Trump Flounders as Iran Takes Initiative in His Reckless and Destabilizing War

Then we saw a temporary ceasefire, then we saw more bombing. And then the MOU (Memorandum of Understanding), which Trump claimed to have. He claimed it was just perfect and it would be great and everything would go back to normal. But when Trump says something like that, you can’t take his word for it because things were “normal” before we started this war. The Straits of Hormuz were open. Iran was so close to signing a nuclear agreement that was considered better than the 2015 JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the “Iran Nuclear Agreement.”) And yet, even the Omani negotiator got on American television to try to tell people that this was agreed upon and that this was better and we should take it. And instead we ended up bombing Iran. So there we are.

And the Iranians are basically now a more hardline government than they were when we started this and are basically making all kinds of demands on the Americans that Trump claims he will have nothing to do with. So that’s where we are. I mean, like I said at the beginning, this has come down to which side is going to blink first.

I suspect it’ll be the Americans and that it’ll be said under some lie about how the Iranians are desperate to speak to us. And so therefore he’s going to start up negotiations again or he’ll go back to bombing, which will prove absolutely nothing because we’re not going to defeat Iran militarily.

SCOTT HARRIS: Thank you for that, Jennifer. I’ll just make an observation that Trump has a pattern or a cycle he goes through to call off bombings he’s threatened on Sunday night just before the stock market opens. I mean, this is a trick. That’s not really a trick anymore, but Wall Street and the traders there seem to buy it almost every damn week. It’s insane.

JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN: Yeah, I noticed that. It’s crazy. The markets basically follow what he says. And I don’t know if the correlation is direct, but it certainly seems to be.

SCOTT HARRIS: Yeah. Well, the conflict, much of the conflict, Jennifer, now centers on the terms under which the Strait of Hormuz will reopen to tanker and cargo traffic. Tell us about the negotiations going on between Iran and the neighboring nation of Oman, which is located right on the strait of Hormuz.

JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN: Yeah. It makes perfect sense for the Iranians and the Omanis to be negotiating because they are the two countries whose territory borders the Straits of Hormuz. So this negotiation or this week of past negotiations with Oman is supposedly very close. We’ve been told that now every day for a week, but I believe they are probably—the Iranians and the Omanis—are probably very close to announcing something in which both states will be involved in what happens in the straits in terms of registering ships and allowing—there may be two waterways, one in the south that goes into the straits and one in the north that comes out of them. The outline is not clear yet because they haven’t given us any details, but I suspect it will be a solid agreement and one that we will have no choice but to accept.

SCOTT HARRIS: In the past, Donald Trump has threatened Oman for negotiating with Iran.

JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN: Right.

SCOTT HARRIS: I wonder on a slightly different topic, the international law governing the free transit of waterways, international waterways—it seems that this agreement could alter that in some way. I’m not sure what kind of fees they may be talking about to allow tankers and cargo ships to transit the strait in the future. Are you aware of what they’re talking about?

JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN: Yeah. Well, one of the things that I think is worth pointing out is that the Suez Canal, the St. Lawrence River, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, all of these water areas where there are narrow canals. Egypt collects fees. Turkey collects fees. States that use the Lawrence waterway have some kind of system in place. So it’s not that unusual or out of place for the Iranians also to say that they’re going to start charging transit fees. And again, I don’t know what the details of that will be, but it’s not something that’s unprecedented by any means.

And again, we walked into it with our face by starting this war in the first place because Hormuz was open and there was freedom of navigation there. So I am not an international lawyer, but my guess is that the Iranians will eventually prove successful and that an entirely new system will be put in place ultimately in which the Iranians do charge some kind of fee.

As I said, I don’t think this is that unusual. And given the fact that Iran has been under crippling sanctions by the United States for decades, it makes perfect sense for the Iranians to try to raise revenue.

Again, what the United States has done is create a massive collection of headaches for itself for starting a war that didn’t need to be started.

SCOTT HARRIS: We can’t say that too often.

JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN: I know.

SCOTT HARRIS: And you know what? Differing from past wars and other conflicts the United States has been involved in, I think by and large, a large majority of the American people understand that pretty clearly.

JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN: I think they do. Now with this new defense pact between Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan, I think that’s very important for people to understand. First of all, the most important thing that people have to realize about why this pact was agreed upon in the first place is that the Americans have basically proven themselves unreliable partners in guaranteeing security of these states and others in the Gulf. And these countries got together, signed a defense pact, one that Egypt may join, and there’s some talk that Jordan may join it.

This is not because they suddenly want to gang up and go to war against Iran. We don’t really know what the long-term implication of such a pact will mean. Immediately, it’s more symbolic than anything else. It’s more a hardening of these alliances where they have said “that an attack on one will be perceived as an attack on all of them.”

it is a threatening pact in that sense. But the most important thing to understand is that if the Americans could guarantee the security of these states and others, it would never have come into being.

