During the so-called “tanker war,” a single Iranian missile against a ship in the Persian Gulf was enough to skyrocket the price of oil and forcing the United States to escort civilian ships between mines and maritime attacks. Decades later, the Strait of Hormuz still has the same capacity to unnerve the entire world economy in a matter of hours.
The war that was going to destroy the Iranian nuclear program. The great paradox of the possible agreement between the United States and Iran is that the war officially began to stop the Iranian nuclear program and could end, at least dand momentwithout resolving practically any of the issues that justified the conflict. Washington and Tehran are close to cmiss an understanding temporary focused above all on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, stabilizing the energy market and avoiding an even greater regional escalation, while issues such as Iranian ballistic missiles, uranium enrichment or the future of the nuclear arsenal are postponed for later negotiations.
The situation turns out especially striking because Trump and Netanyahu had presented the offensive against Iran as a historic opportunity to definitively dismantle Tehran’s strategic military capabilities. Months later, Iran continues to maintain tons of nuclear material enriched, it maintains a large part of its missile capacity intact and has also managed to demonstrate the extent to which it can threaten the global energy supply.
Strait of Hormuz
The true center of the negotiation. The core of the agreement does not revolve around centrifuges, nuclear warheads or international inspections, but on a much more immediate issue: reopen the maritime passage through which approximately a quarter of the world’s oil circulates. The Trump administration has finished accepting that the absolute priority was to unblock Hormuz before the economic impact began to spiral out of control inside and outside the United States.
The possibility of a prolonged war with oil soaring and gasoline approaching politically toxic levels began to seriously worry the White House, especially ahead of the legislative elections. The negotiated draft contemplates a ceasefire sixty day temporary during which Iran would remove mines from the strait, allow maritime traffic without tolls and could sell oil again with certain relaxations of US sanctions. In other words, Washington has ended up negotiating the global energy flow first and leaving for later exactly what supposedly made war inevitable.
The surprising transfer. Until just a few days ago, the US administration insisted that there would be no agreement that he did not address the Iranian nuclear program from the beginning. However, strategic reality ended up imposing itself on political discourse. US officials recognize now that negotiating the gigantic Iranian nuclear framework in a matter of days was simply impossible and that even Obama’s nuclear deal required almost two years of talks and hundreds of technical pages.
The result is an extraordinary change in tone by Trump, who went from demanding Iranian “unconditional surrender” to talk about a relationship “more professional and productive” with Tehran. The problem for Washington is that this turn fuels criticism from both Republican hawks as from Israeli sectors who consider that the United States has ended up giving up pressure precisely when Iran was most economically weakened.
Iran holds its cards. Although Washington assures that Iran would have verbally agreed to discuss limits on uranium enrichment and possible deliveries of highly enriched nuclear material, the reality is that it does not yet exist. no solid commitment nor clear mechanisms to verify these concessions. Tehran has also not agreed to seriously discuss restrictions about their ballistic missilesa fundamental issue for Israel and for the Arab allies of the Gulf.
In fact, much of Iran’s negotiating power continues to rest on exactly the elements that the United States I wanted to delete: its ability to close Hormuz and its stock of enriched uranium close to military grade. Iran seems to have understood that the more it manages to link global energy stability with its own economic survival, the more difficult it will be for Washington to maintain a purely military or maximalist strategy.
The fear of Israel. Behind the agreement, a growing tension between the strategic interests of the United States and Israel also emerges. Netanyahu would have expressed directly Trump expressed his concern about several points in the draft, especially because the understanding would include a broader reduction in regional tensions that would even affect the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The White House try to reassure to Israel assuring that any rearmament of Hezbollah would justify new Israeli military actions, but the implicit message is clear: Washington wants to stabilize the region and reduce the risk of an all-out war even if that means accepting temporary and imperfect solutions. For many Israeli and Republican sectors, the agreement means assuming that the initial objectives of the war were probably unattainable.
An “energy” negotiation. If you like, what is happening in the Middle East reflects the extent to which modern wars they may end up redefining completely their original priorities. The military campaign began with the promise of destroying Iran’s nuclear program and ending Tehran’s strategic threat. However, after weeks of global tension, crossed attacks and real risk of regional escalation, the negotiation has ended up pivoting on something much more basic and urgent: prevent the collapse of global energy trade.
The most revealing detail is that there is not even a definitive agreement yet on enriched uranium, sanctions or Iranian missiles, but even so both sides seem willing to move forward. if oil circulates again normally. Ultimately, the crisis has shown that Iran retains a much greater capacity for pressure than many expected and that, for the United States, the economic and political price of a prolonged war ended up being more dangerous than accepting a truce full of unknowns.
Image | RawPixel
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