Trump Is Serious About Accepting a Humiliating Defeat

The disastrous war could end in a geopolitical nightmare.

Donald Trump started an unconstitutional, reckless war without goals and with minimal planning. He failed to anticipate Iran’s entirely predictable response. No one, therefore, should be surprised that the war may end with the United States and its allies (or, rather, countries that used to be allies) worse off than when the war started.

On Wednesday, Trump delivered a rambling, breathless, low-energy “speech” to the nation that bore a strong similarity to his social media posts. He claimed Iran had been “decimated,” despite its continued strikes in the region. Trump insisted we have completed all our objectives — except the war will go on for a few more weeks. (He again threatened to commit war crimes by hitting Iran’s power plants.) The Strait of Hormuz will “open up naturally,” he proclaimed. (How? Don’t ask!) It is not clear what the point of this address was or whom he could possibly have persuaded. During the speech, the price of oil rose and the markets fell.

(C-SPAN)

Imagine if Barack Obama, without congressional consent, had initiated a war that resulted in 13 American deaths and hundreds of injuries, caused massive civilian deaths (including two horrific strikes on civilians, primarily children), pushed gas to $4 per gallon, and induced counterstrikes on Israel and Gulf states (including oil and natural gas facilities). Consider the hue and cry if Obama had left Iran in control of the Strait of Hormuz and failed to force Iran to give up its enriched uranium, ballistic missile program, or support for regional terrorism.

And yet that is where Trump may put us. His feckless and irresponsible secretary of defense acknowledged on Tuesday that Iran retains the ability to launch missiles and drones. (Pete Hegseth is mystified that the MAGA base, which was told Trump opposed regime-change wars, is upset.) He also insisted regime change has already occurred, a sign of how far the Trump team is prepared to delude itself to get out of the quagmire.

Trump on Tuesday threw a revealing temper tantrum on his Truth Social platform:

All of those countries that can’t get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you: Number 1, buy from the U.S., we have plenty, and Number 2, build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT. You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil.

That confirmed the jaw-dropping report that Trump was prepared to run for the exits with the Strait of Hormuz in Iranian hands. And sure enough, on Wednesday Trump showed no interest in trying to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

“For a war ostensibly designed to reduce Iran’s military capabilities and ability to threaten the region, it would seem an extraordinary outcome to have a result of the war be a situation in which Iran could now export oil freely, but our allies would have to pay fees to Iran for the privilege of doing so,” Brookings Institution’s Philip Gordon told me. “And Iran would remain in a position to close the strait again at any time, imposing high costs on Americans as well as exporters not just of oil and gas but of fertilizer, helium, etc. All this would have a sustained impact on world gas and food prices and overall inflation.”

Trump’s unilateral war has already inflicted immense damage on the Gulf states. In addition to damage to oil tankers and facilities, the war “could plunge four million more people across the Arab world into poverty and shave off up to 6 percent of the region’s economic output during that time, according to projections by the United Nations Development Program,” the New York Times reported. This would affect not only Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria but also “tip more countries, including Iraq, Jordan and Egypt, into severe economic crises,” the Times wrote. (Egypt, already in economic distress, has been “reliant on investments from oil-producing Gulf countries whose energy production has come under attack during the war.”)

In addition, the war has already kneecapped NATO, which Trump is threatening to leave. Italy and Spain have denied the United States the use of its bases and airspace, a natural reaction to Trump’s bullying and insults and his refusal to coordinate before launching his ill-conceived war. (Trump also lashed out at France, apparently thinking that France had denied use of its bases; it withheld only the use of its aircraft.) Britain has insisted that U.S. planes from its bases are used only “to conduct only operations that protect British and allied interests across the Middle East.” This is what a world without friends looks like.

As historian Robert Kagan explained:

Whenever and however America’s war with Iran ends, it has both exposed and exacerbated the dangers of our new, fractured, multipolar reality—driving deeper wedges between the United States and former friends and allies; strengthening the hands of the expansionist great powers, Russia and China; accelerating global political and economic chaos; and leaving the United States weaker and more isolated than at any time since the 1930s.

We have saddled allies with an energy shock, thrown into question our NATO Article V commitment, and bizarrely elevated the Middle East (where Trump promised not to start open-ended wars) over real priorities such as Russia and China. (Kagan noted that inexplicably the Middle East “seems to be the only priority, apparently worth any price, including the introduction of ground forces and even the destruction of the American alliance system.”)

In short, because we no longer offer and cannot expect cooperation and assistance from other democracies, we will be forced to rely on threats and bullying (which become less effective as Trump reinforces his TACO image) to round up support. China and Russia relish the collapse of the U.S. system of alliances that has maintained our superpower status.

In sum, Trump may wind up losing this war and subjecting the United States and the rest of the world to an open-ended, devastating oil shock. (As Gordon put it, “Trump has a history of being willing — and to his supporters often able — to sell anything, but it would be hard to sell an outcome of this war that left control over the strait in Iran’s hands as anything other than a major strategic defeat for the United States.”) That would be bad enough. However, the war has reinforced Trump’s determination to discard our historic advantages (e.g., alliances, a free-trade system, U.S. credibility, and moral stature).

No other president could possibly have done this much damage in such a short time. The United States stands alone — more despised and less respected than we have ever been in the modern era.

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