US President Donald Trump’s cancellation of his own threat to destroy Iranian civilisation by bombing the country ‘back to the stone age’ marks the biggest reverse for imperialism since the US military quit Afghanistan, possibly since the rooftop helicopter evacuation of the US embassy in Saigon in 1975.
The two-week ceasefire may yet break down, but in its current form, it leaves the Iranian government in control of the Strait of Hormuz. Indeed, Iran will continue to charge tolls on ships passing through the waterway.
On any reckoning, Trump has lost this conflict. When the US and Israel started the war over a month ago, the war aim was clear: the destruction of the Iranian regime. This was to be achieved by a bombing campaign, the targeted assassination of Iranian leaders, and concluded by a popular uprising that would depose the Iranian government. When the Iranian regime responded by closing the Strait of Hormuz, Trump adopted the more limited goal of opening the passage to international shipping again.
Trump has failed in every register. The Iranian regime remains in power, and its control of the Strait of Hormuz has been not only remained, but is enshrined in the ceasefire deal.
The defeat is also an embarrassment for Israel. Israel encouraged Trump into this war and remained opposed to any ceasefire. But Trump was under too much pressure to go along with Netanyahu any longer. Israel will surely attempt to destroy the chances of a stable peace resulting from the ceasefire, in the first instance by refusing to recognise the provision in the agreement which extends the ceasefire to the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon.
But even as the Israelis fight on, their task has been made more difficult because the survival of the Iranian regime means that its links with Hezbollah in Lebanon remain.
The effects of these events will be felt far beyond the Middle East.
Trump may be tempted to compensate for failure in the Middle East by lashing out in Latin and South America. Cuba must be the most likely immediate target, although both China and Russia have used the chaos of Trump’s Iranian policy to run supplies to the beleaguered island.
The British government has been paralysed by Trump’s grotesque threats to Iran. Prime minister Keir Starmer was low in the polls before the conflict began and was loath to court even more public opprobrium by participation in a war that the majority of UK citizens opposed. On the other hand, the entire UK political establishment is desperate to save the so called ‘special relationship’ with the US and in particular its participation in Nato.
So Starmer has adopted a deeply dishonest stance: facilitating the intense bombing of Iran by allowing the US to use British bases while simultaneously claiming not to be involved in the war. Few were fooled by this, and Trump certainly wasn’t one of them. He rained down invective on Starmer in statement after statement. He also renewed his threats to quit Nato.
Even Sir Peter Ricketts, former chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, told the BBC that ‘the special relationship is dead’. But his conclusion from this is that the UK must urgently increase its already extensive rearmament programme which has seen a 53% increase in arms expenditure since 2020. European leaders will draw a similar lesson, fearful that Russia (and China) will be emboldened by perceived US weakness resulting from Trump’s failed Iranian policy.
So, while it is unalloyed good news that thousands of Iranians still draw breath today when they would not have done if Trump had carried out his proposed war crime, the unstable world system that produced this crisis is still in place.
Trump’s seeming insanity is actually the personification of a previously dominant imperial power losing its ability to control the global state system. The US has lost in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now, in all likelihood, Iran. US imperialism is enraged by its own failing powers, and Donald Trump is the effective embodiment of that condition.
The European powers are in a rearmament fever because Daddy, as Mark Rutte the head of Nato calls Trump, is abandoning them.
The ceasefire is welcome, but the danger to peace, both in the Middle East and around the globe, is becoming greater.