They would actually be fine with that because the Iranians aren’t at war with them and will open the strait if the U.S pulls out. In fact, the French are gathering a “coalition of the willing” to do just that. It’s one of the main reasons no other country is getting involved in Trump’s bullshit war!
The complication here is Israel. Trump still has to answer to Bibi (and Vlad) and who knows if they’re on board with any of this?
Trump is melting down minute by minute now, wailing and rending his garments over the fact that he can’t bully everyone into doing what he wants. It’s astonishing.
Fallows worked in the Carter White House and knows from Iran. His writing before the Iraq war was prescient — he saw what was coming. He’s not given to panic or hyperbole. So keep all that in mind as you read this:
Last week I wrote that the preceding few days had been the most wantonly self-destructive period for the United States in my lifetime, and perhaps the country’s whole history. At the whim of one man … well, you can finish that sentence on your own.
Since then, things have gotten worse.
It is simply impossible to keep up with the torrent of deceit from the administration, damage to the world economy, destruction of lives and communities and structures, disorder everywhere. Especially if, like any “normal” person, you have interests or obligations beyond staying glued to the news.
Even as I type: warfare is spreading through Lebanon; Israel says it has killed more leaders in Iran; ships and refineries are in flames; oil prices gyrate wildly, taking all economies except Russia’s along with them; and casualties mount everywhere, especially in Iran. Several million people have already been displaced. And meanwhile, nearly three weeks in, the man who by himself set this chaos in motion has not addressed the public, even once, on why he did so, and where it will lead. Not once has he gone to Congress for advice, consent, or even discussion. Nearly everything he has said, in response to shouted questions at press gaggles, has been delusional or a lie.
So my own small step toward finding order in chaos, for the moment, is to look again at the five questions and maxims I mentioned in the preceding post and see how they look now. Here we go:
1) ‘How does this end?’
As I wrote last week, “It’s the question everyone is asking, except those in control.”
This week, we’re even farther away from a plausible answer to the question.
That’s because official stories about why the US and Israel started this war keep shifting. Regime change? Imminent threat? Inspiring the oppressed Iranian public? Donald Trump’s “feeling” that the time was right? These are all different beginnings to the story, which imply different endings. It doesn’t matter that our only partner in the war, Israel, keeps offering shifting stories of its own. These range from eliminating once and for all the “existential” threat of Iranian nuclear forces, to “severing the head of the snake” of Iranian-sponsored terrorism, as Benjamin Netanyahu recently put it, with Hegseth-like grace.
And meanwhile the damage keeps spreading, in new ways, to more places, with more victims. The eternal unpredictability of warfare makes everything harder than expected, and keeps closing options that might have been there before.
Every current military leader has heard the Sun Tzu maxim that “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” Through history the most respected military leaders have planned carefully for combat, but viewed it as a last resort. That is in part because they know wars are so much easier to start than to end.
That is not the Trump-Hegseth way. “For 47 long years, the expansionist and Islamist regime in Tehran has waged a savage, one-sided war against America,” Pete Hegseth said in the heady first days of the bombing:
We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it… We will finish this on ‘America First’ conditions of President Trump’s choosing—nobody else’s.
Even as he spoke, Iranians were closing the Strait of Hormuz—their most predictable countermeasure, with ever-expanding and still unknowable effects. And the “America First conditions” for “finishing” this job will be … what, exactly? Or even what, approximately?
The closest we have come to an authentic-sounding answer was when Donald Trump said on Fox last week, “I’ll know it’s over when I feel it. When I feel it in my bones.” That quote was chilling because we know that in those few seconds he was, atypically, speaking the truth. And revealing his blindness to the other side’s role in determining when a war is over.
1A) A very stupid statement. And a very wise one.
That Trump quote will be remembered because it was so stupid. A different comment on “how this ends” should be remembered because it was so wise. It came last week from Air Force General Alexus Grynkewich, now commander of US forces in Europe, who spent most of his career as an F-16 fighter pilot and instructor.
You’ll never meet a fighter pilot or an Air Force general who doesn’t believe in air power. But—admirably, and amazingly—General Grynkewich warned a Senate committee about the limits of air power in attaining nearly any of the goals the current war was supposed to achieve.
