War with Iran

War with Iran

In his election night victory speech in 2024 Donald Trump boasted, “I’m not going to start wars, I’m going to stop wars.” A year later he began a war with Iran, a country of 90 million people. Our lawless president neither explained his attack to the American people nor had it ratified by Congress as the Constitution requires. Trump’s war against Iran is one of choice, not one of necessity. Within a day American and Israeli forces killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei which is now confirmed by the Iranian state media. Make no mistake of Khamenei’s legacy. For 36 years he called for “death to America” and the eradication of the state of Israel. In sporadic acts of terrorism in the Middle East he took the lives of Americans and Israelis alike. He recruited and trained the war proxies of Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and diverse Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria. Perhaps the 150,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards who still remain in the country will miss him, but I doubt any of the families of the thousands of massacred protesters will. In Teheran CBS reported that Iranians were cheering in the streets.

None of that answers important questions that Trump’s war raises. How long will it last? Trump seems to see the problem only in terms of what he wants, not what an Iranian resistance may force him to do. A dedicated army of Revolutionary Guards may be more inclined to fight than to surrender. Air attacks can blow things up, but putting a country back together is far less easy. What will be Trump’s next steps? Who will govern the country? Trump is politically adverse to American boots on the ground. Iran appears to have multiple internal factions. A power struggle among them for supremacy seems inevitable. A worrisome analysis in this regard can be found in a discussion between historians Tim Snyder and Phillips O’Brien.

Why did Trump attack now? Several ideas come to mind. Golf courses, real estate projects, crypto investments, and gifts like a replacement for Air Force One have enriched Trump and his family in the Middle East. At attack on Iran is also an attack on behalf of Iran’s Arab enemies in the region, suggesting a possible quid pro quo.

There are domestic reasons for this war as well. Foremost in his mind in the growing threat of massive losses in the midterm elections in November. A quick and easy victory over Iran would be something he could use to burnish his image before the election. A protracted war with Iran could help him justify taking control of the elections, another illegality, by banning mail-in ballots, demanding draconian voter identification rules, or abolishing the use of voting machines. And of course, he will not be above deploying his private ICE paramilitary at the polls if he can get away with it. One imaginative threat to free elections may be to blame Iran for meddling in them and so justify federal action.

A war can divert attention from another threat to Trump, the Epstein files. Trump’s slow walk in releasing the Epstein documents now has all the appearance of a cover-up. He is mentioned in them over 5,000 times so far. More incriminating is that pages with critical allegations have disappeared. He has survived charges of serial sexual abuse of women in the past, but adding child molestation to his rap sheet would be a political nightmare. How many in the GOP would be willing to stand beside a pedophile on the campaign trail? His standard response to charges of misconduct in the past has been to deny, to distract, and attack those making the charges. Denial hasn’t worked so far. There is a part of his MAGA base that remembers his campaign promise to release the Epstein papers. Some are not happy. It will not bode well for Trump if they detect a whiff of betrayal in the wind. Distracting them is a must, and what better way than with a war? Then there is the Venezuela problem. Trump is giddy from the unlawful but tactically successful kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro. He is too poor a student of history to see the dangers that lurk when a leader feels omnipotent.

The war has already roiled the Middle East. Wars seldom end the way people expect them to, and practically never come in under budget. Closer to home, on the other hand, is where the greater leverage can be exerted by people fighting to maintain free and fair elections in November. I will share thoughts about how in the coming weeks.