CNN
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President Donald Trump is desperate to not fight the war with Iran.
But can he really avoid it?
The attractive national security debate and domestic political considerations mean it makes sense to stop Israel from thwarting US attack operations in long-term conflicts that it describes as an issue that maintains its own existence.
However, powerful forces were able to inhale America deeper into conflict than their current role in helping Israel protect Iranian missiles and drones from the deadly rain.
CNN reported over the weekend that Trump rejected Israel’s plan to kill Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to two sources.
But some of this is out of Trump’s hands.
If an Iranian abused administration loses US bases and staff in the region and decides there is no attack, or attacks US targets around the world, Washington will be forced to respond hard to maintain credibility and deterrence. Another possibility is that Tehran could launch an obsession on Trump to curb Israel by attacking international transport in the Gulf or the Red Sea, bringing a global energy crisis.
Also, pressure is on Trump from within his own party for actions that only the US can do. This is a mission to destroy the Iranian underground site of Fordau, which is believed to exceed Israel’s aerial capabilities. The logic of such a strike is that Iran is now uniquely vulnerable and that a better chance for the United States to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons may never come.
CNN’s White House team reports that they are deeply skeptical of the president throwing the US into the fight. Such a movement would be full of danger. It could lead to a widening conflict beyond the current warriors, leading to tough, free wars without a clear endgame.
If there is one lesson from the early 21st century, we find that the purpose and analysis of the Middle Eastern wars created in Washington are almost always miserably wrong. The idea that Iran’s brutal administrative regime could fall may be fascinating. However, Saddam Hussein and the collapse of civil war in Syria show that Middle Eastern countries can simply split when power vacuums open.
The US intervention also widens deep tensions in Trump’s political foundations and dismantles the core principles of his “America First” movement. The US should leave the foreign quagmire after more than a decade of pain in Iraq and Afghanistan. After all, it’s only a few weeks as the president has set up a new vision for Middle East and America’s involvement.
“The so-called state builders destroyed much more countries than they built, and interventions were intervening in complex societies where they didn’t even understand themselves,” Trump said in a major speech in Saudi Arabia in May. “The new generation of leaders transcend the ancient conflicts and the tired divisions of the past, building a future in which the Middle East is defined by commerce rather than chaos. They export technology rather than terrorism, and build cities where people of different countries, religions and beliefs do not exist together.”
The new American war is in stark contrast to such a vision. Still, the Washington Hawks might argue that Trump has a unique opportunity to remove major obstacles to his vision by eradicating Iran’s path to nuclear weapons and contributing to the fall of theocratic leaders.
The president often writes in his memoirs about important and painful choices to deploy his army in foreign wars. But sometimes, when you think it’s attractive, it takes courage to decide not to hurry.
The dilemma that Trump is facing now usually has negative consequences anyway.
Even if Israel’s decision to launch a major attack on Iran is sole, and it makes clear that Washington’s troops have no offensive involvement, political heat has already ruled out the president a bystander.
One of the complicated factors for Trump is that Israel’s attacks seem to have managed to steal top military leaders and nuclear scientists, but it remains unclear whether Israel has the capacity to eradicate Iran’s nuclear program itself.
Former Vice President Mike Pence said on Sunday in the “Union Provinces” that the US should prepare to take part in the conflict if Israeli attacks do not convince Iran to make major concessions to diplomatic attempts to end its nuclear program.
“I think the president has made it clear that if Iranians want to stand still, he is willing to take part in negotiations. But there is no nuclear program of any kind, no enrichment program of any kind,” Pence told CNN’s Dana Bash. “And at the end of the day, if Israel needs our help to ensure that Iran’s nuclear program is completely destroyed, then the United States needs to prepare to do so, as this is to protect our most precious allies.”
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham argued that the worst outcome of the conflict between Israel and Iran is due to Tehran’s nuclear capabilities, which have long been denied that it is designed to build bombs.
