Flailing Trump weighs up ‘escalate to de-escalate’ invasion of Iran

The hawks are circling in Washington again as Donald Trump debates sending in ground troops against Iran – to the horror of many in his own party.

After two US soldiers were killed in an Iranian missile strike on a base in Jordan on Friday, Washington and Tehran are sliding back towards all-out war. A week of US airstrikes failed to bomb the regime in Tehran back to the negotiating table, the president is now considering whether to expand the war he has repeatedly declared is over.

The soldiers killed on Saturday were the first American fatalities since the early days of the war and their deaths are certain to prompt a heavy US retaliation. In a sign of mounting frustration inside the White House, Trump has discussed targeted ground operations to seize an Iranian port at the mouth of the Gulf or the oil hub at Kharg Island. With the ceasefire deal in tatters and diplomacy deadlocked, some in Washington are once again pushing for the president to escalate and put boots on the ground.

“You can’t negotiate with them [the Iranians], so any talk of that is bullshit. That’s why we’re heading towards a larger kinetic campaign, because there’s no more discussion – there’s no out,” said one security source in Washington. “You have to escalate to deescalate.”

Even a limited ground incursion would mark a dramatic escalation in the US offensive and risk dragging Trump deeper into a conflict he is desperate to end. Elected on a promise to end US involvement in “forever wars” in the Middle East and elsewhere, Trump is perilously close to becoming trapped in another of his own making.

Trump favours a diplomatic solution to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but the White House is furious at the collapse of the ceasefire. After Iran fired on three tankers attempting to pass through the strait close to the coast of Oman two weeks ago, Trump declared the deal was “over” and condemned Iran’s leaders as “scum”.

A wider conflict threatens a return to the crisis of weeks ago, when soaring oil prices brought the global economy to the brink of catastrophe. In the US, the war has been deeply unpopular with voters from the outset, sending Trump’s approval rating into freefall and threatening disaster for his Republican party at November’s midterm elections.

The price of petrol, a key economic barometer for American voters, ticked up again last week after falling steadily since the ceasefire was agreed.

Democrats have derided the president’s flailing war strategy as the ceasefire unravels. A congressional committee estimates that Americans have already paid at least $50bn more for petrol since the war began.

“The bottom line? Trump has no moves to make,” said Connecticut Democratic congressman Chris Murphy last week, noting the growing economic impact of the war. “His spiralling incompetence has boxed America in. It’s only going to get worse.”

Many Republicans – anxiously eyeing the tough midterm races – privately agree. One Maga operative working on several Republican election campaigns admitted that many Grand Old Party candidates were “very nervous” at the prospect of a return to war.

“If gas prices are back to normal, with Iran’s military threat destroyed, then we have a strong case to make [to voters],” he insisted. But if prices remain high and the war drags on, he acknowledged: “That’s a real problem.”

Forced to stand shoulder to shoulder with the president, he added, many of his candidates were merely “hoping to survive” the looming cull of Republican lawmakers in November.

In a primetime address on Thursday evening, Trump still insisted the US was “winning big in Iran”, telling the nation: “And you will see the fruits of that labour very, very shortly.”

But the war was merely a footnote to the true purpose of the speech: Trump’s overriding obsession of relitigating his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden.

In a move that Democrats fear is a pretext to interfere in November’s midterms, Trump rehashed unverified claims that China and the “deep state” meddled in the 2020 race. Trump has never accepted his defeat to Biden, still claiming that the election was “rigged”.

Democrats accused the president of attempting to distract from his disastrous war with Iran. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, called the speech “the ramblings of a mad king” but warned that Trump was laying the ground to steal the midterms, when Republicans are projected to suffer heavy losses.

“He knows he’s going to lose,” Newsom said. “He needs to rig the election before one vote was cast.”

When it was signed in June, Trump said the memorandum of understanding with Iran “achieves everything we set out to accomplish - everything and much more”. But in his haste to disengage from the conflict, his deal left key questions unanswered and took only days to unravel.

“They don’t have an answer for Hormuz. They never did,” said a former US intelligence official who specialised in the Middle East, about the Trump administration’s strategy. “You can’t park two or three aircraft carriers right off Hormuz indefinitely. It just can’t be done.”

But US officials also believe that, in breaking the ceasefire, when the deal gave it so much, Iran has also overplayed its hand. Control of the strait has come at the expense of a stricken economy. The US lifted decades-old oil sanctions against Tehran when the ceasefire was reached, only to reimpose them when it collapsed.

“The Iranians are puffing themselves up, but they’re clearly far more damaged than they want the world to know. The economy has taken a massive hit,” the former intelligence officer said. “Iran has massively overplayed its hand.”

While both sides posture, US officials argue that Iran risks misreading Trump’s eagerness for a deal. Further provocation could prompt a devastating US response that leaves the region in chaos, they warn.

“The US is far more likely to destroy Kharg than to occupy Kharg. Destroy the oil facilities, declare victory and leave,” the former intelligence officer said. “A final eff you to the Iranians, and walk away.”

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Photographs by Saul Loeb / Getty Images; Morteza Akhoundi / Getty Images, Matthew Hatcher / AFP / Getty Images