The Iran war ceasefire is as fragile as a spring snowflake. Circumstances may have changed substantially by the time you read this. Yet some observations will likely survive.
Most immediately, everything is conditional. Asking what happens next can only receive a response of, “It depends.”
For example, Hezbollah, one of Iran’s wilting proxies, attacked Israel. Israel is responding. How does Iran respond to Israel’s response? The war –and the ceasefire — has been between the Iranians on one side and the United States plus Israel on the other.
In Iran’s view, does fighting between Israel and Hezbollah violate the ceasefire enough to cancel it?
All sides need the ceasefire to hold. From President Donald Trump’s perspective, he saw an Iran bent on someday threatening the United States with nuclear-tipped long-range ballistic missiles. Would that someday come soon or next year or the year after? Whatever the answer, the result would be intolerable.
Iran was already badly weakened, so circumstances were ripe for decisive action, and Trump took it. From the start of the war to Monday’s ceasefire, American forces blew up everything worth destroying. Airfields. Missile storage sites. The Iranian Navy. Anything associated with Iran’s nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs. Anything relevant to Iran’s military-industrial complex.
Meanwhile, Israel took on the mission of killing off Iran’s political and military leadership. In this, Israel was incredibly thorough. Yet Iran responded the way a sports team responds when a starter goes down. “Next man up.”
Trump said the purpose of Operation Epic Fury was to destroy Iran’s ability to strike at the American homeland while dramatically curtailing its ability to export terrorism. Explicit regime change was a hope but never a goal. If, somehow, the regime fell under the awesome barrage of bombs and missiles, so much the better, but it hasn’t happened.
At this point, the legitimate military targets appropriate to Epic Fury’s purpose are few. This is why Trump threatened to escalate, extending the attacks to civilian targets like bridges and powerplants and more. He threatened to destroy the Iranian civilization if the regime didn’t come to heel.
To do so would have been a terrible mistake. Thus far, America and Israel waged war against the military might and political structure of a vile regime hated by most of its own people. Trump threatened to turn the war into one against the long-suffering Iranian people. It was almost certainly a negotiating tactic, a bluff. But, with Trump, who could be certain? Unpredictability is fundamental to the Trump approach to all negotiations.
Having achieved his military goals, Trump knew it was time to stop. He could have just announced, “We’re done here,” and left it at that, but he wanted a ceasefire, probably to accelerate the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. To get the ceasefire, he needed a maximalist threat to make it look like the Iranians bent to his will, at least a little.
For their part, the Iranian regime felt little urgency, even in the face of Trump’s threats. To the regime’s remnants, as long as some in the political class still live and as long as they remain in control, the scores of American aircraft combing their skies notwithstanding, then they’re winning. Whatever America can blow up, the Iranians can rebuild. To the regime, a setback, no matter how grave, is not a defeat, and absent defeat, victory is assured. Religious zealots are like that.
The regime would still prefer to limit the extent of the setback, but they had to negotiate without an undue loss of face. This, they apparently achieved, their bravado apparently sufficiently self-convincing, and so the ceasefire was struck.
Someday, perhaps today, this phase of the war will be over. In all likelihood, the Iranians will make certain commitments and promises. History shows they will mean not a one of them. They will follow through on none of them. To a regime willing to use women and children as human shields to guard powerplants against missiles, lying to infidels causes no heartburn.
Ultimately, it doesn’t much matter. Three things ultimately matter going forward. First, even if the regime survives, it and its nuclear program will take many, many years to recover.
Second, the Strait of Hormuz needs to remain open to normal commercial traffic.
Third is the essential sequence. War starts. War stops. The regime is badly weakened. If mortally, then the Iranian people rise up and reclaim their country from the evil lunatics who ruled these past decades.
At the outset, most understood victory depended on the Iranian people retaking control of their country. It still does, whether the current ceasefire holds or not.
J.D. Foster is the former chief economist at the Office of Management and Budget and former chief economist and senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He now resides in relative freedom in the hills of Idaho.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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