Dem
47
GOP
53
It is remarkable how rapidly the U.S. news cycle careens from one major story to another (at least, while Donald Trump is in the White House). Who is talking about the deployment of the National Guard to California anymore? Or, before that, the Elon Musk-Trump screaming match? Or, before that, the trade war? Or, before that, the bombing of Yemen and the Signal chat security breach? All of those stories are less than 100 days old, and yet many of them seem like they were several lifetimes ago. We guess that's what you get when you elect a reality-TV president—every week needs to have new drama, so as to keep people watching.
This week's big story, of course, is the bombing of Iran. And on that front, there were two major developments yesterday. The first is that Iran launched a "counterstrike" against the U.S., launching missiles at the United States' Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. The reason we put "counterstrike" in quotations is that Iran warned both Qatar and the U.S. that the attack was coming, with the result that the Iranian missiles were intercepted mid-air, and there were no casualties. Afterward, Trump thanked the Iranians for their "very weak response."
What is the point of an attack that is telegraphed like this, and is therefore designed to fail? There's only one possible explanation, and that is: to save face. The leadership of Iran cannot allow a U.S. attack to go unanswered, as that would infuriate the population of that nation. So now the Ayatollah, et al., can make much noise about how they stood tall against the Americans, and yadda, yadda, yadda. At the same time, by keeping things "polite," Iran does not force the Trump administration into a position of having to retaliate. That could get out of hand very quickly, and all the chicken littles who spent the weekend declaring that Trump just started World War III could end up being correct.
The second development yesterday is that, after Iran and Israel had fired a few more missile volