Ayatollah Khamenei's Catch-22 dilemma

The brinkmanship game, historically, is all about waiting for one side or the other to blink first. Brinkmanship in the Gulf - ie between the US and Iran - is a tried and tested chess game. But in the latest version, it's difficult to see where compromise is going to enter the arguments. Partly it's because the president of the United States is Donald Trump, but it's also because the regime in Tehran headed by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cannot afford to give an inch unless they want the world to think they are weak and Trump is a winner. It's a new version of Catch-22. Tehran has to show that it will not yield to Trump's warnings and ultimatums and has to demonstrate that it can survive despite the man in the White House. Of course the truth is that Tehran is in a desperate way. The Trump sanctions - with more now on the way - are crippling the economy and blocking all exports. Inflation is reportedly now at 50 per cent. Nothing like the economic disaster in Venezuela but bad enough for the population, especially the younger generation, to start screaming and shouting and protesting. So Tehran really cannot afford to continue with this spiralling decline for much longer. They will have to accept Trump's offer of talks. But not yet. Not until they have demonstrated to the world that they will never bow down to the Yankees. There's the Catch-22 again. Just a reminder of the original brilliant Catch-22 catchphrase of the seminal book by Joseph Heller. A gunner in a US bombing crew wanted to be sent home and asked a doctor to sign his release on the grounds that he was mad. The doctor said all bomber crews had to be mad to fly missions every day. So why not sign my release, asked the gunner. Because, the doctor said, the only sane thing would be to stop flying but if you ask to stop flying then you must be sane and not mad. Catch-22!! Khamenei is in the same position. He would be mad to provoke the US into a war with Iran, but if he doesn't look as if he's trying to provoke Trump into a war, he will be seen as weak. Trump's dramatic backdown from launchng airstrikes last Thursday gave Tehran the opportunity to say he had blinked first. But actually I don't think the last-minute change of mind will do Trump any harm at all, and it certainly won't give Khamenei and co carte blanche to start blowing up more tankers and shooting more US drones out of the sky. On the contrary. Khamenei surely knows that Trump is not the sort of president who will give Tehran a second chance. But perhaps the Trump backdown which, incidentally, caused huge relief in the Pentagon, will give Tehran a small window of opportunity to agree to talks with Washington without seeming to be weak and surrendering. I don't think Khamenei is ready yet to speak to the Great Satan as they like to call the US. But if he doesn't agree at some point in the next few months, the danger is that miscalculation on the part of Tehran could lead to the war both Iran and the US are desperately trying to avoid.