"It's hard to look for answers to meaningful questions when the man who decides everything is a madman" - with those words, British journalist James O'Brien commented on the (latest) sudden turn in Donald Trump's policy towards the war in Iran and succinctly summed up the mood of everyone who has been confused by the activities and statements of the American president in the last month.
The reaction of this liberal critic of the belligerent policy of the US towards Iran, as well as blindly serving the interests of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, followed after Trump - literally half a day after giving Tehran an ultimatum to unblock the key Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours or face the destruction of the power plants - triumphantly declared that the attacks would be suspended for five days in order to reach an agreement with the Iranian leadership.
Due to the mutually contradictory and often confusing statements of Trump, any meaningful analysis has become impossible, so predictions based on facts have as much chance of success as looking at the beans.
As a reminder, the American president first said that the USA was not at war, but then added that they had already won the war. He then said that America has so much military power that it does not need anyone from outside, but after that he threatened that all allies who do not send help will be punished. Then he said that the attacks would continue as long as Iran possessed the capability to produce a nuclear bomb, although after the bombing nine months ago he claimed that Iran no longer possessed that capability. In the end, he threatened to attack Iran's power plants if Iran did not unblock the strait for the passage of oil, but in a characteristic twist he said that he would still give priority to negotiations.
photo: ap photoSmoke behind the Azadi Tower
Trump added that the US is talking to a "respected Iranian leader" and that the US envoys, Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, spoke with that person on Sunday, and that it is not the new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei.
In Tehran, state media reported that Iran's Foreign Ministry denied that there had been any talks, saying that Trump's statements were "part of an effort to lower energy prices and buy time to implement his military plans."
The world public at this point has no way of knowing whether negotiations are actually taking place. The media suspects the involvement of Turkey and Egypt, whose officials are believed to be talking to the warring parties with the aim of calming the situation, overcoming the oil supply problem and preventing escalations that would have long-term devastating effects on the entire region.
And that there is a huge potential for exactly that to happen - there should be no doubt. At the time of writing, an expeditionary group of American marines of the rank of a reinforced regiment is sailing towards the Strait of Hormuz with the aim of unblocking this strategically important route for oil supply and ensuring the passage of tankers carrying more than 20 percent of the total oil for the entire world.
Their task is to unblock the strait, but if it happens, as the media predicts, that the marines land and occupy the islet of Karg, where the main Iranian oil terminal is located, it will open a new phase in the war. A possible invasion of Iranian soil, even if it was a small island a few tens of kilometers from the coast, would have unfathomable consequences and prolong the war indefinitely.
The assumption is that America would have the forces to carry it out, and since the Marines would be within range of conventional artillery, the occupation of the island would be a reason for constant clashes with Iranian forces on the coast. Drones are already a given.
Once it gets to that island by fighting, America will not be able to go back - this is what the arrogance of the power of a great power combined with the stubbornness of its president dictates. With no control over airspace, Iran might not have the strength to eject the US military, but it is unrealistic to expect it to ever give up combat harassment of its position, even with drones.
It is unnecessary to waste words on how such a situation would affect the international oil trade. There are currently around 1500 tankers waiting to pass through the strait, and it will take more than three months to clear the congestion.
DANGER OF "UKRAINIZATIONS"
On one side is a nuclear power that, based on faulty intelligence assessments, hastily launched a war that it believed it would win quickly and for which it had no back-up plan. On the other side is the opponent - objectively weaker, but not so weak that one can count on a quick surrender, and whoever comes would not give up the idea of taking revenge for the loss of territory. Sound familiar?
If the description of the situation reminded you of the Russian invasion of Ukraine four years ago - great. There are many more parallels and similarities between the war in the east of that country and the current crisis in the Persian Gulf than one might think.
At first glance, the two conflicts could not be more different. The Ukrainian war is being fought on land and according to the principle of the First World War, in which every meter of conquered land has a price in human lives and destroyed technology. Iran's war is not fought on the ground, but with missiles, bombs and drones sent from vast distances by operators who are mostly blind to their victims.
However, this is where the differences end and numerous similarities begin. The main similarity relates to the mistaken security assessment (first by Russia, now by America) that a sudden and terrifying attack on the enemy, with the help of great technical superiority, will break the will to resist, and will lead to the political change that was actually the goal of the war. Russia tried to cover it up with stories about the denazification of Ukraine, while the US did not even hide that their goal was to replace the regime of the Iranian mullahs.
