Tit for Tat
Main audience: everyone
We should have learned from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Peak Performance.
Sirna Kolrami is a guest on the ship. He’s from a people renowned for their ability to think quickly and strategically. They play a game called Stratagema using a holographic game board and controls worn on the fingers. It’s blindingly fast, and as a game of strategy it leaves chess in the dust. Kolrami is a grandmaster at it. The only member of the crew with any chance against him is the android Lt. Commander Data.
In their first match, Kolrami wins in seconds.
Their rematch breaks the record for duration and ends only when Kolrami resigns in frustration. Why did the rematch turn out so differently?
Lt. Commander Data: I was playing for a standoff, a draw. While Kolrami was dedicated to winning, I was able to pass up obvious avenues of advancement, then settle for a balance. Theoretically, I should be able to challenge him indefinitely.
Doctor Pulaski: Then you *have* beaten him.
Lt. Commander Data: It is a matter of perspective, Doctor. In the strictest sense, I did not win.
Counselor Deanna Troi, Doctor Pulaski: Data!
Lt. Commander Data: I busted him up.
For years, Iran has wargamed the current scenario. Iran does not need to win. Iran only needs to survive and reflect the trauma inflicted on it so that other countries share the pain, prompting those countries to pressure the aggressors (USA and Israel) to stop.
There is a method to how Iran has chosen to implement Lt. Commander Data’s plan. Aside from using the Strait of Hormuz for leverage, Iran is exercising a version of tit for tat.
Researchers studying how games turn out among humans found decades ago, to their surprise, that simple tit for tat was more successful than any other game strategy. (As a college student, I volunteered to participate in a few studies. One of them turned out to be about this.) The opening move is cooperative. In Iran’s case, they were at the negotiating table trying to reach agreement with the USA. After the initial move, tit for tat calls for simply echoing the other player’s most recent move. If the other guy makes a cooperative move, you do too. If the other guy makes a hostile move, you do too.
When Israel hit Iran’s portion of the South Pars natural gas field (which is shared with Qatar), the scope of the war expanded to essential energy production infrastructure. That locked the world into medium to long term energy supply disruption. If the USA and Israel stop shooting this very minute, the flow of oil and related products around the globe will remain disrupted for at least months. Damaged infrastructure has to be repaired or rebuilt, then restarted. It is not quick work.
The USA and Israel refuse to recognize Iran’s strategy even though Iran repeatedly announces it. In this light, attacking Iran’s Natanz nuclear reactor was spectacularly dumb. Iran attacked Dimona in Israel, which has a nuclear facility, specifically in retaliation for the attack on Natanz—tit for tat. Every escalation by the USA or Israel will reap an Iranian escalation.
Iran’s munitions are cheap and plentiful. The USA and Israel use expensive munitions and expend stock like a fireworks warehouse on fire.
As I mentioned, Iran’s partial exception to tit for tat is the Strait of Hormuz. It’s the main place where Iran occasionally tries a de-escalating move as an overture. Closing it forced the rest of the world to pay attention. After the world began to feel some pain, Iran made deals with specific countries that are not allied with the USA or Israel, allowing ships for those countries to pass through the Strait.
DJT has not taken the obvious exit from his misbegotten war. Instead, he announced if Iran does not reopen the Strait by his 48-hour deadline, the USA will destroy Iran’s power stations. He believes he can do this with impunity because Russia’s Vladimir Putin has been doing it to Ukraine. Whether it is a war crime depends upon whether it has a legitimate military purpose. If it is mainly to terrorize and debilitate the civilian population, it is out of bounds according to international humanitarian law. Legitimate military purpose does not appear to be DJT’s motivation.
Iran responded by saying the Strait is open to shipping, with the exception of ships linked with Iran’s enemies. It’s a cooperating move despite the onslaught of hostile moves by DJT and Netanyahu. Iran put spotlights on the off-ramp.
They also put spotlights on benefits to countries that continue to stand firm against DJT’s demands for help with his war.
The UK chose to allow the USA to use its military facilities, initially for defensive purposes and now for offensive missions to hit targets around the Strait of Hormuz. Maybe this was supposed to feed the faltering “special relationship” between the USA and UK. If so, it failed. DJT’s response to the expanded cooperation was an immediate public complaint that the UK "should have acted a lot faster."
The UK gets oil and gas mainly from other places, so not being able to send its ships through the Strait will not matter. But although the two ballistic missiles fired by Iran at the base on the Chagos Islands did not hit, those missiles made it clear the UK is now part of tit for tat.
Other countries can put together DJT’s reaction to the UK’s expansion of military access, Iran’s shots at the Chagos Islands, and which countries can send ships through the Strait. It’s easy to see this is a conflict to stay out of as much as possible.
So far, Iran is not on track to win this war but it is on track to “bust up” its attackers.
The off-ramp is signposted.
The question is how to make DJT and Netanyahu take it.
I don't know that there is a way to make the Felon in Charge take that offramp. He's overly invested in his ego and self belief that what he does is "perfect" and "right" and to admit that he was wrong about it is not in his nature.
Even if there is a way to save face while doing it, I have my doubts that he'll accept it. His mental stability is gone and- as you said- most of what's left is a childish response to being told no, backed up by a lifetime of pretty much being able to do whatever he wants. I also think he's being held by the short hairs and controlled to the point where he CAN'T back down for fear of retribution from his controller(s).
Long story short, until he exits the world (may it be soon 🙏) , we're screwed.
Interesting, and so obvious - now that you've pointed it out. Off-ramp? Our toddler-in-chief will exhaust himself in his tantrum first. But not before he sets the world afire. A dark outlook? Perhaps. Dark, but fair.