The Tribune

with CHARLIE HARPER

THE WAR in Iran looks like it may quiet down now for a couple of weeks after the current leadership in Tehran accepted an offer from US president Donald Trump to cease the expanded, comprehensive military attacks he was threatening in recent days.

"A whole civilization might die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will," Trump wrote online early on Tuesday, ahead of an 8pm deadline that he set for Iran to strike a deal with the US.

The worldwide response to this statement was quick and condemnatory.

“Today, as we all know, there has also been this threat against the entire people of Iran. And this is truly unacceptable,” the American Pope Leo told reporters. “There are certainly issues of international law here, but even more, it is a moral question concerning the good of the people as a whole, in its entirety.”

Ceasefires in the Middle East are often pretty fragile, though, so it’s probably wise to moderate any expectations that this war will come to a quick conclusion. That’s especially true because Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will likely continue their aggressive campaign against Hezbollah on Israel’s northern frontier. And another long-time Iranian proxy, the Houthis in Yemen, may ignite hostilities with attacks on Red Sea shipping.

Trump’s bombastic outburst over the weekend that if Iran did not agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz he and the US military would unleash against Iran a furious attack on its civilian infrastructure might actually have had its desired effect. Most commentators agree that the number one goal for the current leadership in Tehran is to remain in power. That would mean no regime change for Iran. But this might be acceptable to Trump and the US if accommodation could be reached on other issues.

It doesn’t seem likely that the Iranian people, after 47 years of repressive theocratic rule by a ruthless cabal of aging despots, will spontaneously rise up and overthrow their oppressors simply because an effective American/Israeli airborne assault has decimated the highest ranks of their government. Many pundits are speculating, though, that a weakened Iranian regime may be susceptible to continued erosion of its grip on power.

Meantime, though, Trump’s increasingly unfiltered and sometimes hateful public rhetoric has stimulated some of his political critics to resume talking about invocation of the 25th amendment to the US constitution, which provides for removal of a president by allowing the vice president and a majority of the cabinet to declare the President unfit to discharge his duties.  The problem with this approach is that neither JD Vance nor Trump’s ultra-loyal cabinet would likely pursue this course under any foreseeable circumstances.

And even if they did, the 25th amendment also stipulates that two-thirds of the members of both houses of Congress would need to support Trump’s removal from office. That’s also pretty hard to imagine at this point.

Amid widespread forecasts of a shift of power to the Democrats in the November elections for the US House of Representatives, though, there are also murmurings of a third bill of impeachment against Trump. The prospects of success for such an action, however, dim when you consider that the same two-thirds majority rule for Senate approval also applies in impeachment proceedings.

The prospects for Democratic recapture of the House seem quite bright, but it’s very hard to do the math and believe that the Dems can also retake the Senate. Given the seats that are in play for the November election, even a simple blue majority in the next Senate seems almost far-fetched, despite the current unpopularity of the Trump administration.

So, the two most obvious means of removing Trump from office are at best improbable. There is some speculation that Trump’s health may be weakening, amid rumours of an unannounced Trump visit to the Bethesda Maryland military hospital in the DC suburbs.

That’s probably wishful thinking by his many critics too. Donald Trump is probably not going anywhere anytime soon.

Where does that leave the US?

On the international stage, US relations with its NATO allies appear to have reached an all-time low. Trump’s petulant demand that Western European allies assist in military efforts to clear the strategic Strait of Hormuz, after he initiated a war with Iran without involving them, has evoked some of the strongest criticism yet of his actions and overall approach.

Despite all that, it’s not hard to imagine that sober European leaders are all biding their time, with admittedly increasing impatience, until US voters ultimately weaken and eventually dismiss Trump and his jingoistic MAGA supporters from power. Local election results all across the US show significantly growing levels of political support for Democratic candidates, even when the Trump-backed candidate ultimately prevails.

Just the most recent example comes from the far northwest congressional district in Georgia, where voters have chosen Trump’s endorsed candidate to replace his one-time staunch ally, Marjorie Taylor Greene. But the GOP margin of victory was dramatically smaller than in recent elections there.

Georgia, with a Senate election looming in November, is just one of several “swing” states where localized contests may forecast general election outcomes. Another is Virginia, where Democrats recaptured all state-wide offices and control of both houses of the legislature last year. Now, in less than two weeks, Old Dominion voters will likely approve a temporary measure to permit congressional redistricting that could mean a net Democratic gain of five House seats in this November’s election.

The danger signs are there for Republicans. Trump, characteristically, shows no sign that he isn’t well aware of the political peril on his horizon. He and Republicans continue their efforts to influence the upcoming election by congressional redistricting in states like Texas and Florida by proposing new restrictions on mail-in balloting that might hinder Democratic voters in some states, and litigating to revoke or weaken some Voting Act provisions that seek to facilitate efforts by black and other minority voters to cast their ballots.

And if Trump’s war in Iran is at least partly motivated by an obsessive desire to distract American voters from the potential damage to his reputation and credibility from releasing the Epstein files, he appears to be succeeding to some extent. There is certainly less attention focused on those controversial records since the war began six weeks ago.

One aspect of the Iran war that has received little attention so far is the political peril to Trump if American military personnel were to be captured by Iran. We got a glimpse of that over the past week when an American crew member went missing from an aircraft shot down by the Iranians. Many in Washington held their breath during the frantic and ultimately successful effort to recover this crew member.

Those with longer memories recalled that one of the events that most weakened US president Jimmy Carter’s re-election bid in 1980 was his rather flaccid attempt to rescue the 53 US embassy hostages being held in Tehran after the Islamic revolution overthrew the US-supported monarchy there in February 1979.

In stark contrast to the overwhelming effectiveness of the US military in Venezuela and also in Iran in recent months, Carter’s Department of Defense and the CIA badly bungled the April 1980 US hostage rescue mission and abandoned the effort in rather humiliating fashion. The US has rarely looked so feckless and weak on the international stage. Carter’s political prospects took a severe hit with this rescue mission failure, and it greatly contributed to Ronald Reagan’s presidential election victory that same year.

Had Iran’s Revolutionary Guard managed to capture the US crewman, the public pressure on Trump to secure his release would have seriously ramped up demands for an end to hostilities or a rescue by whatever means necessary. Trump’s position would have become infinitely more pressured. And who knows how he might have reacted.

If the US military increases its involvement after the current ceasefire or in violation of it, the risk of losing American hostages, of course, continues and may even intensify. And so will the uncertainty about any potential American rescue attempts and other responses.

This might be one of the scariest scenarios in a conflict that is full of them.