The Whims of War

Throughout his life Donald J. Trump, our 45th and 47th President, has displayed little respect for academic achievement. He even had his attorney threaten Fordham University and the University of Pennsylvania with legal action to prevent the disclosure of his college transcripts.  He has also demonstrated little respect for those who have developed expertise through years of hands-on experience, claiming that he knows more about war than our nation’s top military officers. More to the point, like George W. Bush (aka “W”), our 43rd President who commenced an ill-begotten war in Iraq which cost the lives of approximately 4,500 of our military and civilian personnel, left an additional 30,000 wounded and cost our nation over $1 trillion, he has embarked upon another war in the Middle East also based upon dubious reasoning. This brings to mind the teaching of George Santayana, the nineteenth century philosopher, who cautioned that "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.”

It remains unclear just why “W” started our war in Iraq. Ostensibly, it was commenced to destroy Iraq’s non-existent stockpile of “weapons of mass destruction” (or “WMDs”). This rationale was supported by a bogus conclusion which Vice President Dick Cheney had badgered the Central Intelligence Agency to reach. In view of the subsequent finding that Iraq had no WMDs it has been speculated that the Iraq War was simply an effort by “W” to put an end to the reign of Sadam Hussein, a goal which his father, President George H.W. Bush, had wisely decided not to pursue in the 1990 “Gulf War.” Another theory is that “W” commenced the Iraq War to enable the U.S. oil industry, to which both he and Vice President Cheney had close ties, to take control of Iraq’s vast petroleum reserves.

President Trump’s motives for attacking Iran are similarly clouded in mystery. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, like Sadam Hussein, was also a despicable individual who had sowed conflict and destruction throughout the Middle East. Even his own people harbor no love for him as he had caused his Revolutionary Guard to kill over 7,000 Iranian citizens to quell a recent civilian protests. One of the reasons that President Trump has given for commencing military action against Iran was to give the Iranian people a chance to create a democratic government. This is reminiscent of the rationale voiced by “W” that he commenced the Iraq War to allow the “freedom-loving Iraqi” to take control of their government. In fact, he even suggested that the attacking U.S. forces would be “greeted as liberators.”

The most apparent reason voiced by President Trump for attacking Iran was that Iran would not agree to abandon its nuclear weapons program. Of course, less than a year before President Trump had proclaimed that he had totally obliterated Iran’s nuclear program. It’s also ironic that it was President Trump who during his first term in office disavowed the JCPOA, a multiparty agreement negotiated by the Obama administration in which Iran had agreed not to develop nuclear weapons. In disavowing the JCPOA, President Trump complained that it did not preclude Iran from developing ballistic missiles which is also one of his currently professed reasons for attacking Iran. The problem with both of these two rationales is that neither Iran’s nuclear or ballistic missile capabilities posed an imminent danger to the U.S. Last year’s bombing attacks had set back any nuclear ambitions that Iran may have harbored by at least several years. As for Iran’s ballistic missile program, the U.S. intelligence agencies had recently stated that Iran was at least three years away from developing intercontinental missiles that could reach the U.S.

Another motive for the attack voiced by the Trump administration was that Iran was about to attack U.S. military bases located throughout the Middle East. Even this excuse is suspect because our intelligence agencies have reported that they are unaware of any such plans by Iran. Similarly, the Trump administration claimed that it acted because Israel, acting alone, was about to renew its attacks on Iran which would have necessarily brought the U.S. into the resulting conflict. None of the reasons proffered by the Trump administration, however, seems to have any basis in fact prompting me to look elsewhere for President Trump’s actual motivations.

One possibility is that President Trump was encouraged to strike Iran by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, and Mohammed Bin Salmon, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, both of whom view Iran as a mortal enemy. Moreover, they both have had extensive dealings with President Trump and have become quite adept at feeding his ego and manipulating him. It has also been reported that the commentators on Fox News were similarly encouraging President Trump to attack Iran. Their advice was undoubtedly motivated by the President’s declining public approval ratings leading them to counsel him to take bold action to restore support among his political base, which coincidentally just happens to be their TV audience.

