Trump claims that killing an Iranian general is “de-escalation,” but it risks sparking a wider war.
, they said, killing him would impede those attacks — and thus “deescalate” the conflict, at least temporarily.Still, there’s one way the term “deescalation” does apply. Trump and his aides appear to be using a tactic borrowed from nuclear weapons strategy — a gambit called “escalate to deescalate.”
A diplomatic opening was possible because there was an offramp: Trump halted joint military exercises with South Korea and offered Kim reduced economic sanctions in return for clear moves toward denuclearization.The Trump administration has offered no such offramp to Iran — unless you count the long list of demands Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo has made of Tehran, ranging from an end to nuclear and missile development to wholesale changes in Iranian foreign and domestic policy.
And there’s an emotional element: Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has promised to seek revenge for the killing of his most important military official. They could force the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to close, a humiliating setback for the United States — especially given the immense U.S. sacrifice in lives and dollars in Iraq since 2003. Worse, it would make Iraq a virtual satellite of Iran — a huge strategic win for Tehran.
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