Dem
47
GOP
53
Last weekend, Donald Trump announced that the bombing of Iran's energy infrastructure would begin on Monday if the Strait of Hormuz was not re-opened. Then, he granted the Iranians another 5 days, which theoretically would have expired today. However, he announced another extension yesterday, this one 10 days in duration, which means another "deadline" does not arrive until April 6.
The official explanation for this, from Trump himself, is that negotiations with Iran are progressing well. The Iranian government denies that, and says there are no substantive negotiations at all. Trump, for his part, has made much noise about a "gift" that was granted by... someone in Iran, probably the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The President, reality star that he is, teased the gift for about a day before revealing that Iran had allowed 10 fully loaded tankers to pass through the Strait.
If we were the Iranian government, we would take a couple of lessons from all of this. The first is that Trump clearly does not want to bomb the energy infrastructure, presumably because it would likely lead to chaos in the energy market and a massive stock market drop. The second is that he can easily be bought off, as needed, with fairly empty gestures. The largest tankers carry about 3 million barrels of oil, so at most the "gift" was that 30 million barrels are now on their way to destinations they will reach in days, or maybe weeks, or maybe months. On an average day, 20 million barrels pass through the Strait, so we're talking 1½ days' worth of commerce, at most. Also, the IRGC is extracting multi-million dollar tolls from most of the ships it allows to pass, so this "gesture" is also profitable for the regime in Iran.
Meanwhile, the pressure is building on Trump. Gas prices continue to climb, and are now on the cusp of $4.00/gallon, on average. The current average is $3.98/gallon, and so $4.00/gallon will probably be reached over the weekend. And because the Trump administration has tried to massage things by lifting sanctions on Russian oil, and because having capital flow into Russia would be very bad for Ukraine, the Ukrainians have just bombed the daylights out of the Baltic ports of Primorsk and Ust-Luga, which are major oil-export terminals. So, a cure to the gas-price problem does not appear to be coming from the direction of Russia anytime soon.
On top of that, Trump is getting a lot of "feedback" from nations whose leaders, to borrow a phrase from Lyndon B. Johnson, have his pecker in their pockets. Israel wants to encourage the people of Iran to stage a mass uprising, and is trying to twist Trump's arm on that front. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia expects a return on its investments in the Trump family, and is pushing Trump to hit Iran again, and again and again.
Money is, or will soon be, an issue as well. Congress is not responding well to the White House's request for $200 billion in war funding, especially since that could quickly balloon into two or three times that sum. Even many Republicans say that the information they are getting from the White House does not support that sort of outlay. This White House loves to play financial shell games, to get around the need for Congress' approval. But it's already doing that a bunch, and at an estimated expenditure of $1 billion day, there's only so much gaming that can be done before Congress has to give its approval.
Finally, Trump's approval ratings—which weren't stellar even before the bombing started—are clearly showing the effects of the war. For example, in the latest from Fox, he pulled his highest ever disapproval in one of their surveys—59%. He's not at his lowest approval yet, though he's within shouting distance (41% now, lowest was 38% back in October of 2017). However, the way he got to "highest disapproval" is interesting—no respondent said "don't know" or "no opinion." In other words, it appears that the Iran War might be yanking the last remaining fence-sitters off the fence.
To give a few other quick examples, Trump's approval in the latest Reuters/IPSOS poll is the lowest it's been in his second term, at 36%. Or, if you prefer aggregators, his aggregate approval in Nate Silver's tracker is as low as it's been this term, at 40.1%. It's also the lowest it's been in either term, at 38%, in The Economist's aggregator. Note that Nate Silver wasn't aggregating in Trump's first term, and Reuters/IPSOS were not partnering back then, so you should not infer that "lowest approval of his second term," in those cases, means "but there was an even lower figure in his first term." And the bigger point is that it's not one or two outlier polls; clearly, Trump is losing political support because of the Iran War.
Now, let's add up where all this is pointing. Trump wants and needs progress on this front, and fast. He's not the type to back down under these circumstances, as that would be tantamount to giving those dirty Iranians a "win." The bombing campaign has not accomplished anything, and is not likely to accomplish anything, particularly if Trump is leery of hitting the remaining potential targets. Trying to put various forms of pressure on the Iranians to re-open Hormuz has failed, so too have attempts to manipulate and ease the petroleum market.
Considering all of this, it sure looks like the only "game-changer" option that Trump has left is an invasion by ground troops. And whaddya know, the Pentagon is reportedly making preparations to send 10,000 more troops to the Middle East. Meanwhile, The Times of Israel had a scoop yesterday; one of the negotiators from one of the countries who is trying to mediate the conflict told the paper, off the record, that he is convinced that Trump is leaning toward a ground invasion, believing that while the aerial bombardment didn't topple the regime, "boots on the ground" surely will.
And how long would it take to deploy 10,000 more troops? About 10 days. Oh, boy, here we go again... (Z)