Of course, weighing heavily on Trump is the pressure being placed upon his administration to disclose the remaining three million pages of documents in the government’s files relating to Jeffrey Epstein. Especially troubling to Trump is that it has been reported that the unreleased files contain a statement recorded by the FBI of a young girl that she had been raped by Trump. In addition, members of Congress who have been given the opportunity to review unredacted copies of the Epstein file documents that have been made public have reported that, contrary to the terms of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the identities of many of Epstein’s victims have been disclosed and the identities of other non-protected persons have been redacted. Adding to the pressure on President Trump is that each of Bill and Hillary Clinton, who respectively had limited or no contact with Epstein, have been deposed under oath. By contrast, President Trump who has been named thousands of times in the Epstein files and has not even been subpoenaed to testify, a point that was repeatedly made by Mrs. Clinton.

President Trump clearly has no equal when it comes to creating political distractions and manipulating the media. It’s not just that he has issued constant assurances that there is noting in the Epstein files incriminating him, but he has recently created a series of events designed to captivate the attention of the news media and draw attention away from demands that the balance of the Epstein files be disclosed. This would include (a) the recent interview of Ghislaine Maxwell by Todd Blanche, (b) the bombing of Venezuela and the kidnapping of its President, (c) his marathon State of the Union address which was filled with dozens of misstatements and exaggerations, (d) his destruction of the East Wing of the White House and his plan to erect in its place a 90,000 square foot ballroom, (e) the continuing havoc being wreaked by ICE and Border Control Patrol personnel, (f) his efforts to enact legislation that would prevent millions of currently registered voters from participating in the 2026 elections, (g) renaming the Kennedy Center and (h) his plan to seize Greenland. While each of these actions is very newsworthy, they all pale in significance to starting a dangerous war which he has now done in Iran.

Trump’s motivations for initiating a war with Iran are clearly secondary to their likely actual impact. So far, they consist of a series of bombing raids closely akin to the “Shock and Awe” bombing campaign that “W” unleashed at the beginning of the Iraq War. In addition to attacking Iraq’s military facilities, the U.S. and Israel attacked a building in which Iran’s Supreme Leader was meeting with his top advisor, killing both Supreme Leader Khamenei and eight of his possible successors. Also among the victims of the initial bombing attacks were 165 young girls and their teachers whose school was destroyed. The Trump administration has stated that its bombing campaign is likely to go on for another three to six weeks. Accordingly, it is difficult to assess how many buildings will be destroyed and how many Iranians will be killed.

General Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, laid out the methodical manner in which the air strikes on Iran are being carried out. They are currently focusing on destroying Iran’s stockpile of missiles and drones as well as its ability to interdict air attacks by the U.S. and Israel. After control of the skies is secured, the U.S. and Israeli forces will undoubtedly begin to concentrate on destroying Iran’s ability to manufacture weapons and conduct military ground operations.

President Trump has stated that he has made no decision as to whether the U.S. will deploy any of its ground forces in this campaign. He is presumably waiting to see what concessions the Iranians might make as a result of the bombing attacks. However, every student of military history knows that wars cannot be won via aerial attacks alone. Perhaps the only exceptions to this truism are that the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which ended our war with Japan. By contrast, the allies’ bombing of Germany in World War II did not cause the Nazis to surrender; nor have Russia’s aerial attacks on Ukraine caused that nation to surrender. The truth is that bombing attacks, while killing scores of individuals and destroying hundreds of residential and factory buildings, power plants and even water supplies, simply do not convince nations to surrender, especially when the nation is defending its own homeland.  Quite the contrary, they tend to harden the resolve of those being attacked.

President Trump has also tried to use his formidable powers of persuasion to cause Iran’s Revolutionary Guard members to surrender their weapons. The chances of his succeeding, however, are essentially nil. While two and a half years of bombing and ground fighting caused Hamas’ militants to agree to a cease-fire, the surviving members of Hamas have universally refused to surrender their arms. Nor is any pledge of amnesty likely to convince them to do so, especially one made by Donald Trump who has a long record of reneging on his agreements. Think about his disavowing the protections the U.S. offered to those Afghanis who assisted our troops fighting in their country in the peace agreement he negotiated with the Taliban and his willingness to ignore the multi-party agreement we made with Ukraine, Russia and others following the collapse of the Soviet Union that Ukraine would enjoy territorial sovereignty if it surrendered its nuclear weapons.

