Right, so for months now, Trump has strutted about like a steroid-ridden satsuma and kept insisting that Iran is under pressure; it will break like an overripe melon.
But now, in the face of a shift on the part of Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days, a deal they have set on the table before Mr Dealmaker, Trump, for whom any pretence of power over Iran, the power of a US threat not really carrying any weight with Iran, he is being faced with a choice where he would rather chew off one of those dayglo orange tiny hands of his, than make.
If you accept the negotiations, it means you have to agree to let Iran get what it wants.
Refuse to do this and keep the oil crisis going, all during the election campaign, very much copping even more blame for it than you were already, because you had a chance to rectify that situation and you chose not to.
So what has he done then Damo? Well, patience, we’re getting to it, but first, here’s the offer made by Tehran that has thrown Trump into a tizzy.
There is little reason to doubt Iran’s position here. Iran holds all the cards, they hold the key to Hormuz, and after Trump attacked it, Tehran has set out exactly what must happen for the Strait to reopen.
It is Iran’s proposed way of ending a crisis inflicted on it. The ceasefire offer comes with conditions as you would expect:
These include lifting the blockade of the ports, lifting the sanctions, allowing the export of oil, releasing roughly $12 billion in frozen Iranian funds, and agreeing to a wider truce that would also include Yemen and Lebanon.
In return, the Iranians are offering to reopen the Strait of Hormuz without restrictions within a week. Thereafter, negotiations would be held.
It was agreed that from the seventh day, passage through Hormuz would be free, and after that a full discussion of the treaty terms could begin.
It really was as simple as that.
Iran has taken the mess that Trump created at Israel’s behest and placed the decision right in his lap. And it’s all the more notable that this act of generosity from Iran came just a day after Trump had already used that same stage to threaten Iran with annihilation and to frame the crisis around the upcoming American elections.
Listen to just how quickly the midterms became part of his thinking and bizarrely, in what way.
Trump insisted the midterms do not enter his thinking. Yet in the same breath, he said Iran was waiting to see the election result and predicted that a deal would come afterwards.
So, according to Trump, the midterms are irrelevant to him then? And yet central to Iran?
I mean, Tehran would be mad not to watch them. If the president attacking your country could lose Congress’s backing within weeks, that changes every calculation. Iran is not obliged to ignore Trump’s domestic weakness out of politeness. It can wait and see whether his allies keep backing a war that is becoming more expensive by the day.
Trump, or at least his team, will know that perfectly well, hence why it got raised at all.
By saying it though, Trump gives the game away. This war is no longer just about Washington pressuring Iran. He is trying to keep it going without the political cost landing on him before the midterms.
And given the position he’s in going into those elections, it’s a very dangerous bet, because the cost is already landing on him. The Strait of Hormuz has not returned to anything like normal and is unlikely to before those elections now, with oil prices continuing to climb.
Traffic hasn't been cut off altogether of course, some boats still reach their ports. But traffic has fallen to single digits on some days. The authorities at sea still warn of strikes and projectiles, while insurance companies are apprehensive and charge more for the risk. The cost is not confined to the ships; it reaches the prices of oil, food supplies, and almost everything that gets shipped.
The American military may sail about, looking very military, exercising their muscles in front of the camera as if they were giving an audition for the recruiting office; they may threaten and scream their heads off. And that’s just Pete Kegsbreath. But they have not been able to make ordinary traffic return to normal in significant numbers.
Trump's whole demeanour is that everything is under control, but every time we go to get petrol we see that is obviously not the case. One of the world's most important waterways is still in disarray, and it is not Trump, but Iran, which has publicly suggested, in very straightforward terms how to deal with it.
So then, inevitably, came the report that Trump had turned it down. He was already the one widely blamed for oil prices rising, he’s now doubled down, immediately before the Midterms. You can almost hear his polling numbers in freefall, whistling like Wile E Coyote falling from a cliff.
Apparently, Trump has decided to let the crisis simmer for a while. He probably hopes to begin a major conflict once the American elections have been held, because he’s sure to win them, any stories saying otherwise are fake news and he knows all of this because Natalie Harp probably printed it off and showed him in the middle of his nappy change.
Either way, he’s not interested in this seven-day process. Who knows? Perhaps Iran expected that and thought we can do him even more electoral damage that he won’t see coming, blind as he is to reality.
And all of this disruption of shipping costs money of course.
Gulf oil producers are trying to get around the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia tried to transport some of its oil westward through the Red Sea via the East-West Pipeline to Yanbu, until that got stymied by the Houthis. but all of that was because it can't bypass the Strait.
The offshore transfers are cumbersome, limited, and costly. Any extra handling means more time, more risk, more insurance premiums, and another cost account.
No one in the chain of command is willing to pay extra and no prizes for guessing who does.
