Trump, Iran and the battle of wits

• Military gains highlight the US president’s strengths, but his unpredictable style risks backlash at home

The US is largely winning the war with Iran, but may end up losing it at home, both for domestic reasons and for failing to convince its allies of the danger Iran can pose to them.

The majority of policy analysts, mainstream media commentators, and many politicians hold a negative view of the war and its aims. This can be a decisive factor, as the end result also depends on who wins the battle of minds.

The answer lies, possibly, in an anthropological examination of the politicians, analysts, and media commentators themselves as much as it does in an examination of the war. After all, war is also a contest of ideas and strategy, where wit is tested as much as military hardware.

The anthropologist Ruth Benedict defined her field as the study of people who themselves also need to be studied. Anthropologists go into the field to observe the cultures of indigenous populations, but they also bring their own cultural baggage, which influences how they interpret what they experience.

The same applies to analysts, journalists, politicians, and anyone trying to make sense of the current war with Iran — and, most importantly, those trying to make sense of US President Donald Trump.

If Washington fails to carry its partners and its public, Iran may achieve by default what it cannot achieve on the battlefield: pushing the US out of the region and reshaping the Middle East on its own terms.

Nadim Shehadi

Very often, we end up analyzing the myth rather than reality. Let me give an example. On May 25, 2000, Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon after a 22-year occupation. This was considered a major blow to Syria, which occupied the rest of the country and used Israel as an excuse.

Israel’s then prime minister, Ehud Barak, had promised the withdrawal a year earlier, and the Syrians were furious, calling for coordination between the Lebanese and Syrian tracks, arguing that any solution had to be comprehensive and not partial, unlike those pursued with Egypt, Jordan, or the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Everyone was waiting for Syrian President Hafez Assad’s reaction and his next move. But there was none from Damascus for a week or more.

An Israeli academic tried to explain this and published a piece on Assad’s strategic silence: The Lion of Damascus likes to keep the enemy guessing. He does not rush into declarations or actions, and plays the long game, carefully considering every move, weighing every word, looking at the big picture, and strategically evaluating every option from the perspective of every other player.

Two days later, Assad was declared dead. All this time, he had been in a coma in intensive care, and there was panic in the presidential palace over succession and fear of revolt. Damascus had many other concerns.

The analysis by our academic friend was a product of his imagination, but it sounded compelling and made sense. It was certainly grounded in expertise, and there is no doubt about his knowledge. But it was wrong. He was addressing the myth of Assad, projecting an image formed beforehand onto a man who was dying.

Much of what we read about the US-Iran war is similar. It is shaped by myths about Iran: the strategically patient carpet weavers, inventors of chess, bearers of thousands of years of civilization, and the poetry of Saadi and Hafiz.

To complicate matters further, there is also the projection of a preconceived caricature of Trump: the businessman and dealmaker whose statements and social posts are confusing, contradictory, and sometimes nonsensical.

There is that nervous giggle you often hear when people discuss him, and the reaction he provokes can be as irrational, emotional, or erratic as his statements themselves. This is a war in which rationality itself is being tested.

Both of these images may turn out to be misleading. Iran has been at war with the US for the last 47 years, and this is the first time it is engaged in a direct confrontation on its own soil.

In The Art of War, the Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu describes war as much a battle of minds as of military hardware. A wise warrior avoids fighting on his own territory, knows how to deceive the enemy, and strikes weakness rather than strength. One must know the enemy as well as oneself, if not better.

Both sides have certainly absorbed that advice and have been playing that game. But knowing your enemy is not easy when dealing with Trump. He is difficult to predict and does not conform to conventional analysis.

After 47 years of proxy wars, Iran had succeeded in keeping the battle away from its territory. It has fought the US wherever it was weakest — in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Yemen, and even in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Defining victory is not always straightforward, but if it is defined by the damage inflicted on the enemy — by weakening and exhausting it over time — then Iran has, at times, succeeded.

It has won a series of smaller battles. It helped spoil any meaningful peace prospects in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through its support for Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It has contributed to the instability of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, and marked them as part of its sphere of influence in the region.

All the while, it has avoided direct confrontation with the superior force of the American military machine.

But this time Iran’s previous strategy has failed: the battle is directly with the US, and it has little chance of winning militarily unless the US implodes or withdraws. The Trump administration perceives the enemy as an octopus with its head in Tehran and its tentacles spread across the region.

Iranian negotiators often had the upper hand in talks with the Obama and Biden administrations, and knew how to exploit internal divisions and political agendas in Washington. Some even saw Iran as a potential partner in the war on terror.

A key advantage Iran had was that US policymakers tended to compartmentalize conflicts, treating each regional issue separately. While attention focused on the nuclear file, Iran gained sanctions relief and space to expand its regional networks.

There is no doubt that Iranian leaders, many of whom were US-educated, understood America better than American leaders understood Iran. But they may have underestimated Trump.

Trump’s often unpredictable, contradictory behavior can work in his favor in this battle of wits. How do you win a game when you cannot anticipate your opponent’s moves, or even rely on him to behave in line with conventional logic?

America’s Achilles’ heel is internal. If it loses this war, it will likely be because much of the media, politicians, and even some of Trump’s allies do not fully understand his policies.

He has alienated many of those he most needs, including parts of his MAGA base that are isolationist in foreign affairs. They judge him by the rules of an older game. But by those rules, the US had already failed before — it lost in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and in the war on terror.

Trump may appear to be winning by breaking those rules, but he risks losing by failing to carry the country and his allies with him. The president’s unpredictable style is an advantage against an adversary, but a disadvantage in a political system that requires a degree of transparency and coherence.

There is no doubt that NATO, the Europeans, the Arabs, and the US itself all have a strong interest in preventing Iran from winning. For Iran, victory would mean pushing the US out of the region and dismantling its network of bases.

It would also mean holding Arab states hostage to its influence, forcing them to abandon their current vision of a more open and stable region in favor of a more militarized order.

Iran also seeks to shape control over key global energy and trade routes. These are ambitious goals that could end up turning even its allies against it. At that point, NATO and the Europeans may conclude they must support the US against Iran.

The danger is not Iran’s strength but America’s weakness. If Washington fails to carry its partners and its public, Iran may achieve by default what it cannot achieve on the battlefield: pushing the US out of the region and reshaping the Middle East on its own terms.

In the end, it all comes down to a battle of wits — a contest of minds.

BY: Writer Nadim Shehadi is an economist and political adviser.  

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect The Times Union‘ point of view