Over the weekend, the already tenuous ceasefire between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran broke down after Israel defied the Iranian stipulations of the ceasefire and attacked Beirut.
Tehran has insisted that the Israelis, as a co-belligerent with the United States against Iran, are bound by the ceasefire.
Iran’s missile capabilities. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
The Israeli government, however, disagreed. Iran’s partner, the Shiite Lebanese militia of Hezbollah, is the target of Israeli ire in Lebanon. Tehran is desperate to maintain Hezbollah as a proxy to the north of Israel. Tel Aviv, naturally, wants to end that threat forever.
The Americans, meanwhile, just want the fighting to end.
Trump insists that he wants a big, beautiful deal to end the war forever.
But this weekend, despite Trump’s claims to the contrary, the prospects of a deal seemed more distant than ever.
Iran’s Missile Swarms Expose Limits of Air Defense
Iran struck Israel with multiple waves of missiles.
Israel’s depleting air defenses knocked some out. Some say many more got through, although, to be fair, reports on this vary as to what was hit and whether anything was hit; such is the fog of war. In the coming days, surely we will gain clarity.
However, we do know Iran has defeated both the US and Israeli air defenses in the war using a swarming method of missile attacks.
Israel’s F-35I Adir Fighter. Image credit: Creative Commons
They simply overwhelm them with missile and drone swarms. Like some passive observer, Trump pleaded with the two warring sides to hold their fire. After Iran responded to Israel’s attacks against their proxy in Beirut, the US leader had a tense phone call with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Reports suggested that Netanyahu, whose entire political existence and freedom (he is fighting a serious corruption investigation aimed at him within Israel’s legal system) are owed entirely to the war with Iran and Trump’s apparent unquestioning support, “pseudo-agreed.” Look at the definition of the word “pseudo.” It is an adjective that means “fake, false, or pretended. It describes something that is not genuine or authentic, but is instead an imitation, sham, or even an attempt to appear like something it is not.”
So, even in some of the exclusive reporting on the call between the Israeli and American leaders, reporters who were aware of the content of the conversation knew something that apparently the forty-seventh president did not know: Netanyahu wasn’t listening to the demands of the Commander-in-Chief.
He did not care.
The Petrochemical Strike and the Return of Escalation
Shortly after the conversation, Israeli warplanes counterattacked Iran, striking a petrochemical facility in the process.
At the moment, Iran has halted any retaliatory strikes.
Iron Dome from Israel. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
The Houthi Threat Changes Everything
But all is not well. What many in the West apparently missed was the statement by Iran’s proxy in nearby Yemen that they would try to ban any ships allied with Israel from the waters of the Red Sea. Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago tweeted a thought-provoking statement that ended with, “The question is whether Tehran increasingly believes it is gaining leverage.”
Indeed, this might be why the Iranians suddenly decided to hold back. Between whatever the Houthis of Yemen are readying to do to global shipping and the fact that there is supposedly tension now between the US and Israeli leadership over the next steps in this war, Tehran appears more and more to be in the driver’s seat. The Israelis are stuck reacting, and the United States, the purported sole remaining superpower, is stuck in the middle.
The Energy Chokepoint That Could Break the Global Economy
To be clear: if the Houthis try to seal the Red Sea and threaten the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb, that will be the end of the long period of happy talk between the three warring sides in the War for the Greater Middle East.
Currently, the world’s energy flows have avoided a total collapse simply because Mideast energy producers, such as Saudi Arabia, have managed to move their vital product through Red Sea ports and the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb. If the Houthis truly intend to seal off these waterways for as long as Tehran needs, no amount of market manipulation by Trump will stop the coming crash.
No One is Listening to Washington
The bigger issue, from an American standpoint, is that no one is listening to the American president.
Trump repeatedly and publicly chastised Netanyahu for escalating, telling the media that Netanyahu would do as Trump commanded.
He repeatedly, publicly, demanded that Iran stop their attacks after their initial retaliation following Israel’s strikes on Beirut (those Israeli strikes occurred, by the way, after Trump had similarly told Netanyahu to stay his hand while negotiations were ongoing with Iran).
Trump wants the world to believe that he is a strongman. If so, he’s the weakest strongman in history.
He wants you to buy into the delusion that he is the great dealmaker, just like in his 1980s bestselling book The Art of the Deal (co-authored by preeminent journalist Tony Schwartz). If that’s true, he’s the worst dealmaker in the world.
What’s more, Trump portrays himself as the man who can move markets with his will. The sad reality is that Trump is a hostage of two governments who won’t stop fighting–the Israeli government and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Escalation Trap Tightens
If what Dr. Pape tweeted this morning is accurate, then the Iranians believe they’re gaining greater leverage over the US, Israel, and Gulf Arab states opposed to them.
If the Houthis truly are about to blockade the two remaining open maritime trading chokepoints in the Mideast–the Red Sea and the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb–then we aren’t anywhere near a ceasefire. We continue up the escalation ladder, with Tehran pulling Netanyahu up with them, and Netanyahu dragging an intransigent Trump behind him.
Trump’s Last Exit
Peace is not at hand, no matter what Trump says and how enthusiastically the markets react to Trump’s burblings. The war is back on. The Iranians are in the driver’s seat, and the Israelis are unyielding.
At this point, the only way Trump can wriggle out of this escalation trap he’s fallen into is if he simply pushes Netanyahu back and walks away from the region forever–pulling out all remaining US forces and signaling to the region that he’s voided all previous military agreements.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert is the Senior National Security Editor at 19FortyFive.com. He also manages The Weichert Brief on Substack. Weichert hosts “National Security Talk” on Rumble, too. He is the author of four bestselling national security books, the most recent of which is A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine (Encounter Books). Follow him via Twitter/X @WeTheBrandon.
