The White House is seeking an exit strategy to contain the unprecedented opposition to a war with Iran among American voters. On Sunday, Donald Trump rejected yet another proposal from Iran, labeling it “totally unacceptable” on social media. According to the Iranian agency Tasnim, Iran was demanding an end to the war on all fronts, a guarantee of no future attacks, and control over the Strait of Hormuz.
Negotiations between Iran and the United States via Pakistani intermediaries drag on with no clear movement on either side, although that situation could change at any moment. President Trump is desperately seeking some kind of deal that will allow him to declare victory and go home. Iran doesn’t seem to be cooperating with him on the matter. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed, and gas prices are soaring around the world with a 50% increase since the beginning of the war in late February.
Never has the United States been engaged in such an unpopular war from the outset. After two and a half months of the conflict, a PBS/NPdR/Marist survey indicates that 60% of those polled are against Trump’s handling of the war, up six points since March. Republican opposition to the conflict has increased from 15% to 22%, with a growing number of Trump loyalists questioning the president’s actions in the Middle East. Over 62% of those questioned believe that his policies have placed the standing of the United States in peril around the world. A similar number disapprove of the way Trump is addressing inflation and a weakening economy.
It is, of course, impossible to know if chief resident of the White House has a plan that will allow him to claim that he has defeated Iran or if he is merely hoping that some exit strategy will miraculously appear to save him from a major electoral debacle later this year.
A recent confidential CIA security analysis reports that Iran can withstand the U.S. naval blockade for at least three or four months. This means that the Islamic Republic may be attempting to slow down the pace of peace negotiations.
Iranian leaders know that Trump is facing tremendous domestic pressure from Republican leaders fearing that the on-going war will negatively impact the upcoming November races for all members of the House of Representatives and a third of all Senators.
Trump has declared his impatience with the slow pace of negotiations and had vacillated between threatening that the United States will bomb Iran’s infrastructure and electric energy production and announcing to the press that he is optimistic that he can strike a deal with his adversary. Many analysists consider that his positive spins on the progress of negotiations are to encourage the oil market to drop prices and the stock market to rise.
However, the pressure is building on Trump in the current Congress. Democrats are attempting to implement the 1973 War Powers Resolution, passed overwhelmingly with bipartisan agreement during the Nixon administration (1969-74). The resolution curbs the president’s ability to commit U.S. troops abroad without congressional consent. It requires that the president seek congressional endorsement of White House actions 60 days after the executive branch initiates a war. The chief executive then has two options: obtain congressional agreement to continue the war or withdraw from the conflict within thirty days.
As the sixty-day deadline approached on May 1, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth insisted that the War Powers Resolution was not applicable: “We are in a ceasefire right now, which our understanding means the 60-day clock pauses or stops in a ceasefire.”
Still Trump continues to call the conflict with Iran a war although last week Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared that Operation Epic Fury (the war against Iran) was over. He also pitched Operation Project Freedom as post-war response to Iran controlling passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
The fact that United States and Iran are still exchanging fire near the Strait of Hormuz while the U.S. maintains the blockade on ship trading with Iran is an obvious indicator that the war continues despite administration claims to the contrary.
Amid the extended cease-fire, Trump initiated Operation Project Freedom in which the U.S. navy offered to “guide” stranded vessels lingering on both sides of the Strait of Hormuz through Iran mines and gunfire. However, a day after announcing the operation, it was suspended due to pressure from Saudi Arabia, which feared U.S. actions might escalate tensions with Iran, which might increase attacks on the Gulf states.
During debates over the efficacy of Operation Project Freedom, Trump loyalist Republican Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, announced that “if we take back control of the Strait of Hormuz, it is checkmate.” In response, conservative lawyer and political operative George Conway, the former husband of White House senior counselor Kellyanne Conway, who has switched his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat, sarcastically quipped on social media: “This must be a new kind of chess where you compete to put the pieces back where they were before you smacked them off the board.”
Despite the seeming impasse, Trump is still seeking a quick fix to ending the war through a one-page framework document that would set the parameters for negotiations between the two sides. However, Tehran seems adamant in refusing to give up the right to enrich uranium that could lead the country to possess a nuclear bomb. Nor does the Iranian leadership seem willing to relinquish its control over the Strait of Hormuz without the United States ending its economic blockade and unfreezing Iranian funds that the country needs to address a faltering economy. Rather than a checkmate, the two sides seem to be in a stalemate.
