If Trump manages to extend the war by a year or so, he could celebrate his great victory with a military parade under his new Arc de Trump. Wouldn’t that be perfect?
Logically, the festivities would conclude in the new ballroom, which is sure to be completed early and under budget.
The war is over, and we won a crushing victory. We just need to hang around for a bit longer, and then leave. The Strait of Hormuz will reopen naturally when we’re finished. Life will be great again very shortly.
Well, actually, we need to bomb even harder for a few weeks, but that will end the war. No escalation will be required.
Except that we are ready to escalate to the point of committing war crimes against Iranian civilians if the regime doesn’t give up.
Elements of all three of these narratives were present in Trump’s speech last night. Is it any wonder the price of oil has actually gone up?
That’s the problem with being unpredictable and keeping all of your options open. It keeps your own people and your friends off-balance, too.
After his trip to the Supreme Court, Trump is scheduled to appear on national TV tonight. From all appearances, he plans to declare victory and go home, leaving the theocracy in place and in possession of its enriched uranium and the Strait of Hormuz. Some victory, that.
Realizing that his fondest hopes for the war are about to go down the drain, Bret Stephens is calling on all of the war’s opponents to lobby Trump to finish the job. Good luck with that.
It was stupid for Stephens to trust a man like Trump to become a war president like FDR or Lincoln. Now he and his friends will have to live with the ugly consequences, which will probably include the weakening of NATO and a further lessening of support for Ukraine.
There is nothing in the language of the Fourteenth Amendment which supports Trump’s executive order. There is nothing in the legislative history, either. The case law is completely consistent with the traditional interpretation. In short, there is absolutely no principled basis for any of the justices—liberal or conservative, originalist or not—to rule in Trump’s favor. This is a slam dunk.
Nevertheless, expect Thomas and Alito to flaunt their MAGA credentials by doing so. My best guess is that Kavanaugh, who is now more interested in rewriting the Constitution than interpreting it, will join them. Susan Collins will be concerned.
Trump apparently plans to attend the oral argument to overawe the justices. If he does, it will just offend them and make him look like more of a loser when the decision is released.
The record shows that Bibi had a two-pronged approach to Gaza prior to 2024. Politically, he supported Hamas to keep the Palestinians divided and prove he didn’t have a plausible negotiating partner. When Hamas periodically got a bit out of hand, he would use the IDF to cut the grass. It worked until it didn’t.
The most likely outcome in Iran is a stalemate and more grass cutting campaigns. Can that succeed against a much more powerful opponent than Hamas, or will it ultimately fail, as it did in Gaza? You decide.
I described Israel’s 2025 Lebanon campaign as both a tactical and a strategic success because, for once, Bibi exercised some restraint. As a result, public opinion in Lebanon started to shift against Hezbollah, and the government showed some real interest in regaining control of areas close to Israel. Real peace was at last a real possibility.
But Bibi couldn’t resist grabbing for the whole marshmallow after Hezbollah launched a fairly feeble attack in response to the Iran campaign. Now Israel is looking at a lengthy ground war and an indefinite occupation of the border areas. That didn’t work before; why would things be different now?
If Trump had bombed for, say, a week and then declared victory, we would be committed to cut the grass for the foreseeable future, but there would have been no world crisis. By lengthening the war and expanding the list of targets, Trump invited the Iranians to escalate. As a result, they now control the Strait of Hormuz, and everyone is feeling the pinch.
If Trump backs away now, he will leave Iran with the ability to attack the Gulf states whenever it likes, and the Iranians will be the master of the strait. America will be worse off than it was before the beginning of the war. Can Trump tolerate that, even if escalating will bring more acute economic pain? I doubt it.
Imagine that you are an average Iranian. You despise the government, which has done nothing but deprive you of your rights and make you miserable. But you are also a proud patriot, so you are alarmed and offended by Trump’s bombing, to say nothing of his threats to take Iran’s oil.
Trump has offered you freedom, but on his terms. Would being Trump’s slave be preferable to life in Ayatollah World? Would you brave the police for that?
Not likely.
On the Trump failing war with Iran.
Nearly nothing is going as planned.
Trump claims he’s the GOAT
But Iran gets a vote.
Exit now and retreat while you can.
The initial No Kings demonstrations helped rebuild blue team morale after the crushing defeat in 2024, but events have gone beyond that. It is perfectly clear that Trump is an unpopular president, the midterms are just a few months away, and we are in the midst of a war that could easily spiral out of control. It is a time for action, not studied frivolity.
Trump is contemptuous of demonstrators, but he does fear the markets. Help him concentrate by pulling back your spending and driving the markets down. That is the one way we can really influence his decision making process.
At his weekly press conferences, Pete Hegseth argues that we are winning, and cites the number of targets hit and the tonnage of munitions used to prove it. He has much less to say about the fact that the Iranians control the Strait of Hormuz, to say nothing about the failure of our efforts at regime change.
I don’t know about you, but the focus on objective standards that have little to do with the ultimate success of the war has a Vietnam vibe about it for me.
By December of 1776, it appeared the war was over. The mighty, well-funded British war machine had chased the Continental Army out of New York and New Jersey into Pennsylvania. The cause was hopeless. The imperial power was just too strong.
But the Americans still had some advantages. They had a clear war aim; the British did not. Patriot politicians still ran most of the new states. And the British had neither the resources nor the will to occupy the entire country. Washington won battles at Trenton and Princeton, his army remained in being, and the war went on.
Something for Trump to consider as he plans his next move in Iran.
The Israeli government has always claimed that a theocratic Iran represents an existential threat to it. If that is the case, why don’t the Israelis simply nuke it out of existence? After all, there is nothing preventing them from doing it now; Iranian air defenses basically don’t exist.
There are, as I see it, two possible answers to that question. The first is that the nation that turned Gaza into a pile of rubble is so devoted to principles of humanity and international law that it would rather endanger itself than kill millions of civilians. The second is that the Israelis don’t really believe their own rhetoric, given that they have a defensive shield and a powerful deterrent.
You decide.
In an NYT interview with Ross Douthat, a guy named Mark Dubowitz portrays Iran as a kind of cartoon villain. The Iranians, he says, were determined to gain control of the Strait of Hormuz, so it is better to confront them now, at their weakest point, rather than later. Does that make sense?
Only if the premise is correct, and it isn’t. There is no evidence to suggest that the Iranians were going to close the strait in the absence of an existential threat to the regime. There was no massive buildup of forces designed for that purpose even after the 2025 war. The Iranians didn’t even rush for a bomb when it was feasible after Trump tore up the nuclear agreement. All they did was enrich uranium to the point that it increased their options.
A feeble missile capability and a system of forward defense doesn’t amount to a plan for world domination. It was only Trump’s war that caused the regime to escalate. Now we have to live with the results.
Iran is winning the war. Regime change has failed; it avoided a succession crisis; and it holds the best card—the Strait of Hormuz. No amount of additional conventional bombing of military assets will change that. What can Trump do to change the equation by adding leverage?
He can invade, of course, but that would piss off the base, and it would be slow and costly. The other obvious option is to use nukes on the Iranian people. Nothing says you’re the boss quite like a few well-placed nukes.
Sure, there would be a few unpleasant side effects. Tens of millions of Iranian civilians would die, lots of oil producing capacity would be destroyed, and the effects of fallout would be felt outside Iran’s borders. But that would be a small price to pay for proving that Trump runs the world, right? Right?