Trump Now MoonWalking Away From Regime Change As Fast As He Can

Yesterday, UN Ambassador Mike Waltz announced that the United States was moving quickly to achieve all of its war goals, which he listed as: 1) destroy Iran’s missiles, 2) eliminate its nuclear program, and 3) end its ability to commit acts of terrorism. So much for regime change, it seems, as well as unconditional capitulation, which do not seem at all possible in the near future. It was the trial balloon. And today, President Trump went on to declare that the war is already essentially over.

He told CBS News’ Weijia Jiang that “the war is almost over” and the United States is “very far” ahead of the original schedule by 4 to 5 weeks. “The war is very complete,” he said in case there was any ambiguity in his words. Indeed, in his vaguely genocidal approach, Trump seemed to implicitly take regime change off the table by threatening either regime change or perhaps genocide if Iran became “cute.”

“They better not try anything cute,” he told Jiang, “otherwise it will be the end of this country.”

Once again, where is the regime change? Where is the unconditional surrender? It’s old news, I guess. Tonight it might even be fake news.

What this all amounts to is that the White House is moving as fast as possible from regime change and even faster from its demand for “unconditional surrender.” Trump wants to end it because the conflict is getting too complicated, Gulf allies are certainly asking privately what Trump’s plan is, and more than anything else, Trump realizes he is triggering what has been the most reliable presidency killer in American politics for more than half a century: soaring gasoline prices.

Regarding gas prices, Trump says they will fall very quickly. But that’s not at all how it works. Once gas prices actually rise, the half-life of the price rise is very long. The oil and gas shock resulting from the war in Ukraine was not as severe as many feared. But this continued until the end of Biden’s presidency.

Trump wants to leave now. Or at least it does today. Tomorrow it might be a different story.