The most grievous of the very many baleful consequences of Donald Trump’s war of choice in Iran is that it has given Vladimir Putin’s struggling war machine a vital boost.
With US sanctions on sales of Russian oil now being relaxed, the Kremlin can take further advantage of the energy crisis, and sell yet more oil and natural gas into world markets at inflated rates. This will, in turn, help fund Russia in its grinding war of attrition in time for new spring offensives, after it found itself perilously short of money, and even manpower, in recent months.
For Volodymyr Zelensky, it must feel like yet another betrayal. President Trump’s telephone conversation with his counterpart in Moscow earlier this week seems to have been the preparation for this latest move, and provides further proof, were it needed, of the uncanny, Rasputin-like influence the Russian leader exerts over the president of the United States.
One day, we may learn the perhaps disturbing reasons for this, but, for the time being, the fact is that Ukraine is being placed at a critical disadvantage because of the United States’ current misguided policy of appeasing Russia. Or, to put it more directly, the very security of Europe is being sacrificed for a fundamentally futile war on Iran, which no one, with the prominent exception of Benjamin Netanyahu, ever wanted or needed.
It is doubly galling for the Ukrainians, because even as their motherland is occupied and in peril, President Zelensky has dispatched teams of advisers to help the US and the Gulf states to cope with Iran’s drone warfare.
It is no surprise that the Iranian Shahed drones, and similar unmanned aerial vehicles Tehran is guiding towards military, civilian and marine targets in Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, are, of course, the very same as the ones the Russians manufacture under licence, which rain down on the unarmed inhabitants of Ukrainian towns and villages.
Iran and Russia have long cooperated, diplomatically and militarily, in their sanctions-busting efforts, and there are rumours that the Kremlin has recently been supplying Tehran with details of the location of US assets in the region. This only adds to the puzzle of President Trump’s almost maternal protection of Russian interests.
At any rate, Russia receives little criticism for its friendship with Iran, while Ukraine gets no thanks for saving Americans and Arabs from death and injury. It can only be hoped that Ukraine receives some pecuniary benefit from the rich Gulf kingdoms in exchange for its expertise.
If so, it would help to offset the financial windfall that Russia and its war machine are currently enjoying – around £5bn already in the short time the conflict has lasted, and there is no end in sight to the fighting. There has now arisen a bizarre spat between President Trump and the new Ayatollah Khamenei about who gets to decide when the war is over. The competition actually makes peace less likely.
Mr Trump says that it is up to him, and he’s not done yet, despite saying the opposite only a few days ago; his counterpart declares that he won’t surrender, and that the vital Strait of Hormuz will remain closed to traffic at his pleasure. An Iranian war aim is that the price of a barrel of oil should reach $200 (£151) – which would have crippling consequences for the world economy, but offer a further bonanza for President Putin.
In short, this is not a sustainable situation.
In Britain, the chancellor Rachel Reeves and her colleagues are rightly berating the oil companies for profiteering, based on the common observation that prices at petrol stations usually go up like a rocket at the first whiff of trouble in the Middle East, and down like a feather when the crisis passes. But no Western government or population will be able to escape the grim consequences of a prolonged period of high energy costs and a bout of inflation, if not stagflation, unless things calm down rapidly.
Through his own vanity and misjudgements, President Trump has seemingly created a trap for himself: the US is now the only force with the firepower to break the Iranian embargo and get the oil and gas supplies moving again – so it cannot easily extricate itself from the war, even if it wished to.
Ideally, given the reaction of the markets and the expectation of another “Taco”, the president will once again chicken out, declare victory, and at least pause Operation Epic Fury. At that point, he should offer the Iranians a resumption of talks on the nuclear issue, which, a few weeks ago, very nearly yielded a historic agreement and the renunciation of nuclear weapons by the Iranians.
In turn, the Iranians should save their own people and their neighbours from yet more misery, by taking up the offer and voluntarily freeing the Strait of Hormuz. In truth, it would probably end up not so very different from the US and European-sponsored Iran nuclear deal signed by Barack Obama in 2015 and subsequently rescinded by a jealous Mr Trump, but it is the best way that this catastrophic war can be ended swiftly.
For Mr Trump, it would restore his slim chances of retaining control of Congress this autumn, and remove the likelihood of a subsequent series of impeachments. Knowing him, he would then illogically claim to have ended another war – even though this entire dangerous episode was a mess of his own making – and to have rescued the global economy from a slump.
Meanwhile, the experts say that between 40 and 440kg of partially enriched uranium remains unaccounted for, and is likely buried in some deep tunnel in Iran. Other, more peaceful means will be needed to resolve that unfinished business in the years ahead; a nuclear-armed Iran remains an unacceptable prospect.
For now – and not least, for the sake of Ukraine – Mr Trump must end the fighting.
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