Trump’s reckless Iran strikes could backfire spectacularly
America has entered few wars with less forethought, less deliberation, and more contempt for the public.
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On Saturday evening, Donald Trump announced via a post on his own social media network, Truth Social, that the US military had completed air strikes on nuclear sites in Iran.
In his post, Trump did not explain why the attacks were necessary, and though he said they were “very successful,” he didn’t explain what they had accomplished. Instead, he issued “Congratulations to our Great American Warriors” and bellowed “NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!” — apparently hoping that Iran, or his readers, would not notice that he had just started a war. He finished, as he often does, by signing off with the words, “Thank you for your attention to this matter,” as if he’d signed an office memo reminding people not to wear shorts to work.
Trump’s casual, incoherent declaration of war is of a piece with his casual, incoherent decision to open another potentially catastrophic Middle East conflict. Wars often give the commander in chief a chance to present himself as the voice of the nation and a rallying point for patriotism. Trump’s laziness, and his obvious disdain for the American public and the Constitution, has meant that his call to war has resulted in little enthusiasm, except among his own partisans.
That doesn’t mean the war won’t escalate. Iran is likely to retaliate, Israeli leadership wants more war, and Trump is erratic and largely incapable of restraint. It does mean, though, that a deepening conflict is likely to lead to deepening pushback from Democrats and the public.
If Trump wanted to get a rally around the flag effect to boost his woeful poll numbers, he’s likely to be disappointed.
The staggering, farcical road to war
In 2003, as George W. Bush prepared to invade Iraq, his administration made extensive efforts to convince the US public, the Democratic opposition, and the international community that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat, had weapons of mass destruction, and that therefore war was justified.
The campaign to consolidate support arguably reached its zenith when widely respected Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared before the UN Security Council and delivered an hour-long presentation listing all the supposed evidence that Iraq was a threat.
“Every statement I make today is backed up by solid sources,” he said. “Clearly, Saddam Hussein and his regime will stop at nothing until something stops him.”
Powell later apologized and admitted that the sourcing of his presentation was “inaccurate and wrong and in some cases deliberately misleading.” Or, as Maryam, an Iraqi woman who suffered during the invasion, told Al Jazeera, “he lied and lied and lied.” Iraq did not have nuclear capability or weapons of mass destruction, and it was not a danger to the US. Some 200,000 Iraqi civilians were killed for nothing.
The Powell presentation was a bleak, cynical exercise in manipulation by a regime eager for war. But it’s notable that the Trump administration has not really even made an effort to organize a feasible lie. They have presented little evidence and have at times seemed to almost boast about the arbitrariness of their planning and decision-making.
“Nobody knows what I’m going to do,” Trump preened last week.
And sure enough, even allies in the region were not warned about Trump’s Iran strikes ahead of time.
In theory, the attacks on Iran are meant to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon. Israel has been bombing Iran since June 13 and claims the country could be on the brink of obtaining a nuclear device. Experts, though, say there is no real evidence that Iran is on the verge of acquiring weapons. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been saying that Iran is about to build a nuclear bomb any day now for 33 years.
Among those who said there was no evidence that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon was Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Gabbard testified to Congress in March that “the (intelligence community) continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.”
But Trump was confronted with Gabbard’s statement last week, he simply said, “she’s wrong.”
Gabbard then predictably and disgracefully reversed herself, claiming on social media that her remarks were taken out of context and that when she’d said that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon she had of course meant that they were.
Note that Gabbard did not even pretend to present new evidence. And Trump himself hasn’t explained his decision-making process.
According to reporting from the New York Times, the president mostly decided to drop bombs because he saw Fox News coverage of the Israel attacks and thought it looked cool:
When he woke on Friday morning, his favorite TV channel, Fox News, was broadcasting wall-to-wall imagery of what it was portraying as Israel’s military genius. And Mr. Trump could not resist claiming some credit for himself.
So in a real sense, Trump went to war because Rupert Murdoch persuaded him to drop some bombs.
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In his press conference Saturday night, as in his Truth Social post, Trump made it inadvertently clear that he has no real rationale for the attack, and no real argument for war to present to the American people. He said that “our objective was the destruction of Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity,” but he did not explain why Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity is an imminent danger to Israel, much less the US.
