Donald Trump Has Given Iran a New Deadline, Again

In times of war, leaders tend to look towards the future’s history books as they compose their letters and speeches. Regret and stoicism; conviction and sorrow; grit and greatness: these are the themes that presidents and princes strive to capture with pithy eloquence as they prepare their populations for sacrifice.

So too with Donald Trump on Easter Sunday.

“Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell,” he picked from the drafts, “JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”

The inspirational coffee mugs produce themselves.

Dubbing this coming Tuesday “Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one”, it’s far from the first time that Trump has threatened war crimes against Iran’s civilian infrastructure (and he’s already done more than a few too).

On 21 March, Tehran was given 48 hours to allow ships through the Strait of Hormuz. By 23 March, it was five days. On the 26th, it became ten. On the 30th, it was ‘immediately’, which was rolled back to 48 hours this Saturday, then 48 hours again on Sunday.

Trump may have promised to bomb Iran ‘back to the stone ages’ last week, but when it comes to statecraft, it appears Washington is already there. Because, as any child will tell you, the parental leap from “I really mean it” to “I really, really mean it this time” isn’t upwards, but downwards when it comes to authority.

And it’s that loss of authority that Trump’s increasingly erratic demands and deadlines track so well. Despite threats and insults, Trump’s allies have universally left him on read over his attempts to bounce them into military action against Iran.

Likewise, the Iranians seem to have perfected the art of building Trump’s frustration by ignoring his ultimatums. They’ve developed a pretty good propaganda game too, with the country’s embassies around the world responding to the president’s spiralling pronouncements with cutting negs. (‘We’ve lost the keys” was the response of the country’s embassy in Zimbabwe on Sunday to Trump’s “open the Fuckin’ Strait” demand).

More formally, Iranian officials have been clear: any attacks on Iranian infrastructure will involve intensified attacks on those Gulf-state neighbours who’ve allied themselves with the US: “If attacks on civilian targets are repeated,” its highest military command unit said early this morning, “the next stages of our offensive and retaliatory operations will be much more devastating and widespread.”

Behind the scenes, Trump has told Axios that “deep negotiations” between the US and Iran are underway. Will there be a deal before Trump’s most recent deadline of 8pm Tuesday comes to pass? “There is a good chance,” the president told the website, “but if they don’t make a deal, I am blowing up everything over there”.

Whether he’ll do it is anyone’s guess. Reason – currently on long-term leave – suggests bombing over 90 million people’s access to electricity, water and transport, with no guarantee of achieving free-flowing traffic in Hormuz as a result, isn’t likely to lead to glowing historical reviews. Nor will it please his domestic audience, with US midterms just months away.

Worse (and this may hold the biggest sway with reality TV’s first president), it would wipe this weekend’s guns’n’grit good news story from the front pages. The rescue of the US Air Force colonel who ejected from an F-15 downed by Iran’s air-defences on Friday is pure Hollywood.

A single soldier hiking up a 7,000-foot mountain deep behind Iranian lines, the lonely beep of his transponder emitted into potential nothingness as groups of locals organise to find him? Check. A CIA disinformation strategy designed to distract Iranian forces from their target? Check. Hundreds of troops, dozens of aircraft and a secret, sandy escape airstrip on Iran’s own territory. You got it.

Even the smouldering graveyard of two US C-130 aircraft and four MH-6 helicopters left behind, destroyed, according to the US, from the air to avoid them falling into Iran’s hands after the rescue, doesn’t dent that narrative (though Iran also claims credit for wrecking them). Instead, it telegraphs a moral message: there’s no cost too high for a single American military life.

And it erases from US memory the humiliation of the country’s last rescue attempt in Iran. Operation Eagle Claw saw eight US servicemen killed when one of their helicopters crashed into one of their planes during a botched operation to get 53 US embassy staff out of the country during the 1980s Iran hostage crisis. Ordered by then-president Jimmy Carter, it killed his re-election chances later that year.

It’s a clear win for Trump – clearer than any other he’s likely to get. Sense says he should run with it.

Which means he probably won’t.