding tit for tat. Tehran first highlights its expertise in ballistics and in the field of drones, coupled with the intelligence provided by the Russians and the Chinese.
Touching the dollar means attacking the basis of American power
Next, Iran is methodically following a plan to attack Arab Gulf countries, the global consequences of which greatly embarrass the United States. If they had, after a few days, achieved the collapse of the Iranian regime, Trump would have consolidated the United States’ place as the world’s policeman. As the war has entered its fifth week, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has cooled the markets, causing cascading crises of which neither the scale nor the end can be imagined to this day. The simple fact that the Revolutionary Guards are today imposing a tax of 2 million dollars on the passage of tankers across the strait, payable in yuan, is an unprecedented affront to the omnipotence of the dollar. But touching the dollar is attacking the basis of American power. Trump is well aware of this. Destroying the petromonarchies as Iran is doing goes in the same direction. Wasn’t Washington supposed to protect them? Were Doha, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Manama and Muscat not paying enough for this?
Since Donald Trump often acts as a sheriff, which fits very well with the culture of his voters – less so with that of the rest of the world – it is not inconsiderate to borrow the metaphor of the cavalry from the history of the Wild West. This means that when the Indian revolts, kills and pillages the pioneer and his family, the cavalry generally arrives at the end to put the Indian to flight and restore order and morality. But facing Iran, there are serious doubts about the effectiveness of the Marines and the 82nd Airborne Division, whose deployment is announced with fanfare. The dismissal of the Chief of Staff of the Army, General Randy George, by the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, is blatant proof of the uncertainty with strong catastrophic potential which surrounds the continuation of this conflict. Randy George is indeed an exemplary senior officer, appreciated by those who served under his command in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who will undoubtedly have wanted to prevent his men, by airing his objections, from being engaged in a hazardous and politically motivated ground operation. Eleven other generals were also dismissed.
Putin and Xi Jinping on the lookout
Because this is where the asymmetry of the conflict works in Iran’s favor. The stopwatch has become an advantageous variable for the weakest. Putin and Xi Jinping are watching the affair unfold like long-time veterans. They know that Trump is impatient and that when faced with an adversary like Iran, you have to know how to think before acting. For these two powers, as for the other players in the BRICS world, the Iran war risks weakening the American position, especially if the conflict were to turn into a quagmire, a constant in American wars since the end of the Second World War. For Europe, regularly humiliated by Trump, perhaps this is the time to stop considering Uncle Sam as its big brother, to live its adult life seeking its interests and those of the countries that make it up. The old crocodile of American diplomacy, Henry Kissinger, had nevertheless warned her: “Being an enemy of the United States is dangerous, but being its friend is fatal. »
But the most worrying thing about what is happening before our eyes is that the Iranian missiles may have been designed using Chinese technology and may be guided by Russian intelligence, to extents that the West had probably not imagined. Last Sunday, an Awacs plane was destroyed in Saudi Arabia. Its price: 700 million dollars. A centerpiece of the battlefield, a veritable control tower of the sky for fighters and bombers. The previous week, the Iranians had targeted the town of Dimona, where the Israeli nuclear research center is located.
There is also the tactical advantage that the Shahed drone gives the Iranians in that it costs virtually nothing and requires expensive interception systems. However, this drone arrived on the Ukrainian battlefield in November 2022. How could we not have thought that Iran would in turn use it in 2026 if it were attacked? How could we not have seen that Iran would attack American bases in the region, and by extension to the economies of the countries which host them? Trump admitted to being surprised. But Iran had constantly said that it would do so. And how could we have imagined that China would sit idly by, which sucks up 80% of Iranian oil? As for Russia, why be offended that it provides Tehran with intelligence when the United States has been doing the same thing with the Ukrainians for four years?
Globalization of conflict
From a conflict started by Trump under pressure from Netanyahu to put an end to Iranian nuclear ambitions, we are leading to a war in eleven countries, which weighs on the world economy, potentially causing the closure of two important maritime routes: Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab which, remember, means in Arabic “the gate of lamentation”… The obvious interference of the Chinese and Russians almost makes the scene resemble a third world war, where Ukraine and Iran come together. Certainly, Trump and Putin did not come to blows. The intelligence sharing argument seems accepted on both sides as being “good war”. In addition, Putin benefits from the consequences of the Iranian conflict on oil prices, and China can test its “new toys”. In passing, the Russians took the opportunity to supply oil to the old Cuban ally in bad shape; and Trump lets it happen. But all this leaves no one safe from a hiccup, a grain of sand in the wheels or a surge of emotion from Trump or Hegseth, at the risk of finding themselves, as in 1962, on the verge of a nuclear conflict. All we have left to do, alas, is to pray that it does not come to this.