As he put it, with emphasis added:
We must be clear-eyed about what strategic bombing can and cannot do. Historical data—from the Second World War to more recent campaigns—demonstrates that bombing campaigns rarely, if ever, break the will of a population or force a government to surrender. In fact, they often harden domestic resolve and allow regimes to unify the public against a foreign ‘aggressor.’
While we are effectively destroying Iranian military infrastructure, we are not necessarily achieving the political goal of regime submission.
In simpler terms: Bombs and drones can blow things up. But on their own they have almost never “finished” wars. (“Almost” because of the horrific, complicated exception of Japan, 1945.)
The larger question of the limits of airpower spawns endless debate within the military. For the moment the point is: Trump and Hegseth exult in seeing things blow up, as in a video game, and crowing like teenagers because they’ve “won.” That is not how this story is likely to end.
Also: It is important to note over these troubled months the people who have chosen to be brave, versus those who capitulate or compromise. Let us note and remember this form of valor from General Grynkewich. I’ll return to him at the end of this post.
2) ‘In war, the moral is to the material, as three is to one.’
As noted before, this familiar quote from Napoleon refers both to the morale of troops, for reasons ranging from supplies to leadership, and to the moral aspect of their cause.
On the morale front, I keep noticing a small but significant tell. When beginning any discussion of the ongoing war, military briefers will almost always begin by acknowledging and honoring US troops in action. Especially if some of them have just been killed. It’s a solemn duty to comrades. It shows that respect flows both up and down. It’s all the more important in this “chickenhawk” era, when so many Americans “support the troops” but so few spend time in uniform.
For example, listen to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Cain, at the next regular briefing. He will begin this way, by paying respect to the troops.
Donald Trump never does this. (Except when forced to read from a script, as at State of the Union.)
Last Sunday, when asked aboard Air Force One about the six Air Force members killed in a KC-135 crash, Trump clearly heard the question. He flashed a look of annoyance, ignored it, and turned to other reporters, saying “Who else?”
Trump is visibly uncomfortable talking about or even being near people who have paid gruesome physical prices for serving the nation. Remember when he mocked John McCain for having been captured and made a prisoner of war (and then being tortured). Remember how furious he was at the Atlantic report, later confirmed, that he considered American war casualties to be “losers” or “suckers,” and that he thought it looked bad for him to be near disabled veterans. Now his administration is notably slow in releasing information about this war’s casualties.
The picture at the top of this post is of Trump at a “dignified transfer,” a ceremony at which a president’s demeanor is meant to signal the entire nation’s respect. He manages to makes it all about him.¹ No previous president has ever behaved in a remotely similar way.
Does this directly affect the morale of troops at war? Maybe not. But it’s wrong. And as casualties and disruptions go up, more and more people who are bearing the burden will notice. Parents, who have lost sons or daughters. Husbands or wives at home, while their spouses are at risk overseas.
2A) Which brings us to morals.
-No representative of the US government has yet apologized to anyone in Iran for the slaughter of some 175 school children, by a US drone. No apology could undo the damage or erase the memory. But its absence is deeply immoral. As are a president’s continued lies about the tragedy.
-While noting people who stand up and speak up for moral principles, let us recognize Ryan Clark, former defensive back with the Pittsburgh Steelers. On The Pivot podcast last week, he was asked about the White House video that used clips of him and others delivering “hard hits,” alongside film of bombs exploding in Iran.
In the three minutes below, you’ll hear more serious discussion from Clark about the morality of war, and of what 99% of Americans owe to the 1% in uniform, than you have heard from anyone in today’s administration. This video has gotten a lot of attention, but in case you haven’t seen it, it’s worth spending three minutes listening to Clark:
Here are some samples of what Ryan Clark says about dignity, respect, and demeanor, again with emphasis added.
War is not a comedy. And for these people to be risking their lives … [and] for our regime to be as unserious, as unprofessional, as laughable and as illegitimate as our leadership is right now, is embarrassing
And it tells you the difference between a public servant and a reality star. Because the reality star needs everybody to know at all times. “Oh, look at me! Look at the attention I’m garnering! We’re doing this for me.”
