In his nationwide address on Wednesday, Donald Trump could not have been clearer about the course of the Iran war. It’s not ending any time soon and there will be no deescalation of military force. Instead, channeling his inner General Curtis LeMay, Trump announced, “We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We’re going to bring them back to the stone ages where they belong.”
No, they don’t. It was a jarring reference to an ancient and proud Persian civilization that has been commandeered by a gang of thugs. Apart from the dubious morality of luxuriating in the prospect of annihilating an entire country, the practical problem is this: the “Bomb Them Back to the Stone Age” strategy didn’t work in Vietnam, where America dumped more munitions from the air than it had in World War Two – and it’s not working in Iran, where a regime that Trump repeatedly described as defeated somehow continues to lob missiles at Israel and the Gulf states. As Curt Mills, the executive director of the American Conservative, told me, “it was an escalatory rant. After decades of huffing and puffing, President Trump may have finally met his nemesis. The administration seems positively hoodwinked and out of its depth.”
The truth is that wishful thinking permeated Trump’s rambling address. The Strait of Hormuz, he said, “will open up naturally.” It will? Right now, Iran appears to have the upper hand as it works to install a toll booth that is anything but phantom. The only plus was that Trump refrained from making any further outlandish attacks on NATO.
At the same time, Trump offered a bunch of far-fetched claims about Iran’s nuclear threat. Sounding like George W. Bush on the eve of the second Iraq war, Trump kept referencing the regime’s “sinister” nature and its “wickedness.” No doubt. But the issue isn’t the depravity of Iran’s religious and military leadership but that it was not even close to posing an imminent nuclear threat to its neighbors or the United States. Alas, in pummeling Iran inconclusively, Trump has likely heightened the nuclear threat that it will pose in future as the country’s leaders conclude that it must follow North Korea’s path. Everything that Trump said about Iran could be safely applied to North Korea, which Trump has no intention of attacking. Instead, he has professed his enduring love for its malignant leader.
The notion that Trump would seek an accommodation with Iran was based on the presumption that he would recognize what he called “a little journey” has gone agley. He barely alluded to the dire straits that the global economy is experiencing as oil shortages heighten inflation and job losses. Earlier in the day, Trump expostulated, “we can’t take care of daycare. We’re a big country. We’re fighting wars. It’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these things.” With gasoline exceeding $4 a gallon in America, the Republican party is headed toward a landslide defeat in the midterms. If it loses both the House and Senate, a third impeachment trial is a certainty.
Trump, however, believes, or purports to believe, that he is fulfilling the function of a savior at home and abroad. Perhaps he has good reason to adopt such an exalted view of himself. At the White House on Wednesday, the egregious Paula White-Cain, the leader of the White House Faith Office, likened him to Jesus. During her febrile remarks, she pronounced, “You were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused. It’s a familiar pattern that our Lord and Savior showed us. You will be victorious in all you put your hand to because God is using you.” With such messianic views circulating in the White House, it should probably not come as a surprise that Trump appears to view his misbegotten war in the Middle East as something of a personal crusade. His false prophecies of victory, however, will prove the undoing of his presidency.
Comments