With Washington shifting the goalposts of its war against Iran so frequently, observers find it hard to determine which way it is headed. The latest in the clash saw the US reportedly striking an Iranian ammunition dump in Isfahan with a 900kg bunker buster bomb.
With such heavy munition now in play, the conflict seems to be intensifying. That Yemen’s Houthis have joined the fray and an Iranian drone struck a big Kuwaiti oil tanker send the same signal. Expect the war to flare further up.
But then, according to a Wall Street Journal report, US President Donald Trump has told his aides that he would be willing to end the war even if the Strait of Hormuz remains mostly closed. In such an eventuality, the world might see the US as having lost because we would all be left worse off than before the war.
In public, the US leader is threatening Tehran with harsher action if it doesn’t sign a peace deal he wants it to. Trump’s coercive devices are well known, but the paradox is that this doesn’t make it any easier to guess what he’ll go for.
The tragic part is that the global economy, ours included, won’t go unscathed no matter how this war ends. Damage control ought to be everyone’s focus.