Trump’s Iran war is a fiasco.
Undertaken without adequate planning by a president deaf to the advice of experts, there is no meaningful measure by which it can be categorized as successful.
While Trump regularly notes that many of Iran’s leaders have been killed and much of its military capacity has been degraded, the reality is that in terms of the multiple objectives floated as rationales for launching the war, not only have none been achieved but it appears virtually certain that none will be.
The US intelligence community is reporting that Iran’s hardline regime remains in place, and that, indeed, it may become even more extreme than it was in the past. Iran’s nuclear capabilities—far from being “obliterated” as Trump often boasted following last year’s Operation Midnight Hammer—remain a threat. Many of the scientists and technicians who were part of its nuclear program remain active. The country’s stock of enriched uranium remains in its control—and actually seizing the uranium would require a massive, highly risky boots-on-the-ground operation that would very likely lead to a deeper, more protracted conflict, high US casualties and perhaps even more incentives for Iran to restart and even accelerate its nuclear ambitions.
The opposition in Iran is bloodied, scattered and seems unlikely to lead an effective rebellion. While Iran’s military has been weakened substantially, it continues to retain stockpiles of missiles and drones enabling it to continue its war against US assets in the region, America’s Israeli partners, and Arab states viewed as sympathetic. Certainly, it is within Iran’s capabilities to keep the Strait of Hormuz shut to international vessels indefinitely, giving it massive leverage due to the enormous negative effects on global energy supplies (and prices) as well as on fertilizer production and, consequently, food supplies.
At a moment of economic precariousness in the US even before this ill-considered war was undertaken, the possibility of $150 or $200 a barrel oil or continued regional instability that could spook markets opens up the prospect of a real, substantial, protracted global recession.
Add to that the enormous $2 billion a day costs of the war, the prospect of future troop losses, the tensions it is creating in international alliances, the new revenues it is giving Russia thanks to Trump’s bizarre decision to lift sanctions on countries buying its oil, the growing unpopularity of the war at home and worldwide, the threat to the economies of many important US allies in the region and worldwide, the advantageous position in which it places the comparatively cool-headed and rational Chinese on the global stage and, for good measure, the likelihood that this war will accelerate a new global nuclear arms race and you have to conclude, it is a clusterf–k of the first order.
Worse, there are virtually zero prospects of any outcome other than future tension and instability—whether Trump pulls the plug now or in days or weeks.
That’s bad, right?
The question is, where does it rank among the many past screw-ups in US foreign policy history?
It is certainly right up at the top among the stupidest and most unnecessary mistakes ever made by a US commander-in-chief. There was a clear reason why, in almost half a century of tension with Iran, no other president, Democrat or Republican, undertook such a war. The reason is that outcomes just like those we are currently experiencing were regularly predicted. Even by Trump’s own advisors, reportedly. But he knew better. Because of course, he did.
But it is early days yet, however, to know whether it will actually rank among the true disasters in terms of impact on our national interests, standing, human cost, resource costs, or long-term geopolitical damage.
After all, there was the Vietnam War. The staggering costs and consequences of the Iraq War. The failure to eliminate Soviet era nuclear stockpiles in Russia in the wake of the Cold War. Indeed, for 80 years, we have also suffered the consequences of US military-industrial complex-driven threat inflation and the resulting trillions of dollars of wasteful defense spending that could have otherwise been invested in the American people and our well-being.
No, we can’t know how the current war will measure up against these past mistakes. But we do know one thing: It is directly related to the single most damaging incident in the history of the US in terms of our international standing, the costs to our budget, to our people, and to the resources upon which we depend for its strength.
That is because the most damaging development in US foreign policy history was the election of Donald Trump as president. No foreign enemy has ever inflicted such devastation on the U.S. as has our 45th and 47th president. Trump’s failed response to the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the US suffering the highest fatalities of any nation on earth. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of the over 1 million who died here—a total during Trump’s first term alone that is more than the number of combat deaths the US suffered during World War II—were lost as a result of Trump administration errors.
That is to say nothing of the damage done to the U.S. economy or the negative impact on our standing with the world due to his regular efforts to prop up our Russian adversaries.
But that was only during his first term. Now, as a result of his draconian immigration policies, we are no longer able to attract the best and the brightest to our universities. Foreign investment is flowing elsewhere. The shutdown of USAID has not only eliminated a key US international tool, but 600,000 people have already died as a result—and it is estimated 14 million more will die before 2030. That is by far the most ever inflicted as a consequence of any single action by a US president, ever.
That is to say nothing of the consequences of switching the US away from future energy sources and back to the costly, dirty fossil fuels. Or the cost of ending many forms of vital medical research or funding for university research of other types. Or the cost of weakening alliances like NATO. Or the cost of invading eight different countries illegally. Or the cost of pulling the US out of scores of international institutions that the US worked for 80 years to help to build. Or the cost of withdrawing support for Ukraine. Or the cost of those illegal tariffs and active attempts to destroy the international trading system.
It is already clear that as long as Trump is in office, the US is being weakened and put at risk in manifold new ways daily. It is chilling to contemplate how diminished or at risk we will be by the time Trump leaves office. We have never faced a more pernicious threat; not since the Civil War has the primary threat to our well-being and international standing come from within.
But that is where we are now. We are a rogue nation—with a demented leader, depleting resources, faltering standing to our rivals, fewer allies and alliances—facing a growing array of threats that we are ever less well-equipped to handle.