SCOTT HARRIS: Well said. We’re speaking with Jennifer Lowenstein, former associate director of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And Jennifer, I did want to ask you about munitions. Trump has backed down from several threats to escalate the U.S. air war against Iran in recent weeks. And reports say that owes to a growing shortage of both U.S. defensive and offensive munitions. What’s the significance of this missile or munition shortage?

JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN: Well, the significance is that we have plenty of bombs with which to continue bombing Iran. So I don’t want anyone to think we’re running out of bombs. That’s not the issue. The issue is that we are running out of interceptors and we are running out of some of the more sophisticated bombs like JDAMs (Joint Direct Attack Munition) and Tomahawk missiles—the ones that are more expensive, that are more destructive, more difficult to build. These are the ones that are running low. And what that does is it doesn’t really prevent the American administration from continuing to bomb Iran, but it does basically curb our flexibility globally. I mean, when American munitions are going at such a low place as they are now, obviously we just can’t pick and choose any old place to bomb tomorrow. In other words, once again, this war was a mistake because we’ve managed to—some people would say we’re putting our own military in a bad situation because it doesn’t have that kind of flexibility now.

Supposedly these munitions are primarily to be used in Asia should some cataclysmic event with Taiwan happen. But at this point, that’s not something we want to have to think about because this has really tied our hands now in terms of military flexibility and what and where and when we might attack another country, heaven forbid.

SCOTT HARRIS: Yeah. I think there would be a lot of people very happy with our inability to offensively attack other nations around the world, which is a huge part of our history.

JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN: Yeah. And it’s significant too that one of the military advisors to the Trump administration made a comment on Twitter last week. He said, “Look, we can defend the United States or we can defend Israel, but we can’t do both.”

SCOTT HARRIS: It’s a powerful statement. Powerful statement. Yeah. Jennifer, Yemen’s Houthi forces opened up a second front in the U.S.-Iran war by attacking Saudi Arabia. And they’ve also made threats to close down another critical waterway in the region. The Red Sea’s Bab al-Mandab Strait, which is critical for Saudi Arabia, in particular for them shipping out enormous amounts of oil. Tell us about the Houthis and what role they’re playing now. There’s worldwide hope that this war will soon end.

JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN: Yeah. And unfortunately, there’s also a lot of evidence suggesting that it’s not going to end anytime soon at all. And we’ll probably be in full force during the midterms, possibly with some concocted pause that Trump comes up with, God knows.

But the Houthis are an ally of Iran. I should add that for people who don’t know, they are not the internationally recognized government of Yemen. The Houthis do not represent that. They are a party in Yemen that would like to be in power. And of course that has been an antagonist of the Saudis and the UAE for quite some time. There was an incident a few weeks back where a passenger plane flew Yemenis from the capital of Yemen, from Sanaa to Tehran for the funeral of Ali Khamenei. And then it flew back. And the Saudis were very upset by this because it was on an airlines that they had sanctioned and said could not fly into Iran.

So the Saudis have been putting the screws on Yemen for a long time. The war is over between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, the one that was going on for quite a long time. And that caused a terrible humanitarian crisis in Yemen, which also hasn’t ended. But the fact is this incident with airplanes and which ones the Saudis were allowing to fly and land at which airport in Yemen. It’s very complex. But the fact is now Yemen has “closed” and I put that in quotes, the Bab al-Mandab to the Saudis and of course to the Israelis and Israeli-linked shipping. So that’s also having a direct impact on the global economy. And if they shut down the entire strait to all shipping, that would be disastrous. That would also effectively shut down the Suez Canal. Because if you can’t get through the Red Sea, then you’re not going to go through the Suez Canal either.

SCOTT HARRIS: I think we should all go to our maps to better understand the logistics of all this.

JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN: Yes, exactly.

SCOTT HARRIS: Thank you for explaining that. Jennifer, one of the very tragic stories and just abhorrent situation in the region is Israel’s attack on Lebanon. Since March, they’ve conducted an air war and their ground forces have occupied southern Lebanon, displacing some three million Lebanese civilians. Many people have died there. It’s off our front pages. Can you update our listeners on the situation in Lebanon?

JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN: Yes. And in fact, I was in Beirut this past spring. I’ve lived there a couple of times, so it’s a place that is close to my heart. And I was there during some of this bombing or much of it. And I wish there were more stories coming out on what Israel is doing in south Lebanon because Israel Katz, the defense minister, has openly stated that he would like southern Lebanon to become another Gaza. And they have destroyed over 60 villages. And when I say destroyed, I mean practically wiped them off the map. Nothing’s left. They go into these villages, put whatever, ammonium nitrate, whatever it is they want inside buildings, and then they detonate the whole block of them and it all goes up. So I just wanted to correct one thing. It hasn’t been three million Lebanese displaced. Lebanon only has a population of five million people, but approximately a million people were displaced by the bombing that was taking place this winter and spring.

