Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Trump Speaks, Oil Soars, Stocks Drop
Last night, Donald Trump spoke for 20 minutes on prime time TV. He read the speech in his uninterested voice with about as much enthusiam as the average person has for dental surgery. It was clearly a job he had to do. It was a weak performance by a man in over his head. As best, he could have rallied Americans to stay the course for the next while as he winds the war down. Instead, he delivered the worst, a confused and self-contradictory monologue that signaled an escalation of the fighting. His is proving that hope is not a strategy.
Here is the critical passage:
"We are on track to complete all of America's military objectives shortly, very shortly. We are going to hit them extremely hard. Over the next two to three weeks, we're going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong. In the meantime, discussions are ongoing."
Put in the terms familiar to students of strategy, he is escalating to de-escalate. Sometimes, that works. This time it will not. Iran gets a vote, and Iran will vote no. The decapitation of the regime left hardliners in control. The Supreme Leader is Mojtada Khamenei, the son of the previous Supreme Leader upon whom the Americans dropped a bomb. The younger Ayatollah Khamenei also lost his wife and son. Does that seem like the kind of man who is aching for peace or for revenge?
Iran is not able to defeat the US and Israel in set-piece battles. Everyone knows it, including the Iranian military. So they are fighting back in an assymetrical way, missiles hitting the Gulf States for instance. Cyberspace attacks have had some success. Terrorist attacks in the West are likely coming. So, the measure of Iranian success lies in the financial markets.
When Mr. Trump announced that the was is not ending immediately, oil prices shot up. Equities moved in the opposite direction at the same time. At present, West Texas Intermediate crude is at $113; before the war, it was trading in the $60-70 a barrel range. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is at 46,135 at the moment. On February 26, it closed at 49,499.20. The higher oil prices will continue to pressure stocks in the coming two or three weeks, to borrow a timeframe from the president.
For the American president, this is a bad situation. He won a second term because the American voter wanted cheaper eggs and was willing to give up on the American experiment to get them. In America, eggs matter a bit, but gasoline is vital. When WTI is at $113 and rising, gasoline is not going to be $1.99 a gallon any time soon. The price is more likely to hit $5 than $2.
For the Iranian regime, the worst has already happened. It is at was with the US, something it has avoided for almost 5 decades. The Americans may have destroyed their navy, air force, and degraded the Iranian army. Iran does not care. The mullahs believe they are now in a fight for survival, a fight they cannot afford to lose. They have little to lose, and that makes them dangerous. They will let thousands of their own people die (they killed as many as 30,000 in quelling the most recent uprising).
The late boxer Muhammed Ali came up with a strategy that Iran is using now, the “Rope-a-Dope.” He would simply cover up and let the other boxer pound him. He would take a beating, but the other fighter wore himself out with the effort. And when the time was right, Mr. Ali would strike. He beat George Foreman that way rather decisively.
There is a saying in strategic studies, "If you ever find yourself in a fair fight, you did not plan very well." While this is not a fair fight, it is clear that the US administration did not plan this at all. There was no speech Mr. Trump could have given that would fix that. He should have remained silent. Instead, he damaged his own cause and is bringing global recession all the closer.
The decline under the Trump administration continues to accelerate.
© Copyright 2026 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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