Instead, Trump asserted that Iran has “been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs with roadside bombs” — a reference to Iranian-designed IEDs deployed in Iraq some 20 years ago. Those attacks were horrendous, but a poor argument for the necessity for war now. The president also obligatorily claimed that Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities have been “obliterated,” though Iran disputes that, and experts have not yet had a chance to reliably assess damage.
Trump is to blame
Trump has, as political scientist Jonathan Bernstein noted, “abdicated the role of head of state.” He speaks only for himself and occasionally for his partisans, but he doesn’t even try to speak for, or to, the country as a whole.
As a result, Trump has predictably received little but partisan support for his war. Republicans like Sen. Roger Wicker praised Trump’s decision with pro forma language about Iran being an “existential threat,” and of course right-wing media ghouls like Fox’s Mark Levin rushed to burble about how “we just kicked their ass!” Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson have both backed Trump’s attacks.
But others have been much less enthusiastic. Before the bombing, only 16 percent of Americans (and only 19 percent of Republicans) supported bombing Iran. Afterwards, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for Trump’s impeachment; so did Rep. Sean Casten. House Minority Whip Katherine Clark said the attack was “unauthorized and unconstitutional,” and Sen. Tammy Duckworth said it was “illegal and unjustified.”
Even some Republicans expressed dissent. Isolationist Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie responded flatly, “this is not constitutional,” while Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio, a reliable Trump vote, said “it’s hard to conceive a rationale that’s constitutional.” Tucker Carlson, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and other anti-interventionist MAGA figures also opposed the Iran attack last week (though they’ve mostly fallen silent since Trump actually dropped the bombs).
Some Democrats, like Sen. Adam Schiff, have been unwilling to condemn the attacks (and by implication Israel) and have hedged on whether they think the strikes would make the world safer overall (“We simply don’t know,” Schiff said). But there is a consensus that failing to consult Congress was wrong, and general anger that there was no effort to inform Democrats of the national security implications or fallout.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries summed up the broad attitude when he stated, “Donald Trump shoulders complete and total responsibility for any adverse consequences that flow from his unilateral military action.”
Many downsides — for Trump and the world
Back in 2003, George W. Bush put a lot of effort into creating some bipartisan and international consensus for his invasion. The Democratic caucus in the House and Senate was split, with leaders like Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Chuck Schumer all voting for war. Democratic voters also supported the invasion, 52 percent to 40 percent. That gave Bush a good deal of room to maneuver, and some cover when the war became (significantly) less popular.
Trump has not received a similar mandate for war with Iran, in part because he has not sought it. That means that the responsibility for any escalation, failures, or harm to US troops is likely to fall on his shoulders and his shoulders alone. It also means that any attempt to silence critics, or to give the president sweeping authoritarian war powers, is likely to be seen as highly partisan and contentious rather than as part of a patriotic consensus. If someone speaks up against Trump and his war, the force of the state may be deployed against them. But they are unlikely to face the kind of public backlash that destroyed the careers of The Chicks.
This is not to say that all will be well. Eleven people were injured in the initial US strikes. Escalating war could lead to horrific levels of death and misery in Iran, Gaza, Israel, and all throughout the region.
US troops could also be attacked. That’s what happened after Trump assassinated Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in January 2020. Iran retaliated by striking an Iraq base; 100 American servicemembers were subsequently diagnosed with brain injuries (Trump callously dismissed the injuries as “headaches”). More, as Robert Kagan warns at The Atlantic, wars are often used to advance authoritarian policies at home — a terrifying prospect given Trump’s ongoing attack on constitutional rights.
There is also a good bit of evidence, though — especially from Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush — that failed wars can destroy a presidency. And America has entered few wars with less forethought, less deliberation, and more contempt for the public than this one. Trump has recklessly endangered the country and world. It’s not much consolation that he may also have endangered himself.
That’s it for today
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Lazy potus watches fox for his decision making.
and all know foxfuxfax. All so tragic and shameful
It's all very well for Trump and his backers to say that the US is not at war with Iran, as though Iran can be expected to shrug its shoulders and concentrate on Israel. What matters is whether Iran thinks it is now at war with the US and if so what it will do about it.
At the moment Iran's (contemptible) regime is probably focused on its own survival and with hitting Israel. I can well believe attacking America is down on its busy to do list.
In short I will want a lot of months to pass without Iran taking action before I believe it has decided not to leave America alone. Its response would probably be asymetrical and probably taken when the carrier groups are elsewhere. There's every chance Trump has no idea what he's just started.