Donald Trump imposed a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. And with the US military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, he took a serious risk - and was crowned with great success. Was it strategy or complete improvisation?
The most important question in recent days is one - will the truce between Israel and Iran last? After Donald Trump announced it on Tuesday evening, Israel and Iran exchanged several more blows. This motivated Trump to call on Israel to “bring its pilots home”.
Trump declares victory
Since then, the peace has held. For Trump, this is an absolute success. Israel has achieved its military goals - Iran's nuclear program has been significantly weakened. Exactly how much remains unclear. "There is no doubt that the nuclear facility at Fordow has been eliminated," Trump said. Gauhar Mukhatzhanova of the Vienna-based Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is more cautious with her assessments. "Satellite images show that there is damage, but it is not yet clear how extensive it is," the expert said. A US intelligence report leaked to the media this week said that Iran's nuclear program had not been completely destroyed.
Despite everything, Donald Trump immediately declared a political victory - he said he had supported Israel, threatened the Iranian regime with a brief military intervention and imposed his will. "It was my honor to destroy all the nuclear facilities and end the war," Trump said. It sounded as if everything that happened in the last 14 days had gone exactly according to plan - according to his plan.
Strategy or coincidence
In addition, the escalation between Israel and Iran, which Trump began to call the "Twelve-Day War", did not initially develop according to the American president's ideas. "The Israeli attack actually came at the very moment when the United States and Iran were going to meet again to continue their negotiations," says Mukhatzhanova.
Rosemary Kalanick, chair of the Middle East program at the think tank "Defense Priorities", also doubts that everything happened according to Trump's plan. "I think Trump didn't want Israel to attack Iran and even tried to convince it not to," she says. And the US strikes on nuclear facilities were hardly planned, she suggests.
It is striking that Trump's rhetoric on Iran changed radically only after Israel attacked. Before that, the US head of state had been talking about a "deal" with Tehran. Then he suddenly declared that the attacks were coming very soon and would be worse than anything Tehran had ever experienced. He even talked about regime change and hinted that he might kill the ayatollah. Then he asked for two weeks to make a decision and attacked after two days.
For Trump, this was definitely the most difficult moment of the war - his entire campaign for a second term was based on the promise that there would be no more American intervention in the Middle East. A possible long war between the US and Iran could seriously undermine the support of his supporters in the US. The problem would also be for national security - because there was no way to predict what and how severe the Iranian response could be.
Preliminary arrangements with Iran?
In the end, the response was modest - only seven missiles fired by Iran at the US base “Al Udeid” in Qatar. And it is known that Doha maintains good relations with Tehran and Qatar has repeatedly been a mediator in various conflicts in the region. The Iranian attack was announced in advance, so it did not pose a problem for the Qatari air defense, which intercepted all the missiles.
Therefore, the suspicion creeps in that there may have been a preliminary agreement between the US and Iran about what Tehran's response would be. During the previous negotiations between them, contacts were definitely established between the two countries. This may have given Tehran the opportunity to avoid a spiral of escalation that Iran is unlikely to be interested in, nor does Trump himself.
"Political Houdini"
The latest escalation in relations between Iran and Israel appears to have subsided for now. The question remains whether Trump has a longer-term plan for a potential nuclear conflict in the Middle East. “With Trump, it is never entirely clear what his strategy is, whether he has one at all or whether he is just doing things on instinct,” says Rosemary Kalanick. “Trump has been something of a “political Houdini” for years, she says. “He is constantly getting into difficult situations, but he also invariably manages to come out of them dry”.