The War's Back Is Broken

Authored by Alastair Crooke

Trump ordered the US military not to carry out new strikes on Iran Friday night, despite approving earlier a "Gates of Hell massive attack" on Iran. The US has now requested a new temporary ceasefire with Iran and is seeking a return to the collapsed and suspended MoU, with discussions to include Yemen, and with Trump seeking to make AnsarAllah a party to the negotiations.

Clearly Trump is angry, and fears that that the war is consuming his Presidency (and his legacy). Iran comprehensively rejected all negotiations throughout this last week and confirmed it will not start negotiations under any circumstances. Put simply, why would Iran consent to give the US time to regroup and rearm before launching another round of strikes on Iran when it has the US “on the run.”

A return to the MoU whose credibility Trump repeatedly has shredded? Unlikely.

Will Schryver notes that rumors are swirling that the Pentagon is pressuring Trump to call off the war with Iran because the US has nearly exhausted its stockpiles of air-defence interceptors and stand-off strike missiles. The President’s top aides are also uneasy about the prospect of a widening war in the Middle East, the alienation of key Gulf allies vulnerable to further Iranian attack, and the coming energy crunch. “Few if any in Mr. Trump’s inner circle believed the plan to escalate was wise, said the two people briefed,” the New York Times reports.

It seems too that jiggery-pokery over the exact fuel supply situation in the US may have played a part in Trump’s backtrack. Larry Johnson reports that –

A brief prepared by Karl Miller investigates how the US military’s covert fuel procurement and export operations are depleting the nation’s diesel and jet fuel reserves, particularly during a period when domestic stocks are already critically low.

In gist, Miller says that –

much of this (covert) fuel export is routed through opaque channels, such as the Rotterdam trans-shipment hub, where the final military or foreign allocation is not publicly reconciled, leaving the American economy exposed to shortage risks – whilst military and foreign operations – ‘notably Israel’ – receive priority access.

This report by Miller seems to connect to the US authorities’ open manipulation of oil benchmarks designed to convince markets that there is no danger of fuel shortages arising from the ongoing emergency release from the SPR (Strategic Petroleum Reserves) of 172 million barrels that was initiated to counter supply shocks from the conflict with Iran.

Whilst the statuary security floor is 250 million barrels (the current level is around 300), nonetheless the narrative is being promoted that the drawdown can go even further (to 70 mbpd). But can it? What is the minimum level the strategic oil reserves can go to? It is more complicated than just one big vat of crude that has a specific level. The SPR is composed of many caverns, and contains different types of crude oil, that are being drawn down at different rates, with some caverns likely to collapse if drained too far. In short, nobody knows how far is too far. It’s all guesswork.

With the back broken to Trump’s military assault the only path back to negotiations would be to offer front-loaded real concessions. But even were Trump to do this, would he be believed? And can Trump’s mental state sustain such implied humiliation?

The main obstacle on the path back to negotiations with Iran is that he and his inner circle understand Iran back-to-front.

They aver to believe that they are dealing with an intransigent and hardline leadership, whilst Iranians as a whole long for an exit.

This is wrong; it is the other way around. It is the leadership that is pragmatic, and it is “the street” that is overall more hard-line and demands vengeance. And demands to know why there should be negotiations at all.

Then again, Team Trump and his Fox News cheerleaders have slipped from the earlier US vision of itself as a redeemer nation into a radical Manichaean “characterization of itself,” Professor Michael Vlahos writes, in which –

American ‘good news’ has been replaced by the ever-present spectre of Evil and the threat of force. The holy words, Freedom and Democracy, while still chanted, have become a hollow mantra. The American ‘gospel”’no longer preaches about bringing redemption and expiation: it is now concerned with enforcement and punishment. The volte-face came in an instant, on 9/11 and with Guantanamo.

The problem then centers on attitude: How is it possible to negotiate or talk to the embodiment of evil (as Trump terms the Iranians)? It isn’t possible, of course. That was the point to casting enemies in such dark terms. It precludes true mediation. It precludes a solution that can be viewed as the elevation to power for “one of the most evil people in history,” leading a “gang of bloodthirsty thugs.” It distils policy to the search for dominance over the “otherness.”

The West exhibits one particular way of thinking that it deems to represent the essence of that which is Human. This mode of thinking (often termed Apollonian) links to Patriarchy, law, and vertical top-to-bottom secular, rational, mechanistic thinking. It offers little room for “betweenness.” Things are either “A” or “non-A.”

However, another sphere (often termed the Dionysian) expresses the energetic duality in both nature and in the human – male and female; order and exuberant transgression; and of rectitude and degeneracy. They form the poles within consciousness that both co-inhere in us, and that co-constitute each other. (Dionysian logos may be viewed perhaps as the shadow, or even of the revolt against Apollo).

And then there is Persephone (the underside to the Dionysian “shadow”) expressing the chthonic, feminine existence. Here there is no male pole, but only a goddess radiating earthiness and the female principle of reproduction, the process of growth and of caring, and of underworld knowledge (called intuition) – symbolizing the cyclical Life of Aphrodite, decay, death and ultimate renewal.

Consciousness however, mostly expresses the human quality from one particular orientation. Nonetheless, all civilizations draw from the full diversity of such components to consciousness that – one way or another – respond to a particular civilization.

To think in one culture is to think in one way; however to belong to a different culture, a different ethnic group, a different religion – means that thinking will differ. Yet we all remain human.

So the imperial hubris of Trump is beginning to face the fact that he will find it hard – possibly impossible – to find a solution to the Middle East, because to see the world from the purely Apollonian perspective is essentially male and exclusivist and fails to understand “otherness”; but rather relies on exceptional privilege. It simply does not – and cannot – recognize a plurality of minds.

The US has lost the war. By adopting such uncompromising Manichaean language, Trump effectively has severed himself from any prospective diplomatic solution. By widening the war (Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq) he has severely complicated any diplomatic track. All elements are interrelated, yet they also have separate agendas. Thus a solution involves a complex matrix of issues, rather than a binary dispute between the US and Iran alone. The US ultimately will have to capitulate, with the result that Iran becomes a regional power (strengthening Russia and China), whilst the Region slowly will come to terms with this new West Asian reality.