The Conflict Between America and Iran: Threats and Intimidation to Achieve a False Victory, or Suffer a Crushing Defeat
(Translated)

What is happening between Tehran and Washington? What are the results of these talks? Where will these talks lead?
Washington realizes that its military might cannot win a battle with Iran. It has used all its power and weaponry, striking Iran in an attempt to subdue it. The result is that Iran has not surrendered, and America is still desperately seeking a seat at the negotiating table, using its allies to pressure Tehran.

This is because America understands that air power and missiles—despite the destruction they cause—cannot subdue a country the size of Iran, with its complex geography, large population, and vast army deployed across its expansive territory, without visible military camps. What is visible are merely empty shells, while its forces and weapons lie deep within the mountains and in fortified shelters, hidden from enemy eyes. The protracted war of attrition, that Iran has adopted as a permanent strategy, keeps America occupied and prevents it from launching a ground invasion. This is the last resort America possesses, but one forbidden to it by political and military forces and the deep state, due to its potentially devastating consequences. Its allies have abandoned it in this predicament.

Herein lies America’s insistence on using force, threats, and intimidation to pressure Iran into negotiations. Threats and intimidation are not signs of strength or the ability to act. Instead, they are undeniably signs of weakness, especially in the case of Iran and America. America is a major power, the world’s leading state, and when it descends from its pedestal to compete and clash with a country it classifies as a Third World nation, it reflects its predicament. However, when peoples find leaders who are truly dedicated to their countries and people, they can achieve in their political journeys what even major powers cannot.

America’s insistence on forcing the Muslims of Iran to the negotiating table and compelling them to submit to American dictates—without achieving a decisive victory on the battlefield, while threatening overwhelming force and unleashing chaos—is evidence of the failure of American diplomacy to force the Muslims of Iran to concede and accept its terms. Having exhausted all its resources short of deterrent nuclear weapons, America has no other option but negotiation. Indeed, the constraints and obstacles placed before the American president severely limit his room for maneuver. The final ground invasion is subject to strict oversight by the military, political leadership, and the deep state, given its potentially disastrous and devastating consequences for America’s already diminished standing and prestige. This decline has been recognized by rival nations on the international stage, leading them to withdraw their support.

So why is America so determined to reach an agreement with Iran under the threat of saber-rattling and the threat of overwhelming force? This reveals the American predicament, a fact readily apparent to any astute political observer familiar with the unfolding events and their looming consequences. America wants a solution that will restore its lost prestige and allow it to return to its people and the world, declaring: ‘We have triumphed and achieved a historic agreement. This would not have been possible without our strength and greatness.’ Yet, alas, what is lost will not return, and what has been forfeited will not be found again.

When Trump descended to confront a Third World country—with an era and technological gap spanning decades—he effectively stripped America of its status as the world’s leading major power, a power feared and respected by other nations. In doing so, Trump exposed its flaws and weaknesses in numerous areas. America, burdened with a $40 trillion debt that it cannot repay—a debt that is increasing by $2 trillion annually—and incurring the military costs of deploying its forces in the Middle East in a state of constant alert, without actually using force to resolve the conflict, is facing a situation its budget cannot sustain for long. This is the real motivation behind the pressure and urgency to sign an agreement that will extricate it from this predicament and pull the world out of a crisis into which America has plunged it. This will push global powers to seek solutions outside the American framework.

America is trying to force Iran under the threat of military action, hoping that the Iranian political leadership will become weak and fearful, thus accepting its terms. The aim is for Trump to present these results as a gift to his party, claiming he has achieved what his predecessors could not. This is the crux of the matter: if Iran can maintain its patience, and if its political leadership remains cohesive and the home front rallies around it, then America will emerge defeated and retreat to its isolation across the oceans. If Iran agrees to sit at America’s table and accept its amended conditions – which is the solution for America to emerge boasting of an illusory victory – then the agreement will serve to solidify the ceasefire and formulate an equation in which America maintains its interests so that it retains the upper hand in managing the Middle East region.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Salem Abu Sbeitan