In the American streaming series “Bosch,” the main character, a police detective named Harry Bosch, kills two bad guys in a plane who are trying to kill him. He then goes to the cockpit holding a pistol taken from one of the dead men. The pilot looks at him and says, “You kill me, you kill yourself.” Bosch says, “I’m a f–king cop, asshole.” The plane lands safely and the pilot is taken into custody.
In this analogy, President Trump is Harry Bosch; the pilot is the Supreme Leader of Iran, Mojtaba Khamenei; and the plane is the world economy. Khamenei can crash the plane, that is, kill the world economy by destroying the oil and gas infrastructure throughout the Persian Gulf so that it would take years to rebuild. Khamenei could go even further and destroy desalination plants in the following countries with noted dependencies on such plants for drinking water: Saudi Arabia (70%), Oman (86%), United Arab Emirates (42%), and Kuwait (90%). Doing this would make these countries largely uninhabitable. It’s important to recognize that the Iranian military has demonstrated that it can hit precisely what it wants to hit with missiles and drones and destroy it.
Sticking with the Bosch analogy, it’s still possible for Trump to let the plane land and save the world economy from complete destruction. The difference is that the pilot—in this analogy, Iran in the person of its Supreme Leader—must be allowed to go free and live undisturbed. That is what Trump believes he cannot allow because it would be a humiliating loss.
Some commentators have suggested that Trump or possibly Israel may out of desperation hit Iran with one or more nuclear bombs. There is no reason to believe that the Iranians haven’t planned for this and have a dead-hand capability that would retaliate after such an attack and accomplish the destruction described above and probably much more.
So, there you have it. Trump and his team have stumbled into a war they cannot win. If the war does not end soon, it will likely destroy the world economy for lack of energy supplies and plunge it into a deep, years-long depression, one from which it will be difficult to emerge.
Someone needs to make clear to Trump that this is where we are headed. People say he will withdraw from the conflict and sue for peace (or more likely declare victory) when the stock market falls far enough. Even if he does (which I doubt he will), by the time the stock market sufficiently signals trouble, it may be too late to avoid an economic depression of long duration.
And, there is no guarantee that without meeting all of Iran’s demands—complete U.S. withdrawal from the Persian Gulf, an end to all economic sanctions, reparations for the damage done to Iran, accepting Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz (through which previously passed 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas), and an end to attacks from all belligerants including Israel—that Iran will stop fighting and re-open the strait to ship traffic.
