Trump’s options on the Persian Gulf
How we got here
President Trump claimed full sovereignty over the Persian Gulf early in this war – but left it at talk. Iran responded by claiming sovereignty over the Gulf too – and proceeded to take military steps to enforce its claim on the ground. Iran is now acting to set up its institutionalized controls in the Gulf and to extend its territorial claim still further afield.
It has proved an “own goal” for the USA.
Making an unenforced territorial claim usually in fact means scoring an own goal. While we daydream about taking the territory, our verbal threats mobilize our enemies to secure the territory against us.
The President could have been more successful had he proceeded in the opposite sequence: First take the Strait. Then claim it as America’s.
The pundits are crowing
The pundits are urging Trump to yield to most of Iran’s demands in order to get out of the Strait crisis. If he does, the war will be a defeat for America of disastrous proportions. The same pundits will turn around and use the defeat to hang Trump politically in November.
However, Trump may still fool the pundits and take the Strait militarily. It will be more costly than if he had done it at the start, before talking about it; but it will be far less costly than another bad deal. And it will work better politically for him.
Trump’s four remaining options on the Persian Gulf
- Reopen just the Gulf with our air and sea power. Try to provide some security for ships there, difficult though that may be without taking the shoreline.
- Take over also the Gulf’s Iranian shoreline and islands. Set up air defenses there. This will provide much better security against drone attacks in the Gulf.
- Take over also the mountainous zone next to the shoreline, where most of Iran’s oil and gas are located – and the people are Arabs.
This requires, to be sure, more ground forces; some might come from Arab states. In return it provides greater security for the Gulf and its shoreline – and a big economic gain for ourselves as well as for the world.
- Do what it takes to achieve a full regime change in Iran.
This would have the highest initial cost. It would also have the greatest benefits – a truly friendly Iran; one secured for the long run by the support of 80 per cent of the Iranian people, not needing to be held forever by our own forces; and full security for the Gulf.
Options 3 and 4 would justify this war for America. They are also the only way to secure success for the GOP in the elections in November; and while that should not, as Trump says, be the issue here; the media and their politicians have been making it the issue. Many of them have been openly salivating at the expectation of Trump and America being humiliated by Iran. He can save himself politically only by proving them wrong.