And the public servant stands at attention for 45 minutes in a salute. Because he understands what those soldiers who gave their lives have done for our country.
He concludes this section:
And I think we’ve lost 100% any credibility. We’ve lost all decorum. We’ve lost all integrity. We’ve lost all character. And I believe that the latest White House post, involving myself and other NFL players is absolutely disgusting and despicable.
A man of character. I think he speaks for more of us than he may realize. And certainly more than Trump or Hegseth can imagine.
3) ‘The persistence of memory.’
Two months ago, at Davos, Donald Trump was ridiculing European countries as “parasites,” whose leaders were “weak” and “stupid,” and whose countries “would not even function without the United States.” Writing off NATO as a joke. Saying that the US “had to have” Greenland, whatever a pipsqueak country like Denmark might think.
In the past week, he has demanded that these same countries support the Iran war effort—which none of them were consulted about. He wants NATO countries to pay a “protection fee” to the US Navy for operations in the Strait of Hormuz. He wants them to send ground troops to Iraq and Syria, to relieve Iran-related strain on US forces there.
The allies’ memory reaches back two full months. They have told him, in essence: Go to hell. The way Germany’s prime minister put it was, “This is not our war.”
4) What if the war comes home?
I asked that question ten days ago. The answer has become almost too obvious, and painful, to discuss. The violent episodes of the past week will almost certainly not be the last.
Remember that one of Iran’s specialties is “sleeper cells,” whose members wait, and deliver vengeance. Served cold.
And remember that staff, budgets, and attention within both Kash Patel’s FBI and Kristi Noem’s DHS have been shifted away from counter-terrorism, and toward immigration control. Remember that yesterday’s news was dominated by the extremist MAGA die-hard Joe Kent walking away, in protest, from the nation’s top counter-terrorism job. Many such positions in the FBI and DHS now sit vacant. Remember that today’s news is dominated by the prospect of the former Mixed Martial Arts fighter, and current trash-talking Senator, Markwayne Mullen replacing Kristi Noem as head of DHS. We’ll get to him, that agency, and its problems in another dispatch.
This is not the lineup you’d want to defend a country against a long-game strategy from Iran.
5) Command presence.
I mentioned last week that the bottomlessly ignorant and destructive US attack on Iran defied every written-in-blood lesson by US and other forces, through the long history of combat.
Lessons about strategy versus tactics. About impulse versus deliberation. About imagining the view from the opponent’s perspective. About being strong, versus showing off.
I ended that section with a contrast between two Secretaries of Defense: George C. Marshall, a genuine hero for his country and the world, and Pete Hegseth, an embarrassment at every level.
Let me close the section this time with another contrast. It begins with a return to Alexus Grynkewich, the Air Force general who warned Senators about the hole that US bombs were digging for the US itself, in Iran.
Here is General Grynkewich, as he testified to the Senate Armed Services committee. Take another few seconds to study his face.
[I changed out the picture due to copyright]
To me, this is the look of a person who has seen things, and thought about them, and has listened and read and learned. It is the look of a serious person, aware of the life-and-death differences his decisions can make. For me, this is the bearing of a leader, who recognizes his duty to those who have put trust in him.
If you can stand it, compare this look with any expression you’ve seen on the face of Pete Hegseth. Or Kash Patel. Or Markwayne Mullen. Or Donald Trump.
Here we are, three weeks in.
From the sound of the hearing this morning with Patel, Gabbard and Ratcliffe I’m afraid I have little hope that it’s going to get any better very soon.
Anne Applebaum at The Atlantic sketches a thumbail profile of the sitting U.S. president. Somewhere this exists as a psychological assessment in criminal investigation file:
Donald Trump does not think strategically. Nor does he think historically, geographically, or even rationally. He does not connect actions he takes on one day to events that occur weeks later. He does not think about how his behavior in one place will change the behavior of other people in other places.
He does not consider the wider implications of his decisions. He does not take responsibility when these decisions go wrong. Instead, he acts on whim and impulse, and when he changes his mind—when he feels new whims and new impulses—he simply lies about whatever he said or did before.
On the fallout just from Trump’s Greenland threats last year:
In Copenhagen a few weeks ago, I was shown a Danish app that tells users which products are American, so that they know not to buy them. At the time it was the most popular app in the country.
