Re-thinking the drivers of the Iran War
And, therefore, its duration and its targets, including Greenland and Canada.
American Secretary of War Pete Hegseth forced the Army Chief of Staff General Randy George to take early retirement, around 18 months early. He also dismissed Major General William Green, the head of the army’s chaplains. The army had received criticisms for casting the Iran war in religious terms. The head of Training and Transformation command, who was appointed under Trump, was also fired.
While shake-ups of command roles are to be expected given the differences between Hegseth’s ideology and that of the establishment, the dismissal of General George and Major General Green is more significant. This likely reflects differences on deploying ground forces to Iran and/or attacking civilian targets as part of President Donald Trump’s and Sec Hegseth’s promise to send Iran back to the stone age. The religious role of Maj Gen Green is significant, given how Trump and his allies have been selling the war on religious grounds, where Trump is saving the Jewish people from Iranians like Esther, and is being compared to Jesus Christ.
Furthermore, Bloomberg reports that Trump is planning to wage the 2026 midterm elections on the basis of building a war economy, with a 50% increase in defence spending to USD1.5 trillion dollars in the 2027 budget. Furthermore, Trump raised tariffs on aluminium, steel, and copper, with discounts for articles made overseas but from American steel, aluminium or copper.
Iran, for its part, is betting that the war will break the world economy before it has to give up.
Commercial Impact
Military Realities
The mere threat of sending Iran to the stone age reflects a military failure: the Americans and Israelis have been bombarding Iran’s missile cities and attacking Iranian assets along the Strait of Hormuz. And yet, Iran keeps firing, and is in full control of the Strait.
Therefore, the Americans have switched tactics, and, like Israel in Gaza, they are now targeting civilian infrastructure to break the will of the Iranian leadership. However, Iran will not go back to the stone age alone. And, just like Hamas in Gaza, it will fight until the war is politically unsustainable. However, as we discuss below, a long war may be precisely the point for the United States.
