just as Tehran believes Trump intends to prosecute the next war with far greater ferocity, Iranian planners are preparing a far more expansive and punishing retaliatory campaign
https://x.com/tparsi/status/2056200618260218132
The Mideast is once again teetering on the brink as Trump appears poised to reignite war with Iran.
While Trump's threats of war may be theatre designed to force Tehran into submission, Tehran expects the US to attack it within the next 48 hours.
We should recognize that restarting the war amounts to an admission that Trump’s previous escalatory gambit — the blockade of the blockade — has failed. That, in turn, was itself an admission that the war had failed. Which was an admission that the threats of war in January had failed. As I have argued before, this relentless search for an escalatory silver bullet capable of bringing Iran to its knees is not unique to Trump; it has become a defining pathology of American Iran policy for decades.
And as Washington has come to realize that the blockade is backfiring, a new and dangerous dynamic has emerged: both sides now believe another round of fighting will strengthen their hand in the negotiations that follow.
As I argued in January, Trump dramatically underestimated Iran’s strength, while hard-liners in Tehran believed war would strengthen Iran’s leverage by exposing the illusion of Iranian weakness. In their view, the outcome of the conflict vindicated that assessment, leaving them increasingly confident — even emboldened — about what a second round of war could yield.
Moreover, just as Tehran believes Trump intends to prosecute the next war with far greater ferocity, Iranian planners are preparing a far more expansive and punishing retaliatory campaign, complete with new strategic objectives and targets.
First, they see it as an opportunity to inflict maximum strategic damage on the UAE, citing Abu Dhabi’s active role in the previous conflict and its role in urging Trump to resume hostilities.
Tehran is likely to target American data centers in the UAE, a move that serves multiple purposes. Iran sees these firms as participants in the conflict. At the same time, Tehran sees an opportunity to cripple the UAE’s ambitions to become a global artificial intelligence hub — and, in doing so, potentially undermine Washington’s AI competition with China.
Read the rest of the analysis on my Substack: tritaparsi.substack.com/p/is-trump-poi
posted by Satish Sharma at
10:15
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