Realignment in the Middle East
The war has also upset political dynamics within the Middle East. The United States has built a presence in the region through a strong, long-term alignment with Israel and collaborative agreements with a host of Arab countries that see the Islamic Republic of Iran as a strategic enemy. U.S. bases scattered throughout the region, massive arm sales to its allies, and defense systems against Iranian attacks have been key elements in Washington policies designed to deter the Islamic Republic and its surrogates in the region—Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen.
However, disputes between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have caused a breech in Washington’s network of partners that support its presence in the Middle East. Last month, for example, the United Arab Emirates exited the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as a way of having autonomous power over setting its oil prices to compete in the international market.
During the war and now during the cease-fire, Iran has targeted the UAE in response to its close relationship with the United States and Israel. This has brought the country even closer to its two non-Arab allies in the region. It has also increased tensions with Saudia Arabia, which seeks to the be leader of the anti-Iranian coalition. Now, Washington must ensure that the UAE remains a close ally without alienating Saudia Arabia, which has extensive business dealings with the Trump family. Saudia Arabia has invested billions of dollar in Jared Kushnir’s and his in-law’s enterprises.
In the meantime, despite a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, the former continues to bomb its neighbor to the north while Hezbollah sends missiles and drones into Israel. In part Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has staked his political survival on his policies in Lebanon, aimed at eliminating Hezbollah, and his country’s involvement in the war against Iran, which has vowed to destroy the state of Israel since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979.
Netanyahu now faces a dilemma since it seems that Washington is desperately seeking a way out of Trump’s possible “endless war” in the Middle East. Although Netanyahu’s military actions against Iran remain extremely popular with the Israeli public, especially since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, support for the war does not seem to have influenced electoral decisions for the upcoming elections to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
Polls show that Netanyahu’s current coalition has lost support among Israeli voters. Research indicates that a broad electoral front composed of parties ranging from the social democratic left to the traditional right has a slight edge in the elections scheduled to take place at some time in September or October. Israeli Arabs, who are 21% percent of the population outside of the occupied territories, could be the key political force determining who will lead the next government if they turn out in large numbers.
Netanyahu hopes that an electoral victory for his far-right coalition will allow him to continue postponing the resolution of an ongoing trial in which he is charged with corruption. An agreement with the United States to strike Iran again to destroy its infrastructure and additional missile capability would likely help his electoral possibilities. However, Trump seems extremely reluctant to return to an outright war, despite his war-mongering diatribes on social media. On the other hand, heavy bombing of Iran could offer Trump the argument that for a third time the United States, with support from Israel, has obliterated Iran’s nuclear and conventional war capabilities.
Although it would make no political sense for the U.S. president to abandon Netanyahu, who has been a loyal ally, Trump doesn’t seem to have any qualms in leaving others in the lurch to protect his own interests. One way or another Trump must find a way to end the war and show he achieved concrete positive results to justify an estimated $72 billion already spent on the conflict.
Dragging the war on only means higher gas prices, which have become a daily reminder to everyday Americans of how this foreign conflagration has had harsh domestic consequences.
The War to Redesign Electoral Districts
This last week Trump had two victories while his poll numbers hover in the mid-30s. The U.S. Supreme Court allowed for states to redesign electoral districts that will favor Republicans over Democratics nationwide. And, the Virigina Supreme Court struck down the results of a recent election that would have given Democrats the opportunity to elect more members of their party in Congress.
State legislatures throughout the United States that are dominated by the Republican Party are now scrambling to redraw district borders to favor their candidates and deprive Democrats from gaining a majority in the House of Representatives in the upcoming November elections. Still, when asked which way a likely voter will cast a generic ballot, Democrats have a six-point lead over their opponents.
If Trump doesn’t end the war in the immediate future and push gas prices down to curb inflation, he runs the risk of seeing trends favoring Democrats grow. A sweeping defeat for Trump in the congressional elections could result in more effective controls on a president who is currently out of control.
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