| Submit your comments on this article |
| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Iran Calls Trump's Bluff The President is caught between hawkish goals and dovish means. |
| 2019-06-23 |
| [WSJ] President Trump called off a military strike against Iran in mid-mission Thursday, and his supporters and even some of his critics are hailing it as an act of restraint and courage. The question for American interests is whether Iran and other adversaries will see it instead as a sign of weakness and indecision. "We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone," Mr. Trump tweeted Friday morning. Layers of editors. "Sights" vs "sites" It’s important to understand how extraordinary this is. The Commander in Chief ordered ships and planes into battle but recalled them because he hadn’t asked in advance what the damage and casualties might be? While the planes were in the air, he asked, oh, by the way? This is hard to take at face value. More likely, he changed his mind because he had second thoughts about the military and political consequences of engaging in a conflict he promised as a candidate to avoid. Mr. Trump may have saved Iranian lives now, but his indecision and professed fear of casualties may be risking more American lives later. Squeezed by the U.S. "maximum pressure" campaign, Iran’s rulers are trying to pressure Mr. Trump in return. In recent weeks they have attacked oil pipelines, mined oil tankers, and this week brazenly shot down a $130 million U.S. drone monitoring shipping lanes over international waters. Iran’s bet is that Mr. Trump is so averse to military confrontation that he will ease U.S. sanctions. On the evidence of the aborted mission, they may be right. The damage from Mr. Trump’s stand-down depends in part on how Iran’s leaders respond. If they agree to talks to revise the 2015 nuclear agreement, the restraint might pay off. Yet Iran’s leaders have shown no interest in talking as long as U.S. sanctions are in place. If Mr. Trump eases sanctions to get Iran to the bargaining table, he is back to the Obama nuclear deal. On the other hand if the Iranians escalate again, Mr. Trump’s restraint will look misguided and weak. If Americans are now killed by Iranian proxies, his failure to use force to deter attacks will deserve some of the blame. Laying out these potential stakes isn’t "war mongering," as the new isolationists on the right claim. This is the reality of geopolitics in which credibility is crucial to deterrence. The more that adversaries think Mr. Trump’s threats of force aren’t credible, the more they will seek to exploit that knowledge. After Barack Obama failed to enforce his "red line" in Syria in 2013, adversaries soon took advantage. Vladimir Putin snatched Crimea from Ukraine and moved into Syria, China pushed further into the South China Sea, and Iran expanded its proxy wars in the Middle East. Will they draw similar license now from Mr. Trump’s stand-down? The great weakness of Donald Trump’s foreign policy is its volatility. He is unpredictable to a fault. He has doubted his own Venezuela policy from the first week he signed off on it. He called Kim Jong Un crazy but now says he’s a swell guy. He signed a trade deal with Mexico then threatened it with new tariffs. On Iran he has adopted a policy goal favored by hawkish Sen. Lindsey Graham but wants to use only the means of isolationist Sen. Rand Paul to achieve it. He warned that "if Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran," but he lets Iran shoot down a drone and interfere with international shipping. If Mr. Trump’s real policy is Mr. Paul’s, then he should be honest with Americans and return to the Obama nuclear deal. In the meantime, Iran appears to be calling Mr. Trump’s bluff. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #14 What if this was intended to focus world attention here rather than somewhere else? I would not be surprised if we’re seeing a neat bit of Trump sleight of hand... |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2019-06-23 16:45 |
| #13 How well would you sleep, manning an IRGC base in Syria? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2019-06-23 16:17 |
| #12 I think he made a mistake - in announcing impending retaliation, and then rescinding it - but I don't know the whole story, and if there's a mistake in it, it is a minor one. I don't think it was the right time to make a massive military retaliation, and as long as there is continuing strong political and economic 'retaliation' I will continue to hold that position. Cost-wise, just the price of the cruise missiles that would be launched would be more than the drone lost. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2019-06-23 15:22 |
| #11 very small mistake compared to the Bush administration's Which were trivial compared with Obama's (or Carter's.) |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2019-06-23 15:16 |
| #10 Trump might have made a mistake here. If so it would be a very small mistake compared to the Bush administration's massively inconsistent messaging after 9/11. The sanctions are still in place and they're hurting and impeding Iran, which is good. Iran now has even less reason to feel deterred, which is not so good. Interesting times. |
| Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 2019-06-23 15:08 |
| #9 As far as the Democrats and the MSM are concerned, Trump was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. They had condemnations for all eventualities ready to go whatever he did. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2019-06-23 15:06 |
| #8 He did the exactly right thing here. Posted by newc My belief as well. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2019-06-23 14:27 |
| #7 He did the exactly right thing here. |
| Posted by: newc 2019-06-23 14:06 |
| #6 The great weakness of Donald Trump’s foreign policy is its volatility. He is unpredictable That may be a feature, not a bug. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2019-06-23 11:58 |
| #5 Actually, he appears he's caught between using non-violent means to deal with Iran or go full 'Jacksonian' on their ass. No half way or incremental proportional response games. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2019-06-23 11:47 |
| #4 As another Murdoch organ, I don't expect WSJ to be any less biased than the worst faces on FauxNews these days. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2019-06-23 10:48 |
| #3 tl;dr: Yet another Orange Man Bad/Trump is stupid and clueless. Yawn. the president had received last minute information that Iranian powers were furious that the attack threatened a devastating attack by the US. *This* I find interesting. And surprisingly plausible. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2019-06-23 09:50 |
| #2 See reporting by General Jack Keane. He insisted that he knew what had occurred and that the president had received last minute information that Iranian powers were furious that the attack threatened a devastating attack by the US. |
| Posted by: Chereting Pelosi1889 2019-06-23 08:52 |
| #1 I'm still holding with my 'Iran shoots down a commercial airliner and blames the U.S.' theory. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2019-06-23 08:30 |