And that has not stopped in the south at all. Not for one day. A million people were displaced. Many of those people have attempted to go back now that there are tentative agreements between the president and prime minister of Lebanon and the Israelis, which is getting a lot of flack by many Lebanese, I should say. But the fact is, the south of Lebanon is being utterly destroyed. And a lot of people who wanted to go back have gone back only to find that not only are their homes gone, but their entire village is gone. And I mean schools, hospitals, universities, businesses, everything. They’re wiping it out. I think it was also Katz who said he wanted it to look like Rafah. And we all know what Rafah looks like. I mean, it’s a moonscape. It’s a toxic moonscape at that because the Israelis have used white phosphorus, apparently some depleted uranium.

They sprayed glyphosate in huge quantities over parts of southern Lebanon, which is so tragic because the south of Lebanon is not what we think of when we think of Middle East. Lebanon is the only Arab nation with no desert. The south of Lebanon is hilly, mountainous. It’s green. It’s got fields for planting. It’s the Beqaa Valley. I mean, it’s a very green area. So to destroy this place with these kinds of chemicals to me should be a bigger crime than it is. I mean, it’s ecoside, it’s a destruction of the environment, but for how many decades? It’s hard to know. I mean, it’s just devastating what they’re doing to the place. If Israel were to bomb Beirut again, then I believe the Iranians would go ahead and make good on their promise to bomb Israel. But I think that whole theater is being kept at bay right now probably until there are some negotiations happening.

Again, it’s difficult to say, but the Lebanese have dealt with a lot having Israel as their southern neighbor. And Israel blames it all on Hezbollah the same way they blamed everything in Gaza on Hamas. And those are just convenient targets because the fact is, they were killing civilians. They are killing civilians in Gaza every day. The same is true in Lebanon. They’re not killing members of Hezbollah. They’re not killing members of Hamas only. They’re killing many more civilians as this happens.

And they’re destroying, as I said, hospitals, schools, universities, businesses, mosques, religious centers, everything. They destroy everything. That’s not targeting Hezbollah, that’s targeting the south Lebanese.

SCOTT HARRIS: Yeah. Well, Jennifer, we only have a minute or so left, and I wanted to just get a quick update on another very tragic and a horrific situation that our national press doesn’t really cover well. And that is some recent terror in the West Bank, Israeli-occupied West Bank at the hands of Israeli settlers who attacked the West Bank village of Tuba, killing Palestinian civilians in an attempt to take over land there. There’s probably a lot more that we can cover in the short time left, but give us an update quickly on that, if you would.

JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN: Well, if listeners are interested, they should check out the magazine +972. It’s an Israeli magazine. And the filmmaker who did “No Other Land” with his Palestinian counterpart, whose name I’m blanking on, he wrote an article. Basil Adra wrote an article just this past week on what’s happening in the West Bank. That’s very telling. And it starts out with people saying it was screaming. People were screaming. They were running. Settlers were coming in, smashing homes, beating people up. They beat up a woman who was trying to protect her two daughters, smacked her in the head and knocked her out. I mean, this is just insane. And they set fire to these people’s homes. And of course, it takes about 45 minutes for ambulances to reach this village because the Israelis have torn up the roads and have refused to allow Palestinians to rebuild them without a permit, which is a way of saying, “We’re not going to let you rebuild, period.” So this is all part and parcel of the same picture.

It’s Israeli destruction. The Israeli quest for Lebensraum, for “living space,” whether it’s in the West Bank, Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, or God knows where else. This is their ideology. This is the modern Zionist ideology of Benjamin Netanyahu. And we’re seeing it play out because the West can’t muster up a single action that will put a stop to it.

SCOTT HARRIS: Yeah. Well, so much to talk about, but Jennifer, you’ve really provided a good service here for our listeners to update them on some of these critical issues roiling in the Middle East. It’s affecting us all. So thanks for that. And before you go, tell our listeners about the newsletter that you send out, that you find great information, important information all across the web and other journals, and share that with your subscribers.

JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN: Yeah. I have a listserv of people, more than 300 people who I send during the week, five days a week, two to four articles. Usually what I try to do is send out under-reported news or very important news that is coming from reliable sources like Dropsite News. I don’t usually take theirs because people have subscriptions to it, but many others. And if anyone is interested in getting on that list, they can just email me and I’ll be happy to include them. My email is sarinj, S-A-R-I-N-J111@gmail.com.

SCOTT HARRIS: Got it. Thank you so much, Jennifer. And we’ll look forward to our next conversation. Hopefully, the substance of that conversation won’t be so depressing and we’ll have something to add to our reasons for hope. But thank you for being here tonight.

JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN: Thanks very much.

SCOTT HARRIS: Take care. Bye-bye. Good night. That’s Jennifer Loewenstein, former associate director of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.