When that did not happen, and when the population did not accept the propaganda message that the bombs falling on his head were for his own good, the question remained of how to proceed. Since there was no meaningful strategy for the day after, both sides opted for naked and indiscriminate force, with which they tried to fill the big holes in the war plans.
The Russians sent expensive missiles to destroy long-decommissioned Ukrainian planes at abandoned airfields, or simply took turns targeting Ukrainian power plants, especially during cold winter days. I guess they thought that the cold radiators in December and January would de-Nazify the residents of Zhytomyr and Kharkiv faster.
The Americans started to destroy the checkpoints of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard because, I guess, they are important in the process of uranium enrichment. After that - you guessed it - they began threatening to undertake a large-scale aerial campaign to destroy Iran's power generation facilities.
When it became clear that the proclaimed goals would not be achieved, Russia refused to withdraw from the war with dignity, but, guided by the imperial impulse and the idea of strength, stubbornly continued to exchange people for meters of Ukrainian territory that it does not need. Thanks to Trump's capriciousness, even the best connoisseurs of American foreign and security policy cannot predict whether the US will get bogged down in the same way on the aforementioned Iranian island.
GLOBAL CHANGE IN WARFARE
What the current Iranian conflict will be remembered for, regardless of the outcome, is the change in the military paradigm, which will consequently affect the tactics and strategy of future conflicts. That war will lead to the full affirmation of low-cost autonomous combat systems that will be produced in huge series.
After the first Gulf War in the early 1990s, it was believed that the war was won by the side that was technologically superior and that did not even have to think about a land conflict - it could solve everything from a distance, with precise strikes on the enemy's communication, observation and command systems.
The Ukrainian conflict ushered in drones as a combat tool that, combined with conventional means, led to hundreds and thousands of destroyed tanks, armored personnel carriers and artillery across the Ukrainian steppe.
The conflict in Iran has shown that a weaker side can stay on its feet even under strong blows if it has a mass of cheap, reliable and relatively accurate and deadly combat systems. One of them is the suicide drone "Shahed 136" (in the Russian designation "geranj 2"), which, using its piston engine, can carry a 50-kilogram warhead to targets several hundred or even thousands of kilometers away.
Given the low production costs and short manufacturing time, the use of these tools once again showed that quantity gives a certain quality and the possibility of retaliation, which gives a chance to countries with low economic and military potential.
The discrepancy between the cost of the means with which Iran attacks American and Israeli targets and the means with which they are defended is particularly obvious. At the Shahed 136, the price of which is about 30.000 dollars, several Patriot missiles are fired, the price of which is a million dollars. There is a similar difference when it comes to ballistic and other missiles that Iran uses to attack neighboring countries.
According to data from the American Institute for the Study of Foreign Policy, in the first four days of the war in Iran, American units fired 325 missiles of the "patriot" type, while the other allies from the Gulf acted together with 618 missiles of this type. The total annual production of "patriot" rockets last year was about 550 pieces, and there is an ambitious plan to increase the total production to 2500 pieces by 2028.
The consumption of some ordnance by the US forces in just 96 hours reached a critical level, more than 30 percent of the total supplies for the HIMARS self-propelled missile system were consumed, while in the same period 32 percent of all supplies of GBU-57 bunker busting bombs were consumed.
The same institute calculated that the cost of the war in the first four days was about $20 billion, which includes the cost of ammunition, three F-15s shot down by friendly fire, several important radars and 11 drones shot down by Iran. The price does not include costs for food, fuel and other maintenance.
The more witty among the users of social networks noticed that both sides have used up the stocks of ammunition from the war reserves and that now it is necessary to come to negotiations because they have nothing to continue the conflict. This is, perhaps, an overly optimistic view, but not because of a lack of weapons, but because of the apparent lack of planning by those who started the war.
When this text hits the newsstands, the reader will already know more about whether Trump's announcement of successful negotiations will have a continuation in the field of diplomacy, or whether the soldiers will continue with what they do best. In either case, we will never know if and when the war will end, or what Plan B might be if the conflict continues. But that shouldn't bother the esteemed reader because Trump doesn't seem to have an answer to that question either.
