In the Middle East, has Donald Trump become embroiled in a conflict whose consequences he may regret? “The Islamic Republic understands that time is on its side, and Trump understands that time is against him,” Bertrand Badie noted on Friday, April 3rd, while speaking on “La Matinale.”
Donald Trump praised the destruction of a bridge near Tehran, which resulted in at least 9 deaths and 95 injuries, according to Iranian authorities. The American president urged the leaders of the regime to reach an agreement before it was too late. Bertrand Badie, a professor at Sciences-Po specializing in international affairs and author of “Beyond Power and War,” published by Odile Jacob, discussed the issue as a guest on “La Matinale” on Friday, April 3rd.
This text corresponds to part of the interview. Click on the video to watch the full interview.
Djamel Mazi: We have seen this bridge, this civil infrastructure destroyed in Tehran by the United States. Up until now, the targets were mostly political and military. Is this a sign of frustration or a form of impotence on the part of the United States?
Bertrand Badie: This bridge was not just any bridge. It was a major technical achievement in the entire Middle East. It was something absolutely emblematic that the Iranian population was quite attached to. And this bridge is not the only example. Little has been said about it, but it had a huge impact on the population of Tehran, yesterday and the day before: the bombing of the Pasteur Institute. In Tehran, it is absolutely emblematic. It was built in the 1920s. It was the symbol of Iran’s entry into modernity, positivity, and science. And all of this is destroyed, meaning the production of vaccines and everything that follows.
This signifies several things. It indicates first that, gradually, as you very well observed, we are moving from targeted attacks – the first one was particularly targeted as it reached and terminated the Supreme Leader – to generalized attacks. What lies behind all this? I don’t know if you remember that song by Brel that I really like, in which there is this phrase: “I wanted to see your sister, I saw your mother.” It’s a bit the dramatic scenario we are currently experiencing in the Middle East. That is to say, Trump is facing a war that he initiated and never thought would have this effect. He believed that, as did people of his generation, in the idea that power can do everything, that firepower can do everything, he thought that after 15 days it would be over, done, we wouldn’t talk about it anymore. Iran, the Islamic Republic more precisely, would be on its knees.
However, what he discovered, and that is where the mother replaced the sister, is precisely the opposite. That is a war of destruction that led those who were attacked to react massively, knowing that the cost of their destructive response would be much higher for the world than the destruction in Iran. That is to say, attacking the petro-monarchies, attacking the Gulf, shaking the entire world from Finland to Argentina, passing through Botswana. And so, this objectively placed Trump and Netanyahu in a position of strategic inferiority, realizing that any act of destruction would cause a globalization dismantling that is much more dangerous and costly than imagined. As a result, what happens? The Islamic Republic understands that time is on its side, and Trump understands that time is against him. As a result, when you feel that time is against you, what do you do? Well, you strike as hard as possible, just as Putin did in Ukraine. That is to say, by disorganizing society. When Putin targeted electrical installations in the middle of winter to plunge the population into the cold, he created an extremely constrained situation.
However, there are two perverse effects. The first perverse effect: it means that those who were initially in favor in Iran of a military intervention by the United States or Israel because they hated the Islamic Republic begin to change their behavior, moving away from the logic of regime change. But the second consequence: when you play this game with an authoritarian state, it is not the same as playing this game as Putin did with a democratic state like Ukraine. That is to say, Zelensky’s reflex was to follow his population. The Islamic Republic’s reflex, on the contrary, is to take advantage of this to play a coercive card. And that is why all these people will lose at a very high level, that is, we will be in a logic of destruction that will harm the entire world population and could lead to a coercive and authoritarian reaction within the Iranian regime. Well done, Mr. Trump, you will earn the Nobel Prize for Failure!
Anthony Bellanger: Another sign of Donald Trump’s absolute frustration is the fact that he is turning against his allies. We are used to Europe being part of his gimmick, France also being part of this sort of gimmick, which he adopted from the beginning of his term. But Saudi Arabia is new. Calling Mohammed bin Salman a “lick-ass,” I quote, is an insult to the country, its de facto leader, and particularly violent, addressed to an Arab, we can say, because it is something to which the Saudi monarchy is not accustomed. It is very damaging for the United States in the short, medium, and long term. What does this frustration of Donald Trump signify?
So, at the most basic level, it signifies the psychological effect of disappointment, frustration, and failure. When you undertake something and fail, you get irritated with your neighbors, your wife, your children, with everything in front of you. That being said, we must distinguish the relationship with allies and the relationship with petro-monarchies. It’s very interesting. The relationship with allies must be taken seriously. Why? Because we are seeing the emergence of a Donald Trumpian diplomatic stance that is ten years old. From his first term, he began to question the relevance of NATO, the Atlantic Alliance, etc. But I would go even further: we are seeing the emergence of a stance that has been that of the United States since the fall of the [Berlin] Wall, with this great question that haunts the American political class, but increasingly affects American voters, who consider themselves dispossessed, who see themselves as the great financiers of the world, namely: is the Alliance now more costly than rewarding? It was rewarding during the Cold War because it offered the United States clear hegemony.
Click on the video to watch the full interview.