Of particular concern is that without initiating a ground war, a lot of bad things will likely happen. Iran is reported to have over 600,000 soldiers on active duty and another 350,000 reservists. It also has at its disposal another 200,000 members of its Revolutionary Guard. While as many as 20% of these forces may be eliminated by the current bombing campaign, that still leaves a combined fighting force of more than twice as large as both the U.S. and Israel will be able to muster. In addition, Iran has allies in the Middle East with formidable fighting capabilities including the Houthis (with an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 combatants), Hezbollah (with an estimated 40,000 to 90,000 combatants) and Hamas (with an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 combatants).

It also must be appreciated that the U.S. has a number of potential targets located across the Middle East including at least 19 major military sites, all of which are in range of Iran’s existing ballistic missiles, not all of which are likely to be destroyed by the U.S.’s aerial attacks. In addition, the U.S. has over a dozen embassies and consulates located throughout the Middle East which could also be likely targets for combatants dispatched by Iran. Indeed, the havoc which Hamas unleashed on October 11th could be achieved many times over by an Iranian government left in place after an extensive bombing campaign. Maybe even more daunting is the possibility that a badly damaged Iran may be able to sink a handful of ships passing through the Straits of Hormuz which is only 21 miles wide. Should that happen oil shipments (which currently total 20 million barrels of crude oil per day) could be severely reduced, if not wholly cut off, sending gasoline prices skyrocketing all around the world.

This also assumes that China and Russia, which are both closely allied with Iran, will quietly sit by while the U.S. destroys Iran’s economy along with its military capabilities. Indeed, China is heavily dependent on the petroleum it imports, approximately 40% to 50% of which comes from Iran and the other countries located in the Persian Gulf. Similarly, Russia is heavily dependent on Iran for missiles and drones which it is currently using in its war with Ukraine.

Despite the fact that even an extended bombing campaign is not going to cause the Iranians to cease their hostilities against the U.S. (and particularly Israel), President Trump has yet to decide whether he will deploy American ground forces in Iran. There are several reason to believe that he will not do so. First and foremost, if he was really serious about proceeding in that manner he would have already taken steps to position those troops in the region so they could be quickly introduced into the fighting. This is what George H.W. Bush did when he ordered the attack on the Iraqi forces that had invaded Kuwait in the Gulf War and what “W” did when he initiated the Iraq war.

Second, Trump is already in political trouble for expending U.S. resources to fight a foreign war. Russia has suffered an estimated 1 million casualties in its war in Ukraine and if a substantial number of U.S. military personnel are killed in a ground offensive (which is almost inevitable), he will wholly alienate his MAGA adherents who have embraced his “America First” campaign pledge. Third, Trump has a strong preference to bully and threaten others to comply with his dictates, but rarely places his own well-being on the line when encountering opposition. This predilection has earned him the “TACO” (Trump Always Chickens Out) appellation. Lastly and possibly most importantly, it seems beyond belief that Trump would even consider action which might cause the U.S. to be placed into a war with either Russia or China.

This brings us to how Donald, the artful dodger, is going to escape from this, yet another dangerous situation of his own making. His escape strategy will most likely be modeled after the way he and his father escaped from the DOJ’s legal action against them for practicing racial discrimination in their public housing developments. In that situation, Donald and his father settled their case by agreeing to terminate all racial discrimination in their leasing activities. After doing so, they immediately declared “victory” because they were able to reach that agreement (which they later violated) without admitting wrong-doing.

In this case, he’s likely to call a halt to the bombing campaign and claim that he has achieved his objective which, of course, is something he has never clearly articulated. His explanation will be that although he didn’t force the Iranian government to agree that it would not proceed with its efforts to create nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles capable of reaching the U.S., he did manage to damage those programs so thoroughly that it would be many years before they could be brought to fruition. He might even “gild this lily” by suggesting that in the meantime the Iranians will likely conclude that it would not be worth their effort to even try.

I also suspect that he will take his time in deciding to announce his decision to terminate hostilities against Iran. That’s because the longer they continue, the longer the public’s attention will be diverted away from the Epstein files. It will also provide the bombing campaign with time in which to do grievous damage to Iran, much to the gratitude of Iran’s neighbors—principally Israel and Saudi Arabia. Also, by not involving ground forces he will keep U.S. casualties low so as not to unduly upset his political base. Lastly, he will also seek to placate his supporters by explaining that, although there was a compelling need to put an end to Iran’s hostile activities, he decided to pull the plug on this war because he was always mindful of their concerns about endless wars.