How to lose a war in three easy steps

{"text":[[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":5.55,"text":"A thoughtful Swampian emailer recently reminded me about the Peter Sellers’ 1959 comedy classic, The Mouse That Roared. A tiny European country, the Grand Duchy of Fenwick, has its sole export wiped out by a cheaper US competitor. Facing bankruptcy, the Lilliputian state declares war on America. A contingent of 20 soldiers in medieval armour lands in New York under the command of Tully Bascombe, the principality’s harmless game warden (played by Sellers). The plan is to surrender soon after arriving and thereby win dollops of US aid. “You must remember that the Americans are a very strange people,” says Fenwick’s prime minister. “There isn’t a more profitable undertaking for any country than to declare war on the United States and be defeated.” To cut a long story short, they stumble across the secret Q bomb, a lethal new weapon, and take it back to Fenwick as leverage. Though the weapon is a dud, they lock it in a dungeon and live happily ever after on a renewed export monopoly and wondrous monetary compensation. "}],[{"start":70.45,"text":"Please Swampians, don’t get all pedantic on me. I know that supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei is not a comedic groundsman and Iran did not start Gulf war III. Even before Operation Epic Fury, however, Iran was a mouse compared to the American war elephant. After weeks of US-Israeli pummelling, it is now a shadow of its former mouse. Yet if you go by the terms of the 14-point US-Iran memorandum of understanding that Donald Trump signed in the historic Palace of Versailles of all places, Iran is the victor. How on earth did Trump manage to pull off such an improbable defeat having started with such overwhelming advantage?"}],[{"start":107.9,"text":"Here is an easy three-step guide to losing a war. The first rule is to have muddled objectives. The official US war aim was basically defanging Iran on all fronts. In practice, Trump has galloped through many varying goals including obliterating Iran’s nuclear capacity, getting Iran to pledge it would never produce nuclear weapons, regime change, regime improvement, and destroying its navy and ballistic missile system. The Grand Duchy of Fenwick had one goal, which was surrender. It got more than it had bargained for. Trump has got less. Within about a week of the war starting, Trump’s real aim whittled down to just one, which was reopening the Strait of Hormuz. It looks like he will get that, at least for a while. Until Trump declared war, that waterway had always been open."}],[{"start":156.7,"text":"The second rule is, do not know thine enemy. Within days of decapitating Iran’s regime, Trump began repeatedly to tell the world that Iran’s new leaders were desperate to talk to him. Iran was defeated and defenceless, he kept insisting. They were begging him to stop. Trump’s base may have believed him. Unfortunately, the only audience that counted — Iran — knew that he was making things up. When it came to vowing fire and destruction, and even threatening to wipe out Iranian civilisation, Trump’s threats did not prompt any change in Iran’s behaviour. The Iranians had long since figured out that Trump was a man of bluster. He treated Iran like a bankruptcy negotiation, an art he perfected with extravagant threats to his creditors via the tabloids. Bankers are risk-averse types. Shia fundamentalists, on the other hand, are schooled in bloody adversity."}],[{"start":210.5,"text":"Finally, be sure toalienate your friends. Trump did not consult America’s allies about Epic Fury and was stung when they failed to back him. The one exception was Israel, which had long been urging Trump to go for broke with Iran. But Israel is now even more disaffected than America’s other friends since Trump is leaving Iran stronger than it was before the war. That is the subject of my column this week “This time Trump and Netanyahu have really fallen out”. We will see over the next 60 days whether Netanyahu can find ways of scuttling the US-Iran talks."}],[{"start":242.3,"text":"I’m turning this week to my colleague, Abigail Hauslohner, who covers US-Middle East relations for the FT from Washington. Abigail, what do you think is Trump’s ceiling, if any, for what he will concede to Iran in the talks? Do you take the $300bn in promised investments seriously, or was that just another random eye-popping number that we’ll never hear of again?"}],[{"start":263.45,"text":"Recommended reading"}],[{"start":265,"text":"Talking of the Iran MoU, do read this New Yorker interview with Hillary Clinton, in which she assesses Netanyahu’s dwindling career prospects and why it was a “terrible mistake” for Joe Biden to run again in 2024. "}],[{"start":277.65,"text":"I find myself wanting to know more and more about AI and its impact on all aspects of our world. My colleague Martin Wolf and the former Obama and Clinton adviser, Gene Sperling both have great FT op-eds on the likely leaps in concentration of wealth we are about to undergo — as if we needed more. Also do read Cal Newport in the New York Times on the ominous puzzle of AI titans’ habit of warning about doomsday while continuing to accelerate towards it."}],[{"start":306.04999999999995,"text":"While you have that word on your mind, it’s worth reading Garrett Graff’s Substack, Doomsday Scenario, about the “oxymoron of Trump and "}],[{"start":313.79999999999995,"text":"‘intelligence’”. The drama around Trump’s next director of national intelligence to replace Tulsi Gabbard is inversely related to the lack of qualifications and venal potential of Trump’s picks. "}],[{"start":326.34999999999997,"text":"Abigail Hauslohner replies"}],[{"start":328.49999999999994,"text":"Hi Ed. I’ll start with the second question: I think it’s likely another eye-popping number that we’ll never see again. Here’s why. "}],[{"start":336.24999999999994,"text":"Trump, as we know, has a history of unleashing random, hyperbolic numbers. But he is also facing an extraordinary amount of domestic pushback to this MoU. Neither Republicans nor Democrats seem happy with a document that at this stage contains no clear wins for the Americans other than a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Even Republican lawmakers are calling on the White House to explain it. "}],[{"start":359.19999999999993,"text":"Of course, I’ve heard a lot of debate around Washington in recent weeks about how much Trump actually cares about that pushback, or about upcoming midterm elections in which his party could well lose control of the House of Representatives. But the $300bn fund is arguably the least popular of the 14 points, and it is also a later-term possibility in negotiations, in return — the US says — for implementation of a more permanent deal that resolves the nuclear issue. "}],[{"start":387.04999999999995,"text":"So for multiple reasons it’s easy to imagine Trump ditching the idea or, more likely, that the negotiations never get far enough to actualise it. Is there a ceiling on other concessions? Trump has indicated that all sorts of concessions are on the table. The US might allow Iran to keep some semblance of a ballistic missile programme. Tehran might be allowed to maintain a civil nuclear programme or to collect shipping tolls by another name. It might receive access to all of its frozen assets abroad, and enjoy full sanctions relief. "}],[{"start":417.94999999999993,"text":"The extent of the concessions that Trump allows will depend on the voices in his orbit (and whether he’s being called a “loser” on Fox News). If the people who have the president’s ear value the economic relief that comes with reopening the strait more than a clear victory over Iran, they’ll tolerate more concessions and so will Trump. But nearly everyone I’ve spoken to this week, ranging from former US officials to current US officials, think-tank types and foreign diplomats, have little expectation that these talks will result in a final agreement. So few expect the two sides to address the full range of concessions either."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":462.3499999999999,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1781923316_7179.mp3"}