CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Trump’s Iran War Is Becoming a Test of Political Will

Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain

Iran does not need to defeat the U.S. military if prolonged conflict can turn energy disruption and war fatigue into political pressure in Washington.

On August 31, renewed fighting between the United States and Iran pushed Brent crude above $91 a barrel. U.S. forces had struck Iranian launchers on Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz, and Tehran said it retaliated against American bases in Jordan. The exchange came only days after President Donald Trump’s administration prepared to meet refiners and fuel retailers over rising gasoline prices ahead of the November midterm elections. Six months into the war, the contest is no longer only about military damage. It is increasingly about political endurance.

That shift points to the central vulnerability Iran can try to exploit. Tehran does not need to defeat the U.S. military in a conventional war, and it has little realistic prospect of doing so. What it can seek instead is to make the continuation of the conflict progressively more expensive for Washington—economically, politically, and electorally. The relevant contest is therefore not simply over who can strike harder, but over whose political system can absorb the costs of a prolonged confrontation for longer.

For Iran, that logic has a historical foundation. The eight-year Iran-Iraq War began when Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, at a moment when the Islamic Republic was still recovering from revolution and institutional upheaval. Iraq drew heavily on foreign weapons; the Soviet Union remained its largest supplier, while Washington eventually tilted toward Baghdad with political, commercial, intelligence, and other forms of support........

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