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Conrad Black: How Trump can defang Iran
It is entirely within this president's capabilities to decisively win the war, adding to his long list of achievements
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The Iran war is now in an artificial stasis, in which practically all of the vast international coalition of people who are repelled and horrified by U.S. President Donald Trump, in the United States and elsewhere, have reflexively bought into the Iranian claim that since that ghastly regime has ostensibly survived, Iran is winning the war.
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This is a false conception. This has been the most one-sided war between serious combatants in modern history. Iran has been deprived of much of its military capacity, including related defence production, and is now being tightly blockaded by sea. American casualties have been minimal.
Conrad Black: How Trump can defang Iran Back to video
Trump has threatened to destroy Iran’s bridges and electrical grid, but is understandably reluctant to take such a step without having been evidently provoked by escalated violence from Iran. He has been inconvenienced by such interventions as those of Pope Leo XIV, who has unjustly criticized the United States while whitewashing the evil and blood-stained regime in Iran. (The Holy See has also been relatively silent about the persecution of Christians in Nigeria and elsewhere, where the Trump administration has been of considerable assistance.)
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When he threatens escalation, the anti-Trump legions accuse him of barbarism and of having plunged the country into a war that cannot be won without recourse to rank inhumanity. When he turns to negotiation, it is TACO (Trump always chickens out). But Iran and all of Trump’s critics are in positions of great vulnerability.
Trump‘s enemies, anti-Americans and critics of Israel generally have allowed the semi-clerical thugocracy in Iran not only to put over the fraud that their survival is a victory, but that the Americans have no way of winning because Iran can shut the Strait of Hormuz and generate an unsustainable worldwide energy crisis before the U.S. can strangle Iran.
To complete and accelerate that strangulation, the United States must destroy the oil-storing and shipping capacity on Kharg Island, and seize or destroy Iran’s floating oil reserve in a number of large tankers on the high seas or at distant ports. These two steps are easily within the ability of the United States, and if they are taken, Iran will be completely bankrupt and unable to pay anybody, and particularly those who prop up the regime.
Vivian Bercovici: Iran's desperate blockade will ultimately fail
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On the other side, it will be a relatively easy task for the United States to assure the full flow of oil through the Straits of Hormuz from all exporters except Iran. This will require organizing convoys of approximately 30 tankers three times per day, placing U.S. Marines on board with equipment to take anti-drone and anti-boarding party measures and assist in any necessary damage control.
Approximately 10 U.S. destroyers and some other specialized ships will be needed to clear underwater drones and mines ahead of the convoys. The airspace above the convoys would need to be completely controlled by U.S. jets, attack helicopters, AC-130 gunships and other specialized aircraft capable of immediately destroying swarms of small craft, drones and other intrusions. Raiding parties of elite units to repel Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps attack positions would also need to be available.
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Most oil tankers are huge vessels that are adequately compartmentalized and not so easy to sink if they cannot be subjected to sustained attack. Some readers will recall that in the Reagan era, American-flagged tankers proceeded through the Persian Gulf, and although they occasionally struck mines, none were sunk. Repair facilities may have to be expanded just outside the strait to repair any damage promptly.
All these measures are also easily within the capacity of the U.S. armed forces. Trump seems to be waiting to see if the Iranians can figure out for themselves the advisability of securing peace, an end of sanctions and international co-operation in rebuilding the country, in exchange for abandoning their nuclear program, their sponsorship of international terrorism, their pretense to having any ability to shut the Strait of Hormuz and a change of government. Such a course would have the support of much of the population. If these elements prevail and the promised policy corrections can be absolutely verified, the war could end quickly.
In the more likely event that the IRGC tenuously retains control, the United States will have to eliminate Iran’s oil reserves and open the strait as described, and Iran will be forced to capitulation within weeks. Trump‘s enemies will have to move on, as they have almost no chance of having the last laugh in this war.
Trump hate is a distinct and unique phenomenon and deserves a little analysis. The reasons why people dislike him as a public personality are obvious and numerous. He is gratuitously impolite to foreign leaders and countries, and his treatment of Canada has been outrageous. His complaints about Europe and about “allies” that in fact render no assistance to the United States, and essentially sponged off the military and economic power of that country since the end of the Cold War, are generally justified, but by traditional diplomatic standards could be more elegantly expressed. Trump is a charming man personally, and in these matters, he is pitching to the army of his supporters, and some of the antagonism he arouses is a domestic political advantage.
Some of his domestic opponents are frightened by his demolition of the traditional bipartisan drift to the left in the U.S. The Democrats are right to fear his ability to expose and counter their politicization of the intelligence agencies and the Justice Department to destroy their opponents. They have orchestrated a pathological defamation and obstruction campaign against Trump that is widely imitated in Canada and goes far beyond a reasonable response to Trump‘s frequent infelicities, gaucheries and gratuitous abrasions.
Trump has revolutionized American politics and has a clear idea of how to retain an adequate level of support within his own country to enact his radical program. He knows that alliances are fraudulent to the extent that they pretend to be anything other than co-operation against a shared threat, and unlike some of his predecessors, he has no need to learn the truth of Lord Palmerston’s famous assertion that nations have interests and not friends.
Because he has been so egregious and yet so successful, he has pushed his domestic opponents into the effective espousal of failed causes: supporting violent criminals who entered the country illegally over the police whose task is to remove and deport them; and supporting teachers’ unions that blackmail parents with strikes, subvert students and allow state education to descend to the level of daycare centres. The Democrats are supporting hideously expensive universities as they produce millions of graduates in fields where they could not possibly earn an income and Trump is pushing back. He has defeated the forces of anti-American wokeism, sharply reduced violent crime rates, drug prices, commercial regulation, the trade deficit and taxes generally. He has restrained over-eager and under-aged sex-change operations and biological men competing in women’s sports. He has ended the green terror.
He kicked the other NATO countries into a reasonable commitment for their own defence, is removing Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and Iran as Russo-Chinese allies, and has countered Chinese superiority in strategic minerals with America’s control of most of China’s oil supply. Dislike of Trump is understandable, but it is a mistake to underestimate him.
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