Nine weeks since the start of Donald Trump’s Middle East war, the US and Iran “have entered a precarious standoff”, said the Financial Times. Trump says he won’t lift the blockade of Iranian ports unless Iran agrees to a deal. The Islamic regime insists it won’t resume talks or reopen the Strait of Hormuz as long as the blockade is in place. This “intransigence” caused the cancellation of a second round of talks in Islamabad – and “Trump is now stuck”.
Midterms looming
Trump’s critics believe he has “worked himself into a trap”, said Walter Russell Mead in The Wall Street Journal, but the situation is “sustainable”, for now. True, the war has gone on longer than hoped, but financial markets have stabilised. Trump remains popular with his base. Without taking casualties, the US navy has “consolidated a crushing blockade of Iran”; and with a third aircraft carrier in the region, military options are expanding.
Article continues belowThe Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The pressure on Iran is great, said Jonathan Spyer in The Spectator, but the US has made the mistake of believing its leaders think “like us”. They are not remotely pragmatic: they have “mortgaged” Iran’s economy to its project of “resistance” for decades. There appears to be no appetite now for accepting anything they “regard as surrender”.
‘This can’t go on’
Trump could cut a deal, said Paul Krugman on Substack, but it wouldn’t look like a victory. In the meantime, oil markets are pessimistic. The oil price drop that followed the 8 April ceasefire has been near reversed. The world is coping by taking oil out of storage. “Since there’s only so much oil in the tanks, this can’t go on.”
The war has removed an estimated 650 million barrels of oil from the international market, said Andrew Neil in the Daily Mail. This could soon reach one billion. The effects are already all too visible in the Asia-Pacific region, which receives 80% of exports from the Gulf. Asian jet fuel has doubled in price. China has suspended exports of refined oil. The Indian rag trade is facing nylon and polyester shortages, because they’re made from Gulf petrochemicals. We’ve been shielded, because at the start of the war a record amount of oil was at sea, heading for Europe. It won’t last.
It’s not just Trump who has “no idea what to do”. Much of the world, including our government, is “sticking its fingers in its ears, shutting its eyes tight and loudly singing ‘la la la’”.