WHAT COULD GO WRONG? TURNS OUT…A WHOLE LOT.
Trump is a careless man in two important ways.
First, he is reckless about taking actions that could have really bad consequences. (His supporters would call him bold.)
Second, he could care less about anyone but himself.
Trump likes to do big, bold, risky and impactful things, but he is bad at planning for the fall out and knock on effects from those big actions. He also acts based on his feelings, not data or the wisdom of others who might know more than he knows. After all, he thinks he knows more than everyone else.
What Trump cares about, above all, these days, is his legacy –wanting to be the most admired and consequential president in the history of our country, the world, THE UNIVERSE!
To meet those legacy needs of his, Trump is busy doing what he always does: act first and deal with the consequences later. He knocked down the East Wing of the White House without checking with anyone, and plans to add a humungus ballroom but did not plan for the inevitable lawsuit that has shuttered the project because he was required by law to get approval. He wants to end Obamacare but does not have a viable replacement figured out. He imposed tariffs and that blew up our cost of living.
When it comes to this war, Trump decided to bomb bomb bomb Iran without somehow realizing what every other president before him knew would happen: that the Strait of Hormuz would be shut down by the Iranians resulting in massive increases in the cost of gas and fertilizer (which are transported through that strait) which would affect the cost of living in America and beyond and result in an unsustainable rise in the cost of insurance for the ships that use that passage resulting in huge global economic damage. Trump seemed surprised by the fall out: The cost of gas rose astronomically, the stock market tanked, insurers did not have enough to cover the cost of insuring ships that would even dare to try to go through the Strait of Hormuz.
But then Trump never bothers to do his homework. He is a careless man.
WHAT’S TRUMP’S MOTIVATION?
So what is the goal of the war on Iran? It is downright confusing given the shifting rationalizations Trump and his administration have come up with.
Here is a composite summary from The Guardian of the wildly shifting reasons Trump has given for starting this war.
Trump announced the war in an eight-minute video posted to Truth Social as a defensive response to decades of Iranian aggression – and, in the same breath, a campaign for Iranian liberation. He invoked the 1979 hostage crisis. He called it a campaign to “eliminate the imminent nuclear threat”. The Washington Post reported Trump told them the goal was “freedom” for the Iranian people.
On 28 February, the US mission to the United Nations rushed to construct a legal framework. The administration formally invoked article 51 of the UN charter – the self-defense provision – arguing that Iran’s missile arsenal and nuclear ambitions posed a direct threat to American forces in the region. On March 1 Pentagon briefers reportedly acknowledged to congressional staff on 1 March that Iran was not planning to strike US forces or bases unless Israel attacked Iran first, which directly undercuts the White House’s framing of an “imminent threat”.
Pete Hegseth took an aggressive posture on March 2nd to frame the war as both retaliation for decades of Iranian behavior and a laser-focused military operation with clearly bounded objectives. He urged Iranians to “take advantage of this incredible opportunity” – the regime-change language that officials insisted was not a war aim.
Hours after Hegseth’s briefing, secretary of state Marco Rubio offered reporters an entirely different explanation for the timing of the war.
Rubio said Washington had known Israel was planning a unilateral strike on Iran, and that Tehran had pre-delegated authority to field commanders to automatically retaliate against US forces if attacked, “[W]e knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.” Rubio was, in effect, saying the United States had gone to war because Isreal was going to act.
Then Trump flatly rejected Rubio’s framing, insisting the decision was entirely his own and driven by Iranian – not Israeli – intentions.
It was my opinion that they were going to attack first. They were going to attack if we didn’t do it.
For those keeping score, there were now three incompatible explanations: Iran was an imminent nuclear threat, Iran would have retaliated against a coming Israeli strike, and Iran itself was about to attack.
By the second Pentagon briefing, Hegseth explained the objectives as both near-victory and the start of a new chapter of the war, while six American service members had been announced as killed.
He also introduced a new justification that had not previously featured prominently. “Iran tried to kill President Trump, and President Trump got the last laugh,” Hegseth said, announcing the killing of the IRGC unit commander behind an alleged assassination plot against the president.
On Friday morning, Trump posted what amounted to a maximalist statement of total war aims on Truth Social:
There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!
