Credit Is Due Trump for Exiting His Monumental Blunder
Donald Trump “took out over 85 percent of Iran’s defense industrial base; sank its navy; grounded its air force; damaged its centrifuges; and decimated its ballistic missile capabilities, conventional military forces and infrastructure of repression.” That’s AEI’s Marc Thiessen in the Washington Post. He was laying out some of the “13,000 differences” between what Barack Obama did in Iran relative to Trump.
In listing the U.S. military’s quick (one week, two?) destruction of Iran’s military, Thiessen perhaps reminds readers not of the success of the war with Iran, but its seeming stupidity. We were told for how long just what an existential threat Iran was to the U.S., only for its allegedly threatening military to be near destroyed in a matter of weeks? As was asked here two months ago, where’s the outrage?
Only for the story to become more unsettling. Depending on the conservative asked, we’ve supposedly either been at war with Iran for 47 or 53 years? See above to contemplate the puzzling nature of such a statement: 47 or 53 years of “war” against a military that could barely survive a few weeks of bombardment? That’s like saying Alabama football has had a 50-year rivalry with Tennessee-Chattanooga.
What’s still not explained in compelling terms is why the war with Iran was started in the first place. If its military could be destroyed in a few weeks over 6,000 miles from the U.S., how was Iran even remotely an existential threat 6,000 miles from Iran? No one’s answering, though mumblings about nuclear weapons persist. Except that U.S. nuclear stockpiles presumably well exceed what Iran yearns for on its best future day, while also mitigating the threat of an Iran with nukes, no? If not, more outrage.
It would be shooting fish in a crowded barrel to point out that at least some conservatives voted for Trump precisely because they appreciated his promise that there would be no more wars. That won’t be touched here simply because politicians backtracking on similar promises is as old as the United States is, and surely older.
Instead, a pivot will be made to never Trump or near never Trump types. Frustrating as it’s been watching conservatives forget the lessons of history yet again about how government is generally as incompetent overseas as it is here, it’s been maddening watching columnists who’ve long despised Trump muscularly support his choice of war with Iran.
Years worth of op-eds pointing out the unhinged nature of the man in the White House, but when he chose war with Iran, suddenly the man they’ve rhetorically pulverized is on the right path? Shame on them for allowing their thirst for war with Iran to blind them to the allegedly irredeemable person they entrusted to lead the fight.
Which brings us Trump’s actions. At least he’s willing to exit his mistake. No doubt he’ll utter all manner of falsehoods about why and how he’ll extract the U.S. from the war, but at least he’s willing to implicitly admit error. If only past presidents had done as he did.
In response to the exit, conservatives in particular will utter the tired line about how weakness begets more aggression. Whether or not the latter is true is debatable (memory says England did alright after exiting the U.S. in the 18th century), but true or not, stupidity probably attracts aggression too. Give Trump credit for not being stupid and continuing the war, which arguably makes him saner than his critics.
As for whether Iran will detect weakness in Trump’s desire to exit, let them. See the Thiessen quote to understand why what Iran thinks doesn’t matter.
Originally published on Real Clear Markets.