The war in Iran is now a month old — happy birthday? — and we’re either on the verge of a negotiated end to the war or the beginning of a dangerous ground war that would almost certainly put many more Americans in peril.
Or neither.
If you don’t know — and I certainly don’t — that’s because, just guessing here, Donald Trump doesn’t know either.
Which is scary. I mean, you’ve got a wannabe dictator — who doesn’t feel the need to consult Congress, who didn’t feel the need to consult NATO but then lambasted the alliance for not helping, whose mood and actions can be determined by which person he last saw on TV — in charge of a war of choice that should never have been chosen.
So negotiations are fully underway — or probably not — with one of the worst regimes in the world. Trump has said we don’t actually know who exactly is doing the negotiating for Iran. It seems — big news — that JD Vance is going to head the U.S. negotiations, if there are real negotiations, which is interesting because Vance has always opposed wars like this one. I’m thinking he didn’t ask for the job, but maybe Iran asked for him.
Meanwhile, Trump is sending thousands of Marines and Army paratroopers to the region, suggesting the possibility of a ground war, which would allow Trump to come out of this, in his mind, still looking strong. Polls, however, show that voters really, really, really don’t want American boots on the ground, fearing that Iran becomes another Iraq.
In a meeting Friday with our European, uh, allies, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said we wouldn’t need to use ground troops in Iran. And that the war would be over in two to four weeks. At six to eight weeks, that would be longer than Trump had promised. And Rubio must have more faith in Vance than I do.
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SUBSCRIBEMeanwhile, Secretary of Gunslinging Pete Hegseth is saying that bombs are our negotiating tools, which makes you happy that he’s not the one sitting across from the Iranians.
Actually, I’m pretty sure Trump doesn’t know how it’s going to go from here. He hasn’t shown any sign of knowing where he’s going so far. Trump apparently thought the war on Iran would be not so different from the mini-war in Venezuela, that regime change was as simple as killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and that, in any case, Iran was too enfeebled to fight back.
You remember those days, when Trump said the war was won as soon as it began. Was it on the second or third day he declared victory? Soon after which, he called for an unconditional surrender, and when asked what that meant, he said he didn’t expect Iran to actually say it had surrendered, but that he’d know “in my bones” when they surrendered.
Meaning, Trump didn’t seem to realize that however battered by bombing it is, however many leaders have been picked off, Iran still has a vote as to when the war ends. I don’t know about you, but I’m waiting for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard to mail its vote in.
At a cabinet meeting to discuss the war on Thursday, Trump didn’t offer much, if any, guidance. He spent less time discussing the war than he did defending his ballroom plans, complaining that the Kennedy Center was a dump, bragging about his many cognitive tests (you heard of anyone who needed three?), insulting the intelligence of Biden, Obama, AOC and other assorted Dems, while praising — for 15 brain-numbing minutes — the Sharpie pen. I guess the Sharpie rant was to show that he wanted to be economical, even as the war is costing an estimated $1 billion a day.
Trump actually said he didn’t want to live under a dumb president. I’ll leave that one for the late-night guys.
Meanwhile, one cabinet member predicted Venezuela would build a statue for him — gold, presumably — because Trump, he said, is now seen there as the next Simón Bolivar. In replay, Trump did talk about possibly running for president of Venezuela someday. Yes, he did.
I think there was mention of the fact Trump — in his usual, unprecedented, unsavory way — would now be putting his signature (with Sharpies?) on U.S. currency. Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson, who can’t get the House to agree to end the current government shutdown, jumped the gun on Venezuela by making up a new award to give Trump. Gold, of course. An eagle, of course. Not a calf, but that, as several pundits noted, would have been funny.
I don’t know if Johnson’s major award was better than Trump’s FIFA peace prize, but do you ever wonder why people keep giving Trump presents?
The message my bones are getting is that gas prices keep rising, mortgage interest rates are rising, food costs are rising and inflation is expected to rise more than 4% this year. What’s not rising is Trump’s dismal overall approval rating or his rating for handling the war, which is vastly unpopular. The markets, also not rising, have now dropped for five consecutive weeks. And the price of crude oil is, as of Friday, more than $110 a barrel — which is 55% more than it was before the bombs began falling.
If there’s anything that Trump knows about the economy, it’s that stocks must always rise and gas prices must always fall.
He also has to understand that the midterms are getting closer every day.
So, why can’t Trump just declare victory and just leave? Well, there are issues.
Regime change hasn’t happened, as Trump planned. Iran hasn’t surrendered, as Trump planned. It looks like Trump thinks he might declare victory if Iran will only agree to end the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil and gas passes.
I guess it would be unkind to note that the narrow Strait of Hormuz was wide open before the war began. Or that now Iran is threatening to charge tolls for tankers going through the strait, which was previously free.
Do we really think that Iran, after all the beating it has taken, is ready to give up the control of the strait, which is really the only defense it has against another attack?
Trump insists that Iran is “begging” for a way out of the war — are your bones feeling that? — even as Trump is asking Congress for $200 billion more in funding, without saying what it’s needed for.
I hope that is the typical Trump projection and that he’s desperately looking for an off ramp.
Every time Iran calls his bluff — which is every time, despite the overwhelming shock-and-awe bombing of the country — Trump seems surprised. You remember that he gave Iran two days to open the strait before bombing their energy infrastructure. Before the two days had passed, Trump tacked on five more to the deadline because negotiations had sort of begun. And now, with the five days passed, we’re in a 10-day deadline period, even as Israel continues to bomb Iranian infrastructure.
What comes next?
I don’t want to get too optimistic here, but Trump did say something interesting at the cabinet meeting. As you might have noticed, Trump has offered maybe a dozen explanations for starting the war in the month that the bombs have been dropping on Iran — and Iranian missiles and drones have been dropping on Israel and its Arab neighbors.
In the meeting, he went back to the old standby.
Despite saying that Iran’s nuclear system was “obliterated” in the previous U.S.-Israel joint flyover, Trump is now saying that if not for the war, Iran would have had a nuclear bomb ready in two to four weeks.
It’s so absurd and, yes, dumb — no one other than Trump is saying this, not even in his cabinet meeting of sycophants — that it’s hardly worth a comment, except for this one thing:
Even if the war ends with Iran still holding onto deeply buried, highly enriched uranium and also ongoing control of the Strait of Hormuz, Trump can say — he has said — that he has saved the Middle East from the bombs Iran was prepared to launch.
It’s another Big Lie. But it’s a lie that we — and so many others — can live with.
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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