In the end, all these costs are ultimately added to fuel, transport, industry, and food costs. They fall on companies already coping with declining margins and then onto households who don't happen to have a reserve of petroleum products hidden behind the shed, or a secret store of diesel oil.
That's what he's skipping in his speeches, either through choice or because he simply doesn’t see it. Trump may call it putting pressure on Iran, but Americans will call it too much of everything, and they'll wonder why their wallets are getting emptier
He speaks constantly as if he is in control of this situation when he has only one option to put it right – to surrender. All he can see though is to keep squeezing Iran, wait a little longer, secure an even better deal and emerge victorious. But people can’t afford to wait any longer.
Yes, your petrol costs more, the war is still dragging on, the merchant fleet is in chaos, but President Trump swears he might have something for you after the vote. It's not just some distant finish line, beyond which all repercussions can be safely ignored; it is the date by which Trump has to explain why the allegedly unparalleled power of the United States of America has not yet resulted in normal traffic through Hormuz.
A winning message, if you deliberately want to lose and want a prize for it.
Trump's Republican colleagues in Congress are aware of the danger, although most of them are too intimidated by Trump to do anything to stop it.
Just the other day, the Senate had a chance to restrain him.
On 15 September, the House again passed a war-powers resolution by 220 votes to 204, with seven Republicans joining it.
Seven Republicans might not seem to constitute a stampede, but in the Trump Party, for seven of them to renounce him on a war question is almost the equivalent of a prison break.
But then the Senate voted it down. The House showed there is a crack in Republican support, but the Senate closed ranks and kept the president’s hands free. Trump is far from the only one requiring being given their marching orders.
They see the oil problem. They see that public patience is running out. They also see that Trump is going into the elections promising a solution, as if he had knocked down a load-bearing wall and promised that, if they hadn't lost his toolbox by November, he'd give it a beam.
And Iran, which sees it all, also sees nothing but.
And that is precisely why the seven-day proposal was clever.
This turns the issue of Hormuz from a purely military issue into a political issue for Trump. Tehran has offered a timely way to ease the shipping crisis, so Washington can no longer present this incident as something that has happened to it outside of their control and Trump will have only himself to blame for the continued crisis, rising prices, and midterm pressure.
Washington has deliberately decided to not end the strife.
Trump would rather that the question be posed, 'Will the pressure on Iran work?'
And there’s another awkward element here in play too. The United States and the Gulf States are already discussing building alternative oil and gas channels that would bypass Hormuz permanently.
So that's how they see the current government: a chocolate teapot.
When governments start considering new oil pipes and refineries, it is not because the existing system is going perfectly, but because the alarm has sounded. While Trump still claims everything is going well, his allies are pondering how to avoid this mess again.
But what happens if Trump continues to refuse assuming he survives the Midterms?
If Iran's proposal proves untenable, if its terms prove impossible to fulfil, maybe negotiations will begin, and we will be met with more counter-proposals. It would be quite the sales pitch to convince people though, given Iran’s pitch is so simple though.
Right now, Trump favours a view that a possible opening arose and Washington turned it down because a concession might damage the notion of its overwhelming power.
That image is extremely important to Trump, being a massive narcissist.
Any old deal will not do-he must have a document which he can proclaim as a surrender of Iran, personally delivered by Donald Trump, with golden letters and an adulating chorus of flunkeys to the effect that nothing has ever been so negotiated.
That's not what Iran offers.
It offers conditions.
Conditions mean a compromise. A compromise means conceding that the other side has the power, which pricks the heart of the story that Trump has been spinning about this war from the start.
The rebuff does not mean this country's power is eliminated. Hormuz remains narrowed; the naval alert remains in force; the costly rectifications remain in place. As a result, faced with the choice to accept or reject the proposal, Trump would appear weak before his supporters, but refusing it would make him responsible for every week of chaos.
That's why his rage is so evident when there's talk of elections and Iran.
A calendar cannot be bullied.
He cannot tell the oil market to ignore the risk.
He cannot tell the shipping companies to resume their service simply because it would be electorally convenient for him.
And it is no longer possible for him to claim that Iran has no leverage when the straits are the lever on which the entire discussion is based and we’ve known this to be the case for months despite his denials.
If Washington refuses every diplomatic opening, which is a matter of compromise, the countries subject to American military pressure learn that there is no point in making concessions to it; on the contrary, they will wait for political weakness, turn to economic measures, and hope that the financial losses will split up Washington instead.
This makes the wars longer, costlier, and harder to end.
The second message to American allies in the region is that the economy can become a battlefield as soon as an American president needs to show his personal authority.
Trump bet on the Iranians, confident that they would succumb before he felt any blowback for himself, his party, and his elections. Instead, they put down a series of terms; Hormuz is still a mess; and the Republican support is crumbling faster than a Cadbury’s Flake in a bathtub. He’s beaten, but he will never, ever, ever admit it. More important than ever therefore that he suffers the mother of all defeats come the Midterms.
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