“If diplomacy is successful and we leave a power option, I urge President Trump to make sure that when this operation is over, there is nothing standing in Iran about their nuclear program.” “If that means providing a bomb, we provide a bomb. If that means flying with Israel, we will fly with Israel.”
These calculations are difficult enough. But Trump is also faced with a complex domestic political scenario that is the result of his own transformation that transformed the GOP into a more isolated party. This means he faces a different political scenario than the one before President George W. Bush went to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Some of the loudest voices on the right, including Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk, have already warned Trump against building trust with Magazinebass by diving into the new Middle Eastern War. The President has always been very careful of his own complicated coalition. He hates taking steps to annoy voters. One example was his shift last week to halt the sweep of deportation for agricultural workers. Partly to avoid angering farmers and employers in the rural centres where he draws much of his support.
Trump’s preconceived notions about political costs were evident in a conversation with Atlantic journalist Michael Scheller on Sunday.
“Well, I think I’m the one who thought I was the one who developed “America’s first,” and the term wasn’t used until I came, I think I’m the one who decides,” Trump told Scheller. “For those who say they want peace, if Iran has nuclear weapons, you can’t have peace. So for the wonderful people who don’t want anything about Iran having nuclear weapons – it’s not peace.”
The president appeared to be rehearsing discussions about his base that he must use if he participates in Israeli actions. It’s fascinating to see him grapple with the challenges between the traditional US president and the national security debate facing the sector of the political movement that has taken him into power. Perhaps, as Kirk pointed out, he still doesn’t seem to be convinced of his arguments, as the young male voters who flocked to his reelection campaign last year don’t want to join the Middle Eastern “quagmire.”
This is not where Trump wanted him to be an early stage in his presidency. This is one of the reasons why he seemed so bullish about his efforts to force Iran to agree to a deal to peacefully end its nuclear program.
Trump has vowed to Peace Maker for his second term.
But five months later, the two major wars that would infuriate when he took office worsen, and a dangerous new conflict with Iran promises the biggest test of “America First” restraint.
Trump’s authority is fled by three key leaders: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And his “art of contract” approach to foreign policy is a failure.
Putin ignores Trump’s efforts to end the Ukrainian war. Xi forced the US leader twice to fold the trade war. And Netanyahu’s decision to launch a conflict with Iran that the US president has been trying to avoid for a long time appears to have given up Trump’s diplomacy.
At home, the president must build the trust of the people so that their decisions go to war. Here, Trump may struggle as he alienates millions of people with his burning approach to problems at home. This includes his decision to deploy troops in California amid last week’s anti-ice protests, warning him that he plans to use troops everywhere.
Trump’s second term already believes in the notion that the weight of his character is considered to respect him among foreign enemies, and the notion that aides see him as almost magical trading abilities. For example, the promised rush of trade transactions eased by his tariffs has not come to fruition.
Trump’s first piecemaking foray in Gaza has failed. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are facing hunger as Israeli pounding was triggered by the Hamas attack in October 2023.
The president’s efforts to end the Ukrainian war never went anywhere. The conflict spread. The Ukrainian attack on Russian bases spread across Russia, urging Putin to launch vicious attacks on civilians in Kiev and elsewhere. The White House informed Trump that he was irritated with the Russian leader and set a two-week deadline to consider stricter sanctions against Moscow. But nothing revealed the Lizzyable nature of that spin and Trump’s biased attitude towards war, more than his excitement on Saturday when Putin called on him to wish him a happy birthday.
The event overtook Trump’s “America’s first” mercilessness to participate overseas and exposed the shallowness of his politics. The worsening crisis may provide a preview of a world that becomes more precarious without a steady and constant American leadership.
Trump’s increasingly fragile domestic political foundation and his already questionable authority only complicate his dilemma. In many ways, the Iranian conflict is a kind of international crisis with no easy answers that he avoided in his first term.
Now it was able to define his second one.