THE PARADOX OF DEFEAT: How losing the Iran war could be a win for the US

The paradox of a nation coming out ahead as a result of its failure in a conflict is a challenging idea. But there are examples in history of devastated nations that have rebuilt themselves for the better.

The announcement at the weekend that peace is at hand in the Persian Gulf — or at least a memorandum of understanding is to be signed on Friday between representatives of the US and Iran that will stipulate the Strait of Hormuz will be reopened, the US blockade of Iranian ports will end, and petro-shipments can resume for the rest of the world — can give some modest hope that sanity will prevail.

However, left undetermined and subject to further tedious, hard negotiations (with the attendant possibilities of angry breakdowns in such talks) are all those complex, awkward, prickly bits that have now been booted further down the road.

These include ongoing hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, the ultimate fate of Iranian funds held in escrow in the US, the continuation or ending of sanctions against the Iranian economy, Iranian ballistic missile development and deployment, and, crucially, the fate of enriched fissile materials — the so-called nuclear dust — and any new efforts to enrich uranium to weapons grade.

At a minimum, though, on the basis of this announcement and those things left out, it is far too early to declare, as US President Donald Trump tried to do on the day of his 80th birthday, that peace is about to rain down upon the Middle East.

Rain, in fact, did come down in Washington on Sunday, delaying the start of Trump’s highly touted but morally suspect Ultimate Fighting Championship human cockfighting (the late Senator John McCain’s term) extravaganza on the White House grounds.

Importantly, the primary, proximate cause of the conflict — enriched uranium — remains unsettled. Meanwhile, the debate is about to begin over who won and who lost in this conflict.

Certainly, the implicit and explicit war aims of the US — that Iran never has a nuclear weapons capability, regime change in Tehran, and the promise that “help is on the way” to Iranian protesters against a brutal government — all remain unfulfilled. History will render its judgments over the US’s (and Iran’s and Israel’s) successes or failures in the current hostilities.

Meanwhile, the Iranians have discovered and effectively embraced one overwhelming strategic advantage. That is a demonstrated ability to block the flow of one-fifth of the world’s petroleum and natural gas shipments from the Persian Gulf nations, affecting all manner of trade and industrial processes global