Donald Trump has no friends. Donald Trump doesn’t know how to be a friend, and never learned. Friends don’t threaten and insult their friends. Friends don’t demand tribute. Trump does:
He raised tariffs on Switzerland because he didn’t like the Swiss president, then lowered them after a Swiss business delegation brought him presents, including a gold bar and a Rolex watch.
Now Trump needs a bailout in Iran, one that can’t be bought with tax cuts, gold bars or Rolex watches. No one is coming to help. Go figure.
CNN: “79% drop ⬇️ in the favorable view of 🇺🇸 from 24 countries asked… Very little support abroad for Trump’s war on Iran…” pic.twitter.com/6akHIDVSwl
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has declared that Canada will not participate in the “offensive operations of Israel and the U.S., and it never will.” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius says, “This is not our war, and we didn’t start it.” The Spanish prime minister refused to let the United States use bases for the beginning of the war. The U.K. and France might send some ships to protect their own bases or allies in the Gulf, but neither will send their soldiers or sailors into offensive operations started without their assent.
This isn’t cowardice. It’s a calculation: If allied leaders thought that their sacrifice might count for something in Washington, they might choose differently. But most of them have stopped trying to find the hidden logic behind Trump’s actions, and they understand that any contribution they make will count for nothing. A few days or weeks later, Trump will not even remember that it happened.
The Madman of Mar-a-Lago is melting down faster than Dorothy’s witch.
“Because of the fact that we have had such Military Success, we no longer ‘need,’ or desire, the NATO Countries’ assistance — WE NEVER DID!” Donald Trump exploded last night on Truth Social after allies rebuffed Trump’s demand for a multinational naval force to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
And you little dogs, too, Trump raged, naming names.
“Likewise, Japan, Australia, or South Korea. In fact, speaking as President of the United States of America, by far the Most Powerful Country Anywhere in the World, WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!” Because no one knows more about winning wars (or starting them) that Donald John Trump.
Recall from his first term how reluctant psychologists were to diagnose the man-child Americans put into the Oval Office. Wouldn’t be prudent, or professional, they averred. And now? The rest of the world doesn’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
Trump’s latest tantrum comes amidst the widening conflict in the Middle East that he launched against Iran with Israel on Feb. 28. Iran responded by attacking vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, effectively “bringing oil shipments from large parts of the Gulf to a halt and triggering sharp rises in the global price of oil.” With midterm elections approaching rapidly.
Via The Guardian.
Trump’s demand is not about military help, retired three-star general and former commander of the French Foreign Legion, Michel Yakovleff, told LCI on Tuesday. “It’s that he wants to share the political risk… not the military risk.” Trump wants Europe to buy discount tickets for the Titanic after it’s already hit the iceberg, Yakovleff said.
The New York Times reports that Trump is not “afraid” of sending in U.S. troops into Iran:
Mr. Trump has faced mounting criticism over the U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran, now in its third week, from allies and even members of his own administration. On Tuesday morning, Joe Kent, the president’s national counterterrorism director, resigned in protest, writing in a letter to the president that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
Mr. Trump tried to downplay the idea that Israel had influenced his decision to attack Iran, calling Israel “a partner” and asserting, “I was against Iran long before I even thought about Israel being against Iran.”
Etc., etc.
Mr. Trump is currently considering two actions that would almost certainly require ground action by American or Israeli forces: Taking over Kharg Island, where Iran loads most of the oil it produces onto tankers, and the underground site at Isfahan where it stores most of its 970 pounds of near-bomb-grade nuclear fuel.
Mr. Trump told reporters that he was unconcerned that such moves could commit U.S. forces to a Vietnam-like boondoggle in Iran.
“I’m really not afraid of that,” he told reporters. “I’m really not afraid of anything.”
Except for losing control of Congress next January. And what comes after that. Trump shot off his mouth and U.S. missiles, and now doesn’t know what to do next. Iran is not Venezuela.
