If Donald Trump were smart — I know, I know — he’d declare victory today, bring the troops and the aircraft carriers and the stray missiles home and bask in the adoring praise awaiting him, at least from his sycophantic MAGA followers and, of course, the sycophantic boys and girls at Fox News.
He’d be, in his eyes anyway, a conquering hero. A self-crowning Napoleon in a gold-lettered USA cap (available online from the Trump Organization store for $55).
OK, maybe he wouldn’t get to pick a new Iranian leader, as he had vowed. Maybe he would have to suffer the indignity of knowing that Iran — shattered, battered Iran — was still able to stick a thumb in Trump’s eye by selecting one of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s sons as his successor. Maybe, as he suggested, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard — which recently killed thousands of protesting Iranians — was never going to lay down its arms and join hands with the suffering Iranian public.
And maybe he wouldn’t be able to lie — or maybe he would — about who was responsible for the Tomahawk missile bombing of the Iranian girls’ school, where 175 died. Maybe he’d have a difficult time explaining the unexpected — at least to Trump — chaos the war has caused.
But he’d also have trouble explaining, even to some of the faithful, why he once demanded “unconditional surrender” and then walked away without it. It’s very unlikely that Iran will, uh, surrender at all. If Trump had actually prepared an end game, he would have known as much. Prewar intelligence sources apparently warned Trump that regime change in Iran was unlikely. More on that further down the column.
He also would have known — I’m sure he was warned of this, too — that Iran could choke off the Strait of Hormuz and thereby choke off a good deal of oil that comes daily from the Persian Gulf states.
But such are the vagaries of war, which the Pentagon said Tuesday has so far resulted in seven U.S. deaths and 180 wounded, eight of them severely.
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I mean, how much more of Iran needs to turn to rubble to be enough? How many more deaths are sufficient?
I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for a clear answer.
On Tuesday, Trump said, “We’re winning the war by a lot. We decimated their whole evil empire.”
And on the same day, the U.S. announced the bombing on Tuesday would be the most intense of the war — “the most fighters, the most strikes, intelligence more refined and better than ever.”
After we’d already decimated the whole evil empire.
And as Trump continues to warn, if Iran continues to stop oil from going through the strait, he’ll bomb them 20 times harder.
Does that sound like peace in our time to you?
As of now, there are apparently no discussions among the warring parties. Meanwhile, even as it’s bombing Iran, Israel is also bombing Hezbollah in Lebanon, creating nearly 700,000 refugees. Meanwhile, France and Pakistan are bringing warships to the area.
Look, we still don’t know why Trump, alongside Israel, went to war. Maybe we never will. But I have some ideas. My guess is that he likes being a War President, gets off on video-gaming a real war, and he must have thought that, as in Venezuela, his mighty military would make quick work of a longtime enemy.
But the thing is, while the military has done its part, Trump failed to do his.
He never prepared the public for war. He never prepared his erstwhile allies for war. He apparently didn’t imagine that we might soon be paying $4 a gallon at the pump. He just did it, because he’s impulsive that way and because his pal Bibi Netanyahu was urging him on. As one pundit put it, he’s running the war pretty much the way he did COVID. I know, what if we dropped ivermectin on Iran?
The truth is, the longer this war goes on — even if we get out before the quagmire stage of Middle East war sets in — the worse it will be. Not just for us, not just for the Middle East, not just for the U.S. and world economies, not only for our 401(k) accounts.
But also for Trump.
As we know, Trump’s approval ratings are in the toilet. And that was before the war started — a war that Americans, according to the polls, have overwhelmingly rejected. There’s been no rallying around the flag — as Americans nearly always do in time of war.
Why not get out now — and salvage something?
On Monday, Trump suggested that’s exactly what he wanted to do. I’ll let him explain in that Trumpian ramble we know so well:
”We took a little excursion because we felt we had to do that to get rid of some evil,” Trump said. “And I think you’re going to see it’s going to be a short-term excursion. How good is our military, right? How good? Short term. Short term.”
So, the war is a little excursion, unless you’re fighting and dying in it, I suppose.
But it’ll be short term. Short term. Unless it isn’t.
Over at the Pentagon, they didn’t seem to have gotten the message, which cannot surprise anyone.
“We have Only Just Begun to Fight,” a Pentagon-run social media account posted Monday alongside a picture of a launched missile with the words “No Mercy” superimposed over it.
And on “60 Minutes” Sunday, Secretary of What Is He Good For, Pete Hegseth, said, “I want your viewers to understand this is only just the beginning.”
Closer to the end or closer to the beginning? I guess we’ll have to wait until the next “Saturday Night Live” cold open to find out.
Short term? Long term?
How about the midterms? Trump must understand — or at least people must have told him — that if this war goes on much longer, it could well lead to GOP disaster in the November elections.
The Wall Street Journal reports that some of his saner political advisers are urging Trump to find a way out. And even Hegseth would later explain that Trump will actually be the one to make the decision as to when the war ends.
Meanwhile, Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that when Trump said he demanded “unconditional surrender,” he didn’t exactly mean “unconditional surrender.” He meant, she said, that Trump — not Iran — will determine when Iran has surrendered, which is an unusual take.
Iran, you see, doesn’t have to actually say it has surrendered. If Trump thinks Iran is no longer a threat, that would be enough. As Leavitt explained: “Then Iran will essentially be in a place of unconditional surrender.”
Your place? My place?
Long term? Short term?
Leavitt couldn’t say. I bet you can’t either.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.
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