The dispute over control of the Strait of Hormuz turned into a dead letter the Memorandum of Understanding that the United States and Iran signed on June 17, facilitated by Pakistan and Qatar. The fragile truce, which was supposed to last for 60 days, endured barely three weeks. Since July 8, open military confrontation has resumed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As is known, the trigger for this new round of attacks and retaliations was the attempt by the United States to strip Iran of the management of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, which the Iranian regime considered a preliminary step toward charging tolls. For weeks, the American maneuver consisted of escorting oil tankers along the southern route of the strait, in Omani territorial waters, thereby bypassing Iranian authority. Iran responded by attacking three cargo ships that attempted to cross without authorization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The course is one of escalation, though still within certain limits. The United States claims to have attacked 300 targets in Iranian territory, but for now is bombing mainly southern Iran. Iran has again attacked American bases and other installations in Gulf countries, but is reserving the most sensitive targets of the petroleum and civil infrastructure of U.S. allies for a possible next phase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The White House seems to be preparing for a large-scale military action. Donald Trump notified Congress that the Pentagon had resumed bombings against Iran. With this notice, the president extends for another 60 days the authority to continue military action without congressional authorization, relying on the War Powers Act of 1973. This despite the fact that the action against Iran\u2014which falls into the category of a \u201cwar of choice\u201d\u2014is not contemplated in that Bonapartist law. Moreover, both the House of Representatives and the Senate rejected granting him powers to continue the war against Iran, in both cases with Republican votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Iranian regime, which emerged strengthened after surviving 39 days of aerial war and nearly two months of U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, did not lower its guard with the signing of the Memorandum. The military leadership of the Islamic Republic knew from the moment the agreement came into force that the United States (and Israel) would use the 60-day ceasefire window to try to change the conditions established in the Memorandum, which objectively implied recognition of the strategic defeat suffered by U.S. imperialism. Not to mention Netanyahu, who did not even participate in the negotiations and was publicly rebuked by his friend Trump for trying to sabotage the agreement by escalating his war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than a prelude to lasting peace, the Memorandum opened a window of armed negotiation, centered on control of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran is determined to capitalize on the enormous advantage with which it entered the negotiation and transform it into a new situation of permanent regional predominance. The United States is trying to erode as much as possible that leverage gained by the regime during the 40 days of war, which would practically give it veto power over one of the main maritime routes through which 20% of international trade circulates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The situation is highly unstable and all scenarios remain open. The resumption of military actions has already led to a rise in oil prices, reversing the downward trend that had brought crude prices almost back to pre\u2013February 28 levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So far, the escalation has not yet produced any substantive change. And it once again exposes the few alternatives Trump has, apart from admitting defeat, to escape the trap into which he has gotten himself\u2014alone or with Netanyahu\u2019s help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The attacks have already lasted a week without managing to make the Iranian regime yield or accept new conditions. The war has shown that the accumulation of actions of the same magnitude does not produce results. Once again, the U.S. president finds himself in the same dilemma as in the past four months. So far, neither the stick of aerial bombings, the decapitation of the first (and second) line of leadership of the Islamic Republic, nor the naval blockade (another act of war) has worked. But neither has the carrot of lifting economic sanctions on Iranian oil, unfreezing funds, and enabling a war reparations fund demanded by Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beyond Trump\u2019s bluster\u2014he suggested that the United States would charge a toll for using the Strait of Hormuz\u2014what becomes evident is American impotence in resolving in its favor the outcome of a war with an oppressed and dependent country like Iran. This, ultimately, lies behind the endless sequence of threats that sound less and less credible and last shorter and shorter, followed by retreats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The problem for U.S. imperialism is that the world watches and learns. And this applies both to China and to intermediate powers that no longer see alliance with the United States as their only strategy, but seek degrees of autonomy to pursue their own interests. This new reality is already expressed in the realignments in the Persian Gulf: while the United Arab Emirates deepens its alliance with the United States and Israel, Saudi Arabia pursues a line of negotiation with Tehran and seems to have opted for an emerging alliance with Pakistan and Turkey, behind which lies its interest in maintaining good terms with China. According to some analysts, this new configuration of alliances in the Middle East based on \u201cnon-aggression\u201d would take as its model the Helsinki Accords of 1975, which reduced Cold War tensions between the Western European bloc and the Soviet bloc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this context, Trump\u2019s options are the same as four months ago: either intensify limited attacks, hoping that the accumulation of bombings will improve negotiating conditions; or escalate toward an open war, as Netanyahu and the neoconservative wing and hawks in the White House press for, with an uncertain dynamic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For now, he seems not to have chosen either. He returned to the previous point and announced the reestablishment of the naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. The proximity of the midterm elections makes this option not a good alternative either. The political cost is not limited to gasoline prices hitting the pockets of ordinary Americans, or the enormous unpopularity of the war. The division of the Republican Party between the MAGA wing and the \u201cAmerica First\u201d wing\u2014fundamentally composed of Christian nationalism that broke with Trump\u2014risks not only producing a defeat in the midterm elections, but also intensifying the succession struggle in case Trump prematurely becomes a lame duck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The dispute over control of the Strait of Hormuz turned into a dead letter the Memorandum of Understanding that the United States and Iran signed on June 17, facilitated by Pakistan and Qatar. The fragile truce, which was supposed to last for 60 days, endured barely three weeks. Since July 8, open military confrontation has resumed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"crp_sub_category":"Iran","crp_read_time":"","crp_featured":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,67],"tags":[29,49,19],"coauthors":[117],"class_list":["post-727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-iran","tag-imperialism","tag-iran","tag-marxism"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n