Somehow, he has achieved what would make the greatest foreign policy practitioner in Presidential history, Teddy Roosevelt blush: He’s taking credit for a war complete with making demands of the currently losing side without directly prosecuting it.
As inevitable as the sun coming up in the morning, war hysteria appears to be gripping Washington in the wake of the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, which erupted last weekend. The question of the hour among the chattering classes is whether President Donald Trump will choose to directly involve the United States, rather than continuing to allow Israel to press the issue with our logistical and supply support. As The Hill recently described it, “Risks loom as Trump moves toward direct participation in Israel’s attack on Iran.” According to Niall Stanage, “President Trump is becoming ever more emphatic in his backing of Israel’s attack on Iran, with the chances rising by the hour that he will greenlight direct U.S. involvement.” CNN said similarly that the “US may be headed into another Middle East war – and no one is talking about how it ends.” “It might be happening again,” Stephen Collinson began. “A president is being driven – by events, fear of proliferating weapons of mass destruction and the need to back up his own words – toward a shock-and-awe entry into a Middle East conflict with no guaranteed way out. Expectations are growing in Washington that Donald Trump will soon heed Israeli calls to try to strike a decisive blow against Iran’s nuclear program, using bunker-busting weapons that only the US can deliver.” Perhaps needless to say, the usual suspects who never encountered a conflict they didn’t want to fight are all in. Senator Lindsey Graham, for example, wants us to do more, echoing many of the same claims that have been used in the past. “You want to avoid World War III?” He asked Fox News host Gillian Turner. “Learn the lessons from World War II. People in World War II appeased Hitler to the point that it got so much out of hand, we had a world war and 60 million people got killed. So, we live in a world where you pay now or you pay later. Let’s stop this threat before he gets a nuclear weapon. Let’s end this reign of terror. Let’s do it now. It’s not going to take 20 months, but I can’t guarantee your freedom and your safety unless we’re willing to fight for it. I can guarantee you this.” Perhaps more interestingly, the politics of this potential war appear to be making strange bedfellows, creating an alignment between some in President Trump’s MAGA base and some in the Democrat Party. Several high profile conservative influencers and pundits including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, Mike Cernovich, and Jack Posobeic have all come out against any direct engagement, sometimes quite vociferously, while Democrats are pushing a bill that would bar the President from doing so.
On Monday, Representative Green decried “fakes,” “slobbering for the U.S. to become fully involved in the Israel/Iran war.” On Tuesday, she said we need to focus on “cheap gas, groceries, bills, and housing,” rather than “going into another foreign war.” In Congress, renegade Republican Representative Thomas Massie has joined with Democrats to co-sponsor a resolution blocking President Trump from engaging in “unauthorized hostilities” with Iran. He was joined by Democrat Representative Rho Khanna, and backed largely by Democrats including Don Beyer, Greg Casar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Nydia Velázquez, Lloyd Doggett, Chuy Garcia, Delia Ramirez, Pramila Jayapal, Summer Lee, Jim McGovern, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib. “This is not our war. Even if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution,” Representative Massie wrote on X while posting a copy of the resolution itself. There is a similar effort in the Senate, led by former Vice Presidential Candidate Tim Kaine. While that has yet to attract any Republican support, the coalition of self-proclaimed fiscal hawks like Representative Massie and self-proclaimed progressive firebrands like Representative Ocasio-Cortez, not to mention a significant number of MAGA influencers, might lead someone to believe something truly important was happening, that the President was dangerously close to committing American blood and treasure to another war in the Middle East. To be sure, President Trump is at least partially contributing to this impression by using “we” and “our” when referring to the Israeli efforts on Truth Social and other platforms. A few examples include “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He is an easy target, but he is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!) at least not for now” and “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.” Most recently, he demanded “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER,” using language quite different from Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the initial attack last Friday, language that appeared designed to separate the United States from the Israeli effort. “Tonight, Israel took unilateral action against Iran. We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region.”
