Donald Trump’s war against Iran has underscored that his preference for wars of aggression for specious reasons, mistreatment of democratic allies, genuflection toward Russia, economic illiteracy, and forfeiture of America’s moral standing in the world have been disastrous for the United States and for his presidency. Though Joe Kent, a senior counterterrorism official, announced his resignation on Tuesday, blaming (in an antisemitic trope) Israel and “its powerful American lobby” for luring us into the war, let us be clear: Trump, and Trump alone, is responsible for launching this war.
Trump’s war shows the limits of hard power
Trump’s second term foreign policy has focused on unilateral, illegal, extrajudicial killings and wars. Unsurprisingly, his war fixation pulled us into a dangerous quagmire. Chief policy officer at J Street and Contrarian contributor Ilan Goldenberg observed why war could never achieve Trump’s fantasy of regime change:
We have overwhelming military dominance and are exacting a tremendous cost. But Iran doesn’t need to win battles. They just need occasional successes. … Each incident creates insecurity and drives costs up while remind[ing] everyone that the regime is surviving and fighting.
Trump gave himself three terrible choices. He could try to “secure the entire Gulf and Middle East indefinitely,” a virtual impossibility; launch a bloody, extended ground war and occupation of Iran; or try to provoke a failed Iran, resulting in “years of bloody chaos the U.S. will get blamed for.” Regardless, regime change is not coming.
“Despite more than two weeks of relentless airstrikes, U.S. intelligence assessments say, Iran’s regime likely will remain in place for now, weakened but more hard-line, with the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps security forces exerting greater control,” the Washington Post reports. “U.S. intelligence assessments issued since the war began predict Iran’s regime will remain intact and possibly even emboldened, believing it stood up to Trump and survived.” In other words, if there is to be any change in the Iranian regime, it will be for the worse.
Moreover, Trump no longer controls the timeline. Even if he wanted to end the war, Israel may have other ideas. (Recognizing this, the U.S. or Gulf states may have orchestrated the leak that suggested Israel is low on interceptors as a means to pressure Israel to wrap up fighting, Ha’aretz reports.) Meanwhile, an aggrieved Iran may continue firing missiles to improve its post-war leverage and convince enemies it cannot be defeated militarily.
In sum, Trump, better than any critic, has proved that America’s military cannot solve all its problems and its indiscriminate use may create far more serious dangers.
Trump has lost allies’ support
Trump’s war has also demonstrated the utter folly of treating allies with contempt. The New York Times reports:
President Trump on Monday disparaged U.S. allies that he said had relied too long — and too expensively — on American defense, as several of those countries have declined to meet his call to send warships to escort merchant vessels in and out of the Persian Gulf.
“We don’t need anybody; we’re the strongest nation in the world,” Mr. Trump said. He suggested his request for assistance in reopening the Strait of Hormuz instead amounted to a loyalty test of America’s allies.
Who believes that bizarre rationalization? Alienated by past actions and isolated in this debacle, he is left to beg pathetically for help, which will not be forthcoming. If Trump thinks America can go it alone, our allies have responded: Just try it.
Trump’s Russia fixation looks even worse now
His Iran war highlights the extent to which backing Russia over Ukraine was ill-conceived (not to mention morally depraved). Russians give intelligence to Iran to kill our troops and rake in more oil money, thereby humiliating their puppet in the Oval Office. Meanwhile, Ukraine — which Trump has consistently betrayed — is now the toast of the Gulf states, since it can “exchange expertise and discuss defense cooperation” as the foremost authority of drones and counter-drone operations, the Washington Institute of Near East policy explains.
As soon as the war started, President Volodymyr Zelensky “quickly proposed that Gulf states exchange some of their air defense missiles for Ukrainian drone interceptors”; now Ukrainian drone manufacturers have plenty of orders from the Gulf states and are preparing for the Saudis “a large order of Ukrainian air defense equipment.”
A more rational president not under Putin’s sway might recognize that the U.S. could help broker an alliance partnership between Ukraine and the Gulf states and erode “Russia’s often-destabilizing influence over these governments.” Alas, we have Trump. His backing of Putin may serve some personal agenda, but not American interests.
Trump’s economic illiteracy is in plain sight
Trump’s utter obliviousness to basic economic realities (e.g., “Drill baby drill!” does not shield us from world oil prices; inflation is rising; U.S. consumers are still paying tariffs) also has come home to roost. “[A] surge in oil prices, brought on by the war against Iran that President Trump chose to launch, is threatening to raise costs across the economy and cut into the already modest stimulus the tax cuts were poised to deliver in the coming weeks,” the New York Times reported. Instead of modest increases in tax refunds, voters have seen “gas prices that have risen rapidly, eating into their purchasing power.”
Trump’s economic malpractice is front-page news both at home: “Trump’s war on Iran creates an economic storm for consumers and the Fed” and abroad: “Surge in US gas prices deepens political peril for Trump over Iran.” And the longer the war lasts, the greater the risk that inflation will overwhelm American families. War may be good for oil companies, but not for ordinary Americans.
Trump made America a pariah
Trump may regret shredding America’s moral stature, a historically indispensable part of our influence around the world. He has eradicated the difference between the U.S. and other rogue regimes that invade neighbors and kill innocent people indiscriminately.
Pope Leo XIV has been more vocal with each passing day. In a rebuke to Trump’s flippant attitude toward war and anti-media tantrums, the pontiff implored news outlets “to show the sufferings that war always brings to the people; to show the face of war and to relate it through the eyes of the victims, so as not to transform it into a video game.” Unlike FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, Pope Leo warned that “the media must guard against the risk of becoming propaganda so as not to become a mouthpiece for those in power.”
Trump has given our enemies the perfect rationale to discredit the U.S. as a selfish, colonialist power. And he has given democratic (as well as quasi- or undemocratic) countries precisely no reason to choose the U.S. model/alliance over China’s.
Trump’s war defines his failed presidency
Just as the Iraq War largely defined George W. Bush’s presidency, Trump’s second term will likely be remembered for his domestic war on democracy and his disastrous foreign policy, which (hopefully) has reached its nadir with the Iran war. Trump’s aggressive strikes prove that his sadistic embrace of war, contempt for allies, infatuation with Putin/antipathy for Ukraine, economic illiteracy, and disdain for America’s moral standing are disastrous for him, MAGA, and the country. In his narcissistic quest for domination, Trump illustrates why we must never go to war based on one deranged president’s “gut.”
You are right. But Trump cornered is Trump more dangerous. Fingers crossed.
There is plenty of time left for Trump to take our nation to even lower depths. Here's some other people who deserve to share the blame:
The CEOs who caved and groveled.
The Generals (Trump cleaned out some considered insufficiently loyal).
The Supreme Court majority.
Administration members who know better but continue to bow and scrape (e.g. Rubio and the VP, although the latter may be having second thoughts, too late!)
And of course all the MAGA voters and Trump sycophants.