War With Iran?
By We are headed for a war with Iran, but nobody knows why. Or rather, it is possible that Donald Trump knows why, somewhere in his reptilian amygdala, but the distance from there to his word-forming apparatus is like the distance to Mars.
Back in the days of strategy by other means than vibes, Carl von Clausewitz said something about war being the pursuit of policy by other means. In other words, war must have a political objective.
That “must,” of course is normative, and Trump’s hobby is breaking the norms. He has mentioned possible reasons for a war, including the treatment of Iranian protesters by the regime, a nuclear agreement, and ending Iran’s missile program and support for subnational groups. Negotiations are continuing, under the US leads Jared Kushner (not a government employee) and Steve Witkoff (golfing buddy).
This is the place in a post where I would ordinarily list both sides’ demands, but that is not the way of Trump. He has, for a long time, sung the praises of bullying and erratic behavior as his secret negotiating sauce. Now he has the US Navy to do the bullying.
He does seem to want Iran to give up all possibility of all nuclear energy research for all time. His basic position is that if Iran would just stop being a sovereign state and do as he says, there will be no problems. The Iranian government is also practiced in bullying and erratic behavior, not to mention wanting to retain some legitimacy as a state, and they have not agreed to those terms.
Trump said yesterday that he would make a decision on attacking Iran within the next ten days, which seems like a partial backoff to his usual two weeks. For that amount of time, and possibly more, a large part of the US military will be on ready status in case he suffers from dyspepsia at two in the morning.
It’s possible too that he will call the whole thing off, although historically when he’s gotten this much firepower together, he seems to feel a need to use it.
Here’s one speculation. I don’t know who this person is, but they’ve floated into my timeline lately, and anyone’s guess is good at this point.
Other commentators have said things about Congress and declaring war, but that seems old-fashioned, and, in any case, Mike Johnson has no idea of how they might do that. He may not have heard of Iran.
Iran has written to the United Nations that “all bases, facilities, and assets of the hostile force in the region would constitute legitimate targets” if it is attacked.
As many people have pointed out, Iran is much bigger than Iraq, with more difficult terrain. Trump seems to be preparing solely for a bombing campaign, which is not enough to win a war.
And we must ask why.