At the same time, one has to wonder why President Trump would want to get directly involved when the United States current position allows him to have it both ways and then some. Somehow, he has achieved what would make the greatest foreign policy practitioner in Presidential history, Teddy Roosevelt blush: He’s taking credit for a war complete with making demands of the currently losing side without directly prosecuting it. As I said to my wife earlier this week, rather bluntly, he’s kicking Iran’s ass by freaking tweet. Why would anyone in their right mind give up the sort of strategic advantage that, to my knowledge at least, has never occurred in the entire history of the world? Of course, things can change in war and they can change fast. Iran might well have some hitherto unseen defense or offense it can mount against Israel or even the United States that might fundamentally alter this dynamic, but at least until now, after more than five days of the conflict, the theocratic regime appears almost powerless, able only to penetrate Israeli defenses with a handful of missiles the entire time. Further, the size and effectiveness of these barrages seems to be declining by the hour and at least some believe they will shortly be out of missiles that can hit Israel in the first place. Earlier this week Fortune Magazine reported that “despite Israel’s aggressive air strikes and even suggestions that they are aimed at the regime itself, Iran has not responded in kind, launching fewer missiles than expected and at a declining rate. That’s because Israel has targeted Iran’s stockpile of missiles as well as its ability to launch them, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).” “The frequency of Iran’s missile barrages targeting Israel has decreased since the start of the Israeli air campaign on June 12, which suggests that Israeli strikes are impacting the rate at which Iran can launch missiles at Israel,” ISW researchers wrote, seemingly backing Israel’s claim that they have eliminated more than a third of their enemy’s capacity with targeted airstrikes. According to the ISW’s estimates, during the first two days of the conflict, Iran carried out six waves of attacks using a total of between 100 and 200 missiles or an average of 33 per wave, but since then the numbers have declined to 35 to 40 per wave, for an average of only 20. Iran itself claimed to be capable of mounting an attack with 1,000 missiles at once, and yet had only mustered 200. “Iran has used significantly fewer munitions in its response to Israel than originally planned because the IDF destroyed and damaged missile launchers and silos that Iran planned to use to retaliate against Israel,” the ISW noted. As far as we can tell, the Iranian air force is nowhere to be seen – not a single Israeli plane has been shot down – and the Iranian military lacks the capacity to project its forces.
In the meantime, Iranian leadership appears to be capable only of empty threats on X. The Ayatollah posted repeatedly during the week, claiming “The US President threatens us. With his absurd rhetoric, he demands that the Iranian people surrender to him. They should make threats against those who are afraid of being threatened. The Iranian nation isn’t frightened by such threats.” “It isn’t wise to tell the Iranian nation to surrender. What should the Iranian nation surrender to? We will never surrender in response to the attacks of anyone. This is the logic of the Iranian nation. This is the spirit of the Iranian nation.” “The harm the US will suffer will definitely be irreparable if they enter this conflict militarily.” In a video, they also pledged to unleash some secret weapon and a night that will be remembered “for centuries,” but nothing of any significance happened. While I do not profess to be an expert on military matters in general or Iran in particular, given some 27 Iranian leaders, including 21 military commanders and 6 nuclear scientists, were killed by Israeli strikes since the conflict began, it certainly seems that they would’ve done something already if they had the capacity. This might well change, however, and something unexpected could certainly occur that draws us in much farther than would be acceptable. There’s also a fair question about what constitutes direct United States involvement. Even today, Israel is attacking Iran with American equipment using a military at least partially funded by American dollars, meaning we are involved whatever anyone is claiming. There are necessarily a range of other means to become more involved, everything from providing Israel with bunker busting bombs, or dropping such bombs ourselves, to actually committing troops, but just as necessarily those options are not equal by any means, despite how they frequently get mixed together in the usual Washington war frenzy. For my purposes, I would be inclined to suggest supplying a bunker buster is no different than what we are doing now, actually dropping a bunker buster ourselves would be an escalation though not a very meaningful one, while doing anything more would constitute an actual commitment to war. With this in mind, I would not be surprised if President Trump is considering either of the first two options, but would be very surprised if he was considering anything more. As I wrote on Monday, it seems to me that President Trump believes Iran is impotent, the region is aligned against him, and now is the time to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon for the foreseeable future. Otherwise, it’s unlikely that a self-proclaimed master negotiator would give up such a strategic advantage when it seems increasingly probable Israel will win the war on their own in a matter of weeks, if not days. I know President Trump is known as a madman at worst or erratic at times at best, but he’d be the biggest fool in history to give up one of the greatest advantages in history.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 