Trump’s post also appeared to directly contradict Hegseth’s earlier “limited objectives” framing, Rubio’s statements about the war’s defined military goals, and Trump’s own initial suggestion that the whole thing could be wrapped up in “two or three days”.
Most pundits are stumped when it comes to the reason Trump took this country to war after saying that if elected he would not get us into another war. But I think the real motivation for Trump going to war is too embarrassing to admit.
The most logical answer to the question – why did he go to war? is that Trump sees this war as a legacy issue for himself. He wants to be able to say he did what no one else could do, namely, bring peace to the Middle East.
After Trump’s quick and easy toppling of the Venezuelan head of state, Maduro, and his let’s-make-a-deal success with Delcy Rodriguez, Trump thought he could do the same thing in Iran. But Iran is not Venezuela. It is far more complicated to start a war in the Middle East.
Donald Trump always breaks things first and then plays it by ear. The fall out from Trump’s folly is vast and metastasizing. It’s a big big mess. It is Trump’s folly.
UPDATE ON THE WAR METASTASIZING
- Ten days into President Trump’s Iran campaign, the war has gone global. At least 20 countries are now militarily involved — shooting, shielding or quietly supplying — while a widening energy shock punishes nations far from the front lines.
Iran has struck at least 10 countries since the war began, hitting U.S. and Israeli bases, Persian Gulf capitals, oil infrastructure and civilian areas to impose maximum pain on Washington and its allies.
- Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow chokepoint through which 20% of the world’s oil flows — sending prices for oil, gas, plastics and fertilizers soaring.
- Israel is fighting on two fronts — pounding Iran while battling Hezbollah on the ground in Lebanon, where more than 500,000 people have been displaced in a week.
The war has spread far beyond the Middle East, pulling European militaries into the conflict and forcing NATO to shoot down Iranian missiles over allied territory for the first time.
- France has dispatched its nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to the Eastern Mediterranean, joining British warships after an Iranian-made drone struck a U.K. air base on Cyprus, a member of the European Union.
This is where we are today, sports fans, because we elected a careless man and gave him overwhelming power as president of the most powerful country on earth with a Republican-controlled congress that is too chicken to tell him NO.
HEADLINE FROM MEIDAS +
A Trump administration in chaos. A widening war. Rising oil prices. Escalating attacks across the region. Confusion inside the U.S. government about what the mission even is. A collapsing stock market- down 1000 points. [Meidas+]
THIS IS NOT WHAT AMERICANS VOTED FOR
The American people and congress did not get to weigh in about going to war in the Middle East. The American people do not approve of it now.
NPR reports:
As war with Iran heads toward a second week, most Americans say that they are against the military action and disapprove of how President Trump is handling it, according to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll. By a 56%-44% margin, respondents said they oppose the military action. Just 36% approve of how Trump is handling Iran, and a majority (55%) thinks Iran either represents a minor threat or no threat at all to the United States.
I WONDER, MAYBE TRUMP KNOWS SOMETHING WE DON’T KNOW
Lately, Trump has not been looking so good. His eyes look sunken and partially closed. He has enlarged ankles, hands that have bruises consistent with getting transfusions that he puts makeup on, there was a nasty looking red bruise on his neck behind his right ear a few days ago, he dozes off in meetings during the day and is caught on camera asleep, he walks very very carefully and slowly down the stairs of Air Force One, afraid of tripping and falling, he forgets names of things and is confused and mixed up, he rambles when he talks, and his signature is looking shakey.
When people are younger they often believe they will live forever. They don’t think about death. But as we age, we are confronted by a reality- we get weaker and cannot fix some of the failures of our bodies. We are more fragile and have less energy. We think more about what we are leaving behind in the world and how we will be remembered.
I think Trump yearns to be the hero who finally brings peace to the Middle East, the president who was the most consequential in history. But Trump is a careless man.
He is great at attacking and wrecking things. Not good at planning ahead. Not good at building things. And hopelessly bad at working collaboratively with others. He does not take care when he embarks on his bold actions and being careless has consequences.
Trump’s war on Iran will not result in peace in the Middle East.
But at least we know why he started this war.
This is another one of Trump’s vanity projects… gone bad.