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The writer is author of ‘Black Wave’ and an FT contributing editor
In the late 1950s, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser quipped to CIA operative Miles Copeland that “the genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves”.
The words were spoken at a time when America was still seen as somewhat more benevolent than former European colonial powers. This political capital would soon be squandered as the US, fearing the spread of communism, sought to contain local nationalism in the Middle East but ended up pushing some countries closer to the Soviet Union. America’s stupid moves, Nasser said, made people “wonder at the possibility that we might be missing something”.
When the US and Israel killed Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei on February 28, many in the region pondered the possibility of a new grand plan. Gulf countries had warned Washington against the war, cautioning it would endanger them and in effect close the Strait of Hormuz, with severe consequences for both the US and the global economy. As far back as the 1990s, Saudi Arabia had warned the US against launching a war against Iran, unless it could guarantee bringing down the Islamic republic’s regime.
But when operation Epic Fury began, one senior Arab official told me there was certainly work happening to precipitate regime change behind the firework of missile strikes, although he could not estimate how well organised or resourced it was. Instead, America’s allies in the Gulf were left exposed to Iran’s fury and the US’s ineptitude. Some Iranians, both inside the country and in the diaspora, wanted to believe that US President Donald Trump was delivering on his January promise that help was on the way, only to realise quickly that they had been betrayed.
Supporters of the war will argue that the military campaign itself was well executed and that the US and Israeli forces delivered maximum degradation of Iranian capacity short of a ground invasion, preparing the way for robust diplomacy. But last month the US signed a memorandum of understanding with extremely favourable terms for Iran. Gulf countries, having been dragged into a war they didn’t want, were left to contain the fallout of a bad interim deal that ignored their security concerns, including ballistic missiles and proxy militias.
Since then, the Gulf has been hedging intensely to make up for the lack of strategic planning. In the case of Saudi Arabia, this means preserving their relationship with Trump while constraining some of Washington’s freedom of military action. Both the Emiratis and Saudis are attempting a détente with Iran while the UAE is also deepening security co-operation with Israel.
Meanwhile, US vice-president JD Vance and secretary of state Marco Rubio appear to have started their rival presidential campaigns, each selling a different vision of the region and the way forward. Vance described his talks with senior Iranian officials, including Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers, as the “coolest thing”, while Rubio travelled to the Gulf last month to reassure allies that America was not capitulating to Iran or selling them out.
Less than a month after the MoU was signed, a victorious-feeling Iran seems to be over-reaching, partly because it is looking at America’s confused moves and wondering what it may be missing. A hardline Iranian legislator even claimed that America was purposefully manoeuvring parallel tracks to deprive Iran of any leverage.
On Wednesday, Trump was calling Iranian leaders “sick people” after Iran struck ships transiting through the Strait of Hormuz. The US Treasury revoked sanction waivers that allowed Iran to sell oil for 60 days and the US military conducted 90 strikes against Iran, which included hitting a bridge and rail track in the north of the country, an overland route used for trade with China and Russia.
Trump has now declared the ceasefire to be over and Gulf countries are again incensed at Iran. There may well be more talks but there will also be more strikes. That suits Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the only player here with clear-cut moves, for whom war is an imperative for political survival and who is still hoping that the endurance of the Iranian regime is not inexhaustible.
Few in Washington, Tehran or the Arab world want a return to full-blown war. But the region seems set for a long hot summer of calibrated escalation, a slippery slope to conflagration, until Israeli elections in October and the American midterms in November.
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