Britain’s standing in the world was never the same after its assault on Egypt in 1956. Now the US risks repeating history in the Middle East under Donald Trump, whose addiction to apocalyptic framing has led him to threaten Iran with destruction, only to back down minutes before his own deadline.
Trump’s threat that a 7,000-year-old civilisation would “die … never to be brought back” if Iran did not comply with his demands quickly unravelled. He was extricated from the crisis by Pakistan and China, pulling back in a social media post issued just 88 minutes before the implied destruction. The US administration later claimed a “legitimate misunderstanding” had led Iran to believe the ceasefire covered Lebanon, as mediators insisted.
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, insisted that the published Iranian plan – written in Farsi and containing full sanctions relief and an Iranian right to enrich uranium – had been merely a Tehran wishlist that Trump had immediately thrown in the garbage. By Thursday, there was zero agreement on what was agreed to secure the two-week ceasefire.
Iranian diplomats say the explanation is simple: Trump, once he realised coercive diplomacy had failed and the strait of Hormuz would not be reopened, promised the Pakistani mediators more than he intended to deliver. His only interest, they say, was to get himself off the hook. From Tehran’s perspective, Trump has proved entirely untrustworthy.
Trump is now trapped, reluctant to order a halt to Israel’s assault on Lebanon, yet knowing his presidency is imperilled by a project he had vowed to abjure. The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has said the US must choose between a ceasefire and continued war through Israel. “It cannot have both. The ball is in the US’s court, and the world is watching whether it will act on its commitments,” he said.
As Trump watches his poll ratings slide in a year of midterm elections, Americans face $4-a-gallon petrol at the pumps, and the world economy is unhinged by the worst disruption in the history of the oil market. The mess across the world is astonishing, and Trump’s monument may be the steep decline he has risked taking America into.
