The red lines between Tehran and Washington

It is war, but not yet all-out. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States spent the weekend exchanging blows, and each attack could be the decisive one – the one that, for the time being, rules out any new and imminent possibility of mediation. Following the deaths of three American soldiers in Jordan, killed in an Iranian attack on a US military base, and following the increasingly intense and precise American air strikes in southern Iran, it seems impossible to avoid the word ‘war’ any longer, yet the conflict has limits that lead analysts to believe that room for negotiations still exists, and the first of these limits is Israel, which, together with Jordan, represents the military ally in which the United States has invested the most in the Middle East. 

Jordan has been hit and punished; it is the country that was targeted several times last week by the Iranians and which, despite the large number of American bases and weapons, has less defensive capability and lacks an army capable of retaliating, as happened – albeit with limited operations – when Tehran struck the United Arab Emirates in recent months. Jordan is seen by Tehran as the territory where it can inflict the most damage on the United States, but it will not retaliate; it will stand by and await the decisions of the Americans, who have invested more there than anywhere else in exchange for almost unconditional use of the territory for military purposes. Seventeen American soldiers have died since Washington launched Operation Epic Fury on 28 February, and yesterday President Donald Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth: “Every time Iran kills an American soldier, it will pay for that killing many times over! This directive has been passed on to the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, the Chief of the General Staff, Daniel Caine, and all military leaders”. For ten days running, the United States has struck Iran, and in the power play aimed at restoring order within the US administration, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has taken it upon himself to state that Washington remains open to dialogue. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, whom no one has ever seen since he succeeded his father Ali, has instead dismissed as “null and void” the signature that Trump himself affixed to the memorandum of understanding that was intended to pave the way for new negotiations between Washington and Tehran. Words of regret over the failed talks are also coming from Iran, but its actions seem to be heading towards all-out war, chaos and punishment for the Americans and their allies. Israel, however, remains unscathed, ready to intervene, as Defence Minister Israel Katz has stated, but is assessing this peculiar situation of a war that is affecting almost the entire Middle East yet, strangely, leaves it untouched. For the Islamic Republic of Iran, refraining from targeting Israel means remaining within a red line. Jordan, on the other hand, has become the testing ground for the resistance: the Islamic Republic is using it to demonstrate its readiness for any scenario, while refraining from crossing its borders to keep open the possibility of avoiding a full-scale war in the Middle East and its consequences.