Trump’s Strategic and Moral Failure in Iran
But when the Iranian regime failed to collapse or capitulate, when Netanyahu’s prediction of a nationwide uprising failed to materialize, Trump turned to threats of war crimes and genocide against the very people he claimed to help liberate:
These were not the words of a strategist. These were the words of a maniac. And they have had a galvanizing effect, even if not in the way Trump might have hoped. Some of his former sidekicks – Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones – seem to have realized how dangerous he always was. Yet around the Cabinet table, at Mar-a-Lago and within the Republican caucus on Capitol Hill, it is clear that his deranged threats forced a ceasefire and won a major victory. The president’s war, however, appears poised to achieve little that was not already available through prewar diplomacy, or through a renewed version of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal secured by the Obama administration.
In fact, the original sin of this disaster was Trump’s abandonment of this agreement in 2018. For all its limitations, this agreement blocked Iran’s march towards atomic weapons. But Netanyahu, long eager for a full-scale war against Iran – targeting not only its nuclear program but also its proxies, like Hezbollah – cleverly played on Trump’s vanity and his contempt for Barack Obama. Trump destroyed the JCPOA with nothing to replace it.
The war therefore appears to be a strategic failure and a moral calamity. The ceasefire is already fragile. “The purpose of this exercise was supposed to advance the cause of freedom in Iran,” said Karim Sadjadpour, a Washington-based expert on the country. “To go from ‘help is on the way’ to ‘we are going to wipe out your civilization’ is a strategic mistake.” According to Danny Citrinowicz, an Iran expert who has worked in Israeli intelligence, Trump’s top envoys to the region, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, almost certainly misinterpreted Iran’s capabilities and intentions. “This is a colossal disaster that should never have happened,” Citrinowicz said, stressing that it “will haunt the region and the world for many years to come.”
In the early days of the war, the United States and Israel killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and wiped out much of Iran’s defense and intelligence leadership, apparently believing that the regime would somehow cave in to “moderates” and “pragmatists.” Instead, the theocracy and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps remain in place, just as radical, just as repressive, and more determined than ever to acquire the ultimate deterrent: a nuclear weapon. Why abandon this pursuit, as Libya did, and expose yourself, when you can, like North Korea, achieve this and deter an attack?
Trump has done much to shatter what remains of America’s global stature. His absurd boasts about Greenland, Cuba and NATO undermined the post-war alliance. He humiliated and betrayed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. And meanwhile, Vladimir Putin, who aims to pressure Ukraine for even more territory, and Xi Jinping, who keeps Taiwan in sight, are watching Donald Trump’s spectacle for what it reveals both about his instability and the shaken credibility of American leadership.
In the midst of war, Trump released plans for his presidential library. Its centerpiece will be an auditorium with a huge gold statue of himself. We don’t yet know if it will rotate with the sun. ♦
