Trump Gets More Stupid By The Day
Hope that TACO - Trump Always Chickens Out - is true
If Trump’s blockade of Hormuz was intended as a new weapon against Iran, then it is another miscalculation to place alongside the original belief of a three-day blitz and victory. This error has even more possible dangerous consequences.
As I write there are Chinese owned and flagged ships heading for Iran and others already in the Persian Gulf loading oil. If China, as a sovereign power, has an agreement to pay Iran, another sovereign power, $2m for each oil ship to exit the strait, that is their business. China is not at war with any state in the Gulf, nor with the United States. So, what legal basis can Trump cite that will allow the US navy to stop, search and detain Chinese flagged ships entering or leaving through Hormuz? He cannot claim that the US action is an inescapable result of war, because while the US may be attacking Iran there has been no declaration of war by Congress, which is the only US organ of government that can so declare.
This is not a matter of semantics. This blockade can now become a matter of Chinese standing in the world. China has every right to send its ships to Iran and, once loaded, have them exit Hormuz to the open sea without interference by another state.
Does Trump believe that the CCP, one of whose main claims to legitimacy is that China now stands tall in the world, will allow Trump to humble it by his navy boarding its ships at will? The CCP of Xi Jinping could never allow that to happen. China, as the tariff squabble showed, is the one state Trump cannot bully into submission.
China to date has been playing a background diplomatic role, seeking a resolution to the present conflict. That has been of advantage to both sides, and wisdom would have kept it there in reserve. But with one new ill-thought- out policy of blockade, Trump is in danger of forcing China into a belligerent role, directed against the Unites States, to ensure the safety of its own vessels and the uninterrupted supply of oil it has paid for.
What happens after the US navy boards and detains the first Chinese oil tanker, and China thereafter sends its warships as escorts for all of its other vessels that will leave Hormuz? What will Trump do then? Escalate with China? We shall have to hope that he really is TACO.
Trump has been unable to make Iran bend the knee despite all the military might that he (& Israel) have used (in breach of international law on multiple counts) and has been manoeuvred strategically over the Persian Gulf/Hormuz Strait/Gulf of Oman waterways.
The war is unpopular at home in the USA, most likely due to the economic hit that is being felt at the gas stations and airline ticket desks. There are mid-terms elections coming up that, from all accounts, the Republicans are likely to lose badly, handing a majority in both Houses of Congress to the Democrat Party. From there (a 3rd) impeachment is likely to follow. And this time he might get convicted, since he is war of whim is in breach of the US Constitution itself. (The legislature was not consulted on going to war).
Trump is therefore desperate.
Back down now and he has gained nothing. Indeed he has succeeded only in displaying to the rest of the world the limits of American power. The economic consequences of his military misadventure, at least partially at the behest of a foreign power (Israel) are already being felt. Perhaps even more (most?) importantly he personally has lost face, an almost unbearable for the narcissist-in-chief.
He may be looking for a way out. But there is no obvious exit that doesn't involve humiliation for Trump, his administration and the US.
That makes this most unstable of human beings, together with his cabinet of pals and sycophants, more dangerous than normal.
Anything, therefore, is possible.