“Iran ultimately understood—their ability to produce, to generate power, to fuel their terrorist regime—was in our hands,” Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth told reporters Wednesday, in response to questions about Trump’s threat. Hegseth insisted Trump’s vow to eradicate “a whole civilization” persuaded Iran that he could crush their ability to “export energy” and thus end the entire basis for the regime’s existence.
But there’s a small problem with this spin. It’s that the Iranians were already negotiating with Trump before the war started. Trump largely sabotaged those negotiations, because he was talked into believing the war would be easy and deliver a quick burst of glory. Trump’s approach to the talks made success impossible—deliberately.
The pre-war talks with Iran were doomed because Trump shifted between objectives in a way that ensured that outcome. The core issue was supposed to be ending Iran’s capacity to develop a nuke. But the Times also reveals that Iran was prepared to make meaningful concessions on that front, yet Trump officials effectively decided only regime change was acceptable, ensuring war.
Will talks now get Trump a better deal than he might have gotten the first time? Maybe, but Iran seems emboldened by its survival to demand more this time. The points that Trump accepted as the basis for talks appear more friendly to Iran than before.
So what did Trump’s threat—which would have been a massive war crime—actually accomplish? It’s exclusively negative. As Bill Kristol writes:
Kristol is referring to the overall war’s impact, but Trump’s threat of civilizational erasure is also a factor in ensuring these outcomes. That the American president eagerly vowed to obliterate a nation of 93 million is bad enough. On top of that, the U.S. political system appeared utterly powerless to stop it—largely because one of our major parties revealed that it will not step up even when its leader threatens unthinkably massive war crimes and even genocide.
One can hope that this galvanizes millions into voting against the GOP in the midterms—and it probably will help—but translating this into serious checks against a rerun of this insanity is a tall order. That, too, is a painful realization to endure.
That’s because the core story that Trump and Hegseth have told about this war is that it’s showcasing that American strength and power are supreme, unquestioned, and can accomplish literally anything. That includes the mere threat to unleash that power: Because the specter of American military violence and terror can make literally anyone do anything that Trump wills, maximal threats of annihilation are inherently good. Hegseth constantly preens about America’s superlative killing power with unnerving relish and bloodlust in order to tell that story.
But it’s taken a big hit. Yes, the war showcased awesome technological prowess. But that cannot accomplish literally anything Trump wants it to. Nor can threatening to rain it down on millions innocent people with unconstrained brutality and savagery. Trump and Hegseth set out to prove otherwise, and at this, too, they failed miserably.
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