Donald Trump, never a president to care about consistency in his foreign policy, has become the flip-flopper in chief.
Despite insisting that the US has ‘already destroyed 100 per cent of Iran‘s military capability’, he called this weekend for America’s allies to bolster his navy in the Gulf in order to keep the Strait of Hormuz open to supertankers.
Within hours, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband answered the call.
He tepidly told the BBC‘s Laura Kuenssberg that Britain would ‘consider’ sending both ships and mine-hunting drones to help keep the bottleneck open.
The response from other allies – Japan, South Korea and France included – has been more circumspect still, acknowledging Trump’s plea for help and pledging to ‘monitor’ the situation, again without committing ships.
The Government is undoubtedly concerned – hence the possibility of supplying drones to the theatre – as oil prices soar and Britain’s negligible gas reserves dwindle.
Only a week earlier, Trump was sneering at Britain for putting HMS Dragon on readiness to deploy to the Mediterranean, as a safeguard for British troops in Cyprus against attacks from Iran and Hezbollah.
‘It’s a little bit late to be sending ships, right?’ he scoffed.
Donald Trump’s international call to arms is asking much of its allies, many of whom have been subject to his swingeing tariffs, writes Mark Almond
Ed Miliband told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that Britain would ‘consider’ sending both ships and mine-hunting drones to help keep the bottleneck open
Apparently not. Trump is realising that America’s navy is unlikely to be sufficient to keep ‘the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE and FREE!’ as he put it on his Truth Social messaging site.
War with Iran and, in particular, seizing control of Kharg Island – home to a major oil terminal considered the country’s economic lifeline to the north of the Strait – has long been one of Trump’s dreams.
In 1988, in one of his first public political statements, he warned if he ever became President: ‘I’d be harsh on Iran.’ Ever since the 1979-81 hostage crisis, when Iran humiliated the US, Trump has expressed fury at the Ayatollahs.
‘One bullet shot at one of our men or ships and I’d do a number on Kharg Island. I’d go in and take it,’ he bragged in 1988. ‘Iran can’t even beat Iraq, yet they push the United States around. It’d be good for the world to take them on.’
But Kharg Island is precisely the reason why previous White House incumbents have avoided head-on confrontation with Iran.
It stands in deep water, enabling 200,000-ton oil tankers to dock and load up with oil pumped through vast pipes from Iran.
Almost 40 years ago, President Ronald Reagan had a far bigger navy at his disposal.
And today, the situation is even more precarious for US forces, largely due to Tehran’s still formidable arsenal of suicide drones. While the US and Israel have done a thorough job of knocking out Iran’s air defences, nuclear laboratories and ballistic missile factories, its drones can be assembled anywhere and made cheaply.
The larger ones, packed with explosives, can easily be built in a domestic garage. As for the little ones, capable of carrying a cluster of grenades, they might be put together in a kitchen.
Iran has a potentially vast number of home bomb factories. The components, if not sourced internally, can be imported from China by road, via Pakistan.
Drone operators and artillery hide in the Zagros mountains that loom over the Strait, making sitting ducks of the shipping below.
This will present a formidable obstacle to any US attempt, with or without its allies, to secure safe passage into the Gulf.
Another unsolved problem will be Iran’s potential to cut off its own oil supply in the event that US forces occupy Kharg Island.
A huge American bombardment appears to have knocked out the island’s defences while leaving its storage facilities intact.
But Iran is under no obligation to keep the pipelines from the mainland flowing. Oil is currently being exported from Kharg via the Strait, out to the Indian Ocean and on to India and China.
But if the US seized Kharg, Iran would certainly switch off the taps, despite the short-term cost to their economy, which would only accelerate the mounting oil shock – something Trump wants desperately to avoid.
If Britain did offer to help beyond drones, we could send six ships and two submarines at a pinch – but that would mean denuding our own defences in the Atlantic.
The Royal Navy’s desperate weakness in numbers would leave it particularly vulnerable to kamikaze drones and torpedo speedboats in the Gulf’s maritime shooting gallery.
Donald Trump’s international call to arms is asking much of its allies, many of whom have been subject to his swingeing tariffs and scornful, belittling comments about their military capabilities and sacrifices.
Nor does the President’s equivocation towards Russia and Ukraine inspire confidence, among European powers at least, that he would risk his own ships to back up his allies if things go wrong.
It would be easier for allies to bargain with Iran – as France, Italy, China and India appear to have done – to allow their ships through the Strait unharmed.
Trump may find that ‘doing a number on Kharg Island’ is one thing, but defeating Iran in the Gulf is another entirely.
Mark Almond is director of the Crisis Research Institute in Oxford