Where is any leadership from Congress? The supposed adults in the room we hear about from pundits? Trump was never sane to start. He has always been a bundle of personality disorders “like nobody’s ever seen,” in his own parlance. His niece, Mary Trump, herself a psychologist, warned us, and warned us again, that her uncle was not just unbalanced but lacking any scruples or morals. He’s only grown worse with advancing age and with accountability for past crimes stalking him. That much is crystal clear. What will it take for members of his cabinet or members of Congress from both major parties to shout “enough” and see to his removal before more people die for Trump’s sins?
Robert Reich this morning, noting that “Trump is alone,” explained our plight to the rest of the planet:
It’s important that you, the citizens of other democracies, know that the vast majority of us — the people of the United States — are embarrassed and offended by the oaf who now occupies the highest office in the United States.
He does not speak for us. He is not making decisions based on our welfare, let alone the well-being of the rest of you. Please don’t confuse him for us.
We are trying our best to resist him, contain him, protest against him, and remove him from office as quickly as we possibly can.
Except “we” does not include the people Americans elected to office.
Last night I had to assure a new friend in Canada, “Only some of us are insane down here.”
UPDATE:
On the Strait of Hormuz we've gone from:
1. Don't need help 2. We need help 3. Why aren't folks helping? 4. Helps on the way 5. Not telling you who is helping 6. Helps not actually on the way but we don't need it anyway 7. We may just abandon it and leave it to everyone else pic.twitter.com/CKXC8KqWGu
We’re in the midst of a rapidly developing quagmire in Iran. We’ve done Venezuela and are now laying siege to Cuba and will be taking it over soon. (Trump says it will be a great honor to do it.) We did an action in Ecuador just the other day that was barely mentioned.
A top Pentagon official told lawmakers Tuesday that existing military operations targeting Latin American drug cartels are “just the beginning” — and left open the possibility of deploying ground forces even as lethal boat strikes against alleged smugglers continue indefinitely.
The comments from Joseph Humire, acting assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense, during a House Armed Services Committee hearing raised immediate concerns from congressional Democrats who said the efforts appear to be another “forever war” without clear goals or a stated end date.
It’s the latest example of the administration doubling down on aggressive foreign policy interventions without clarifying what victory might look like, despite President Donald Trump’s past campaign pledges to avoid embroiling America in more overseas conflicts. And it raises the prospect that the nation’s armed forces could be further strained amid a massive air war over Iran.
Democrats on Tuesday also questioned military leaders’ assertions that the six-month effort to sink smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific has made a meaningful impact on illegal drugs entering American borders, and whether it follows proper rules of engagement for enemy combatants or amounts to war crimes.
“We could shoot suspected criminals dead on the street here in America, and it may be a deterrent to crime, but that doesn’t make it legal,” said Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-Calif.).
But Humire insisted the open-ended missions — dubbed Operation Southern Spear — are “saving American lives” and compliment President Donald Trump’s other border security mandates.
“Interdiction is necessary, but insufficient,” he said. “Deterrence has a signaling effect on narco-terrorists, and raises the risks with their movements.”
By “deterrence” he means using the U.S. military to patrol the world killing anyone who looks at them sideways. We know he wants Greenland and Canada and God knows what else, so no one is safe.
He is starting a world war — or more precisely a war against the world.
I missed this polling question from a couple of weeks ago. It seems important:
Six in ten Americans, including a significant portion of the Republican Party’s support base, now believe President Donald Trump is becoming more unstable as he grows older.
As reported by Reuters.com (25/02), citing the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, 61% of respondents overall agreed with the description of Trump as “becoming unstable with age”.
This figure comprised 89% of Democrats, 64% of independent voters, and 30% of Republicans.
He’s always spoken at what experts say is about a 4th grade level. The next lowest was Truman with a 6th grade speaking level:
That chart was made during the first term and he’s slipped since then. He has the nerve to say that Biden (who was rated between 6th and 8th grade speaking level) and call out Gavin Newsom for admitting that he has dyslexia, saying that makes him dumb.
Trump has always been discursive and often untethered to truth, but with the passage of time his speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past.
According to a @nytimes computer analysis, Trump’s rally speeches now last an average of 82 minutes compared with 45 minutes in 2016. Proportionately, he uses 13% more all-or-nothing terms like “always” and “never” than he did 8 years ago.
He uses 32% more negative words than positive words now, compared with 21% in 2016, which can be another indicator of cognitive change. And he uses swear words 69% more often than he did when he first ran, a trend that could reflect what experts call disinhibition.
As president in 2.0 we can see that it’s not just his words. He’s going to war every other day now. He’s falling asleep in meetings. He makes less sense every time he talks. It’s obvious that he’s lost more than a step. For a man who started out with serious intellectual deficits and massive character flaws, he didn’t have much mental capacity to lose but he’s losing what little he had. I’m glad to see that so many Americans can see it, including 30% of Republicans.
Trump: "It used to be very successful. Now it's a country run by fear. It's a country where they tell protesters, 'Don't go outside, because if you do, we're gonna kill you.'" pic.twitter.com/Usmfkzvs4f
Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, announced his resignation on Tuesday, citing his concerns about the justification for military strikes in Iran and saying he “cannot in good conscience” back the Trump administration’s war
“Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” Kent said in a statement posted on social media, making claims President Donald Trump has denied.
It’s hard to argue with that. He claims that the Israelis misled Trump and that Israel drew the U.S. into the Iraq war which is just Tucker Carlson slop. I’ve no doubt that Netanyahu worked Trump hard but the decision is all Trump for his own reasons.
And the issue of Israel drawing us into Iraq goes back to the history of neoconservatism which was largely influenced by concerns over Israel going back to the 1970s. I’m not sure that’s what Kent is referring to because he’s hardly a political history scholar. But in that way, at least, he’s not wrong. (I suspect it’s more about the fact that Kent is a white nationalist which has a strong streak of fascist anti-semitism.) He represents the Tucker Carlson wing of the party, also known as the Tulsi Gabbard wing. (You’d think she would have been the first to go but because she’s is nothing more than a crass opportunist she’s hanging in there working to steal elections for Trump. )
The polls show that the people who identify as MAGA are sticking with Trump which figures. It’s a cult. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t significant that a substantial portion of the influencer crowd is breaking away. Megyn Kelly, Carlson, Rogan, Marjorie Taylor Green and others are adamantly against the war. This split does mean something. If only 10% of the MAGA coalition breaks over this it weakens the GOP going into this election.
Trump is characteristically gracious:
Trump on Joe Kent: "I always thought he was weak on security. Very weak on security. It's a good thing that he's out." pic.twitter.com/225kN39r2f
Presidents historically have at least paid lip service to the idea that they are supposed to consult Congress before launching a military action. While it’s usually obvious they will proceed anyway, they have nonetheless made the effort, if only to obtain the political cover they might need should things not go as planned. In the case of Donald Trump’s current misadventure in Iran, it’s becoming clear there was no plan — and since the president feels he is owed support for anything he does, he didn’t even bother with the niceties.
Since Vietnam at least, this dynamic has tended to put Democrats in a bind more often than Republicans. The reason for that is simple: The GOP has traditionally been unified in its zeal to go to war, while Democrats have been more divided. For a couple of decades, this caused Democratic presidential aspirants to twist themselves into pretzels trying to find a sweet spot between the party’s anti-war base and its more hawkish minority.
Now, as Trump’s Iran war is intensifying and expanding, Republicans are being forced to confront their own intra-party divisions and rivalries. This has become clear not as a result of some dramatic debate about the war and its aims — because there hasn’t been one. Instead this is best seen in the escalating rivalry between Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, both of whom appear to already be vying for the Republican nomination in 2028.
Both Vance and Rubio would do well to remember how the Iraq wars played out for Democrats.
The run-up to the first Iraq war exposed the party’s divisions. In August 1990, Iraq invaded the neighboring country of Kuwait. After a flurry of diplomatic initiatives went nowhere, the United Nations issued an ultimatum that Saddam Hussein withdraw his troops, and a coalition of 39 countries, led by the U.S., mobilized nearly a million troops to the Kuwaiti-Iraqi border by January 1991 to enforce it. President George H.W. Bush asked for authorization to go to war as soon as Congress convened, which began an extended and torturous debate. The Senate voted 52-47 to authorize the use of military force, with ten Democrats joining with virtually unanimous Republicans in support. The House approved it 250-183.
That swiftly-executed war was considered a rousing military victory, and many Democrats who had planned a presidential bid and had voted against the war were tarred as unpatriotic in its wake. The eventual winner of the nomination, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, was fortunate enough not to have had to make that decision.
As it turned out, the fates of those who had voted against that war played a big role in how Democrats would eventually vote in 2003, when the same decision was forced upon them by President George W. Bush and his crusade to “finish the job” Iraq. Many of the party’s presidential hopefuls voted in favor of the war, an equally poor decision since this time it turned out to be a disaster. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry won the Democratic nomination in 2004, but he paid a price for his vote. Four years later, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton did as well.
Public opinion in both wars was initially divided, and then the public rallied around the flag once they started. In 1991, public approval for the war stayed relatively high throughout the operation. A decade later, as the second war dragged on, support shrank dramatically.
The lesson here is an easy one: When it comes to war and peace, political leaders should use reason, vote their conscience and let the politics play out as they will. Not only is it the moral thing to do, there’s just no way to predict the outcome of a war in any case.
Trump’s Iran war has been unpopular with the American public from the beginning. Those concerns didn’t stop Rubio, who has always been something of a hawk, from agitating for war. There was some tension in the early days of Trump’s second term, when Rubio was still hostile to Russian President Vladimir Putin while Trump was bending over backward to deliver Ukraine to him on a silver platter. That’s changed now that Trump has somehow found a way to think of himself as the world’s greatest peacemaker as he blows boats out of the water, seizes leaders of sovereign nations and starts wars halfway across the world — just because he can.
Rubio is Trump’s closest administration ally in all these decisions, and as the bulk of the party rallies around Trump, the secretary is being seen in elite circles as his heir apparent. At a recent gathering of big donors at Mar-a-Lago, Trump reportedly asked who they would prefer he support in 2028. The group unanimously picked Rubio.
The secretary is already making his moves. Last week the New York Times published a story portraying Rubio as the visionary behind Trump’s foreign policy. Eschewing the gooey idealism of the neoconservatives, who pretended to care about freedom and democracy, Rubio’s innovation is what the Times characterizes as “destroy and deal,” but what it really is is a very old concept called conquest.
“It is about sustaining American military primacy, making other states fear and respect us,” Emma Ashford of the Stimson Center, a research group in Washington, explained in the article. Rubio underscored this in his recent speech at the Munich Security Conference, when he bemoaned the fact that the “great Western empires” had passed.
The vice president, on the other hand, has been seen as the frontrunner in most public polling for months. But he has been a cipher when it comes to the administration’s military “excursions,” as Trump calls them, and has reportedly even been exiled from the makeshift Mar-a-Lago situation room. Vance is known to be the voice in the room — at least when he’s there — who pushes against military action. He’s not coming out against these wars; Vance is not politically suicidal. But he’s playing it very close to the vest, seemingly waiting to see how it all shakes out.
This is tricky for Vance, who is often seen as the “one true MAGA” carrying on the philosophy of America First and “no new wars” philosophy, which is no longer operative with anyone except the elite MAGA influencers. But he can’t afford to overtly separate himself from Trump.
The machinations of both camps are coming into focus. By lashing himself to Trump’s foreign policy mast, Rubio has to hope that these wars go well if he is going to win the nomination. Trump is said to be favoring him, but the danger is that if things in Iran go south, the secretary will be the one Trump blames for the failure. Vance is trying to have it both ways. If things go well with the war, Rubio will reap the political benefits. So Vance is quietly rooting for the war to fail while keeping his fingerprints off any of it.
After watching Democrats’ experience with the Iraq debacle, Vance, Rubio and their fellow Republicans should have learned that staking one’s political fortunes on the outcome of war is a fool’s game. But with Trump in charge, they really have little choice. Good luck to whomever wins the prize. It’s likely not to be one worth having.
Dan Pfeiffer this morning recalls an Obama campaign team meeting from 2012. Everything was upbeat and going swimmingly until White House Senior Advisor David Plouffe spoke:
“Gas prices are an existential threat to the entire enterprise. If they keep going up, we will lose reelection.”
