Trump needs a new Iran strategy

After weeks of insisting a deal with Iran is around the corner, President Trump may be admitting the reality. The regime is “tapping the U.S. along” in negotiations, he said Wednesday. The President has given diplomacy a chance, but “they keep playing us for suckers,” he added. Is Mr. Trump ready at last for a new approach?

For nine weeks, the cease-fire has let Iran dictate events in the Gulf. The regime gets to start each “skirmish”—shooting at U.S. forces, U.S. allies, or commercial ships—and then decide when the exchange ends. Iran has also used Hezbollah to fire on Israel, only to cite the resulting fighting in Lebanon as an excuse to stall talks with the U.S.

Each prior Iranian attack has sent Mr. Trump racing to de-escalate. This meant forcing cease-fires in Lebanon and then blaming Israel when Hezbollah kept shooting. Or playing down Iranian fire on U.S. troops as “a trifle,” meriting “love taps” in reply.

Iran’s large strike on Kuwait’s airport was “not a big deal,” Mr. Trump said, a mere tit-for-tat. He said the same of Iran’s Sunday strike on Israel, urging it not to reply since the missiles “didn’t hurt anybody.”

That logic leads to trouble. Only by a miracle did two U.S. pilots survive after an Iranian drone struck and burned inside their Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz on Monday. Yet Mr. Trump’s early reaction was to say that this, too, “wasn’t a big deal,” criticize the idea of returning to war, and have U.S. Central Command announce that its response would be “proportional.”

Centcom says it hit 20 air-defense targets on Tuesday, and Iran fired back in the Gulf. Given Israel had also hit reconstituted Iranian air defenses, the combined effort could prepare something larger. But Mr. Trump limited Israel’s strikes and previewed his own in public.

When the U.S. says “proportional,” Iran hears “weak.” Offering the regime such forward guidance signals that Mr. Trump still fears a return to war. Iran may reply with greater force if he strikes again, as the President said he would as early as Wednesday night.

Mr. Trump won’t want to hear it, but he has been dancing to Iran’s tune. He will have to break from it or go down as losing the war politically despite the early military gains.

It’s not too much to say the President faces a similar choice to the one George W. Bush faced in Iraq in 2006-07. The insurgency was winning, and Mr. Bush needed to shift his strategy or accept defeat. He chose the surge and broke the insurgency, and the U.S. was able to maintain influence in Iraq and the region.

Mr. Trump has hoped for Iranian concessions, but he abandoned much of his leverage by showing he wouldn’t countenance a return to war. Iran’s regime has taken advantage, as Mr. Trump now acknowledges. The President also said Wednesday that a U.S. “secret mission” since May has helped 200 ships and 100 million barrels of oil escape the Strait of Hormuz. “We took out the other night 22 ships, late at night with no lights,” he said. “That’s why oil is $85 a barrel.”

That’s progress and essentially a resumption of Project Freedom, while the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports imposes severe costs on the regime. But the Strait is still largely closed to commercial shipping. Some 130 ships transited Hormuz each day pre-war.

Centcom’s Adm. Brad Cooper has a plan to escort ships and open the Strait in earnest, but Mr. Trump doesn’t want to take the risk. Iran’s regime thinks it can hold out longer than Mr. Trump can, and he has fed that belief with his refrain that peace is a few days away.

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The way for Mr. Trump to right the ship is to go on offense. But that means more than pounding Iran. The task at hand is to open the Strait to allied ships. If the U.S. blockade endures while Iran’s breaks, the war is won. Mr. Trump could also join Israel in an operation to seize or destroy Iran’s enriched uranium. That’s high-risk, but it is the surest way of removing the fuel for a nuclear weapon.

Another idea is to use U.S. air power to create a safe zone inside Iran for regime opponents. The U.S. belatedly created such a zone for the Kurds in Iraq’s north in 1991. This would give Iran’s regime something to worry about besides shooting beyond its borders. A safe zone would increase U.S. leverage and further endanger the regime’s control.

Mr. Trump still hopes for a diplomatic breakthrough, but even the press’s favorite unnamed Pakistani officials are now downbeat. As long as Iran believes Mr. Trump is stuck with no alternative, it will squeeze him in the talks and in Hormuz.

The President’s choice now is to alter the facts on the ground or leave the conflict in a worse position than Mr. Bush did in Iraq.