Early Tuesday, General Dan Caine, who chairs the Joint Chiefs of Staff, addressed reporters to outline the latest developments in Washington’s so-called “don’t-call-it-a-war” operation. He spoke in a grave tone, noting that since the ceasefire was announced, Iran has fired upon commercial vessels nine times and seized two container ships.
“And they’ve attacked U.S. forces more than ten times.”
As recently as yesterday, two U.S. Navy destroyers that had ventured into the Strait of Hormuz were forced to defend themselves against a sustained onslaught of Iranian drones, missiles, and small boats. That’s a peculiar kind of ceasefire.
Nevertheless, the administration insisted that the regime’s numerous recent attempts to kill American service members remain “below the threshold of restarting major combat operations at this point,” Caine told reporters.
The destroyers weren’t the only targets in Iran’s crosshairs on Monday. Iranian forces fired at a South Korean tanker near the strait and launched a fresh airborne assault on the United Arab Emirates, a longtime American ally. ABC News pressed the president shortly afterward to explain how he intended to respond.
“[It was] not heavy firing,” Donald Trump scoffed, downplaying the strike on the UAE by noting that only “one got through. Not huge damage.” A foreign affairs correspondent who observed those remarks predicted that the president’s hesitation is likely to invite more Iranian strikes. Tehran appears to believe that Trump is desperate to extricate himself from the war, regardless of the cost.
Sure enough, as this newsletter was being drafted on Tuesday, Iran began firing again at the UAE.
This isn’t supposed to happen.
A president who continually projects himself as the most rugged, loudest enforcer on the world stage isn’t expected to back away from a fight when provoked. More critically, the provocation shouldn’t be coming from the other side in the first place. A central tenet of postliberalism holds that ruthlessness creates deterrence: the more brutal you are toward those who defy you, at home and abroad, the less defiance you should encounter.
In theory, America’s ability to deter aggression should be greatest when the nation is led by a loose-cannon postliberal strongman. In practice, U.S. deterrence is conspicuously weak at the moment.
Despite weeks of bombing and bombastic presidential threats, Iran continues to hold the strait hostage. Disappointed by Washington’s failure to neutralize Iranian air attacks, our Gulf partners are turning to Ukraine for assistance instead. Europe remains on the sidelines of the conflict and is weighing plans to reboot NATO without the United States if necessary. Meanwhile, China is preparing to gauge the president’s views on whether America remains committed to defending Taiwan.
We’re left with a paradox: this supposed deterrence-minded “peace through strength” administration isn’t doing a particularly good job at deterrence.
A schoolyard in which America has set out to bully anyone it chooses is supposed to be a place where everyone seeks its friendship and avoids provoking it. That’s not the situation we find ourselves in.