The direness of Plouffe’s warning caught everyone’s attention. Plouffe was known for keeping calm under the most intense pressure and never panicking.
But prices went down. Obama won reelection. Donald Trump may not be so lucky in the 2026 midterms. With his attack on Iran, he’s shot himself in the foot in the middle of Fifth Avenue. He’s losing voters.
Since the U.S. launched a war against Iran on Feb. 28, 2026, the national average price of a gallon of gasoline has climbed from $2.93 to $3.72, according to AAA. That is the highest price in over a year, and a 27% increase compared to the same time last year. Americans are witnessing the largest month-to-month spike in gas prices we’ve seen in 30 years.
Consumer sentiment is “cratering” as worry about inflation spikes. Even sucking helium, Trump cannot keep the jobs market from deflating:
And gas is just the latest blow. The February jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed payrolls declined by 92,000 — the third time in five months that the economy has shed jobs. This month, unemployment ticked up to 4.44% (dangerously close to rounding to 5%). Year-over-year CPI is running hotter, and that’s before you account for (a) the fact that the BLS changed data sources for legal services last month, leading to an artificially lower inflation reading or (b) the full impacts the war with Iran will have on everything from food to building materials.
“On day one, we’re bringing prices down,” Donald Trump promised crowds throughout 2024. But every major piece of data we have on prices is going in the opposite direction.
Working-class whites and Latinos who helped put Trump back into the White House one year ago have noticed. Low-income white voters have swung 26 points against Trump since 2024. He’s lost more with low-income Hispanics with a 34-point net approval gap.
Simply put, “the data is that workers voted for Trump because he promised to make their lives cheaper — but he has done the opposite at every turn, and is now suffering the consequences.” Their support in 2024 was transactional, and Trump has not delivered, either on an improving economy or on his promise to keep the U.S. out of endless foreign wars.
Trump did not just avoid a foreign war. The dangerous, delinquent idiot started one on a whim. “The casual nature of the declaration of war matched the unmoored nature of Trump’s imperial cosplay,” observes Fintan O’Toole in The New York Review. The reflexive liar has not even bothered to construct a sensible story as to why. Past U.S. conflicts purported to be about “making the world safe for democracy (World War I), defeating fascism (World War II), saving civilization from communism (Korea and Vietnam), upholding international law and the sovereignty of nations (Kuwait), responding to the atrocities of September 11 through the “war on terror” (Afghanistan and Iraq).” Trump’s attack on Iran contradicts his own National Security Strategy published in November.
One area in which Trump has gone the extra mile is in routinely insulting U.S. allies. Now that he’s started a widening war in the Persian Gulf, U.S. allies are letting him stew in it.
It is obvious that making war is a useful distraction—for himself as well as for the world—from the Epstein scandal. But it is also now the purest form of self-pleasuring. Usually a president going to war is taking on burdens. Trump is shrugging them off, entering a state of weightlessness where all thought of consequences and all concern for mundane irritants like inflation and affordability are left behind.
MAGA has noticed. In the seven months that Sign Guy has been on street corners and overpasses five times per week, last week’s message drew far more middle fingers than in any week since August. It read: IRAN’S LEADER IS DOWN. YOUR PRICES ARE UP.
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes is done with MAGA, even as he’s pursuing a full pardon from Trump. So he blames Israel for the war, not Trump, but he’s done. As Monday guest host on Alex Jones’ show, Rhodes declared “the obvious role of the influence of Zionism in our government,” etc., etc.:
“So that’s why I no longer call myself MAGA. I am an America-only patriot. I’m a Christian nationalist, an American Christian nationalist. I have to open my eyes to the reality in front of my face, and it’s caused a division inside of MAGA, and it’s caused a division on the political right. But so be it,” Rhodes said.
Trump is burning through supporters faster than U.S. advanced weaponry. For those of a certain age, in there somewhere is a Carnac the Magnificent joke involving diseased camels.
UPDATE:
After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today.
I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this… pic.twitter.com/prtu86DpEr
Hassett: "If the war were to be extended, it wouldn't really disrupt the US economy very much at all. It would hurt consumers, and we'd have to think about what we'd have to do about that, but that's really the last of our concerns right now."
