Another day, another pivot as Trump flails in an Iran trap of his own making

Another day, another hairpin turn in the world of Donald Trump’s foreign policy. The weekend was all about war, and Trump insisting Iran had not yet “paid a big enough price”. Tuesday was Project Freedom, styled as a grand “humanitarian gesture” to allow trapped ships and their crews to escape the Gulf, but also aimed at weakening Iran’s chokehold on the strait of Hormuz. By the early hours of Wednesday we were back to peace. The president announced: “Great Progress has been made toward a Complete and Final Agreement” so Project Freedom would be paused to give negotiations a chance. The three approaches on three consecutive days do have something in common. They are all attempts to wrestle with the same set of hard facts: the regime in Iran is unlikely to collapse or surrender the right to enrich uranium no matter how many bombs are dropped on it, Tehran has shown its capacity to close the strait of Hormuz, and a total blockade of the Gulf hurts the US economy as well as Iran. A billboard in Tehran depicting the strait of Hormuz, with a caption in Persian reading ‘Forever in Iran's Hand’. Photograph: AFP/ Together these hard facts make up the sides of a steel box in which the Trump administration, largely through its own actions, finds itself trapped. The repeated policy changes in recent days show him flailing around inside this trap, pinging off the walls and looking for an exit other than humiliation or a forever war. …