The language of power often reveals more than it intends. In a rare moment of candor on March 7, US President Donald Trumpdescribed the confrontation with Iranas “a big chess game at a very high level … I’m dealing with very smart players … high-level intellect. High, very high-IQ people.”
If Iran is, by Trump’s own admission, a “high-level” opponent, then the sudden revival of a15-point planpreviously rejected by Iran a year ago suggests a disconnect between how the adversary is understood and how it is being approached. It’s a plan already examined in negotiation by Iran and dismissed as unrealistic and coercive.
Despite this, the Trump administration is once again framing the “roadmap” as a pathway to de-escalation. Tehran has once again dismissed the gambit as Washington “negotiating with itself – reinforcing the perception that the US is attempting to impose terms rather than negotiate them.
The US president is right about one thing – Iran is not an opponent that can be easily dismissed or overwhelmed. Trump’s own description is a tacit acknowledgement that this is a far more capable and complex adversary than those the US has faced in past Middle Eastern wars, such as Iraq. And that is why the odds are increasingly stacked against the United States and Israel.
This conflict reflects a familiar but flawed imperial assumption: that overwhelming military force can compensate for strategic misunderstanding. The US and Israel appear to have misjudged not only Iran’s capabilities, but the political, economic and historical terrain on which this war is being fought.
Unlike Iraq, Iran is a deeply embedded and adaptable regional power. It has resilient institutions, networks of influence, and the capacity to impose asymmetric costs across multiple theatres. It knows how tomanage maximum pressure.
The most immediate problem islack of legitimacy. This war has authorisation from neither the United Nations or, in the case of America, the US Congress. Further, US inte
সূত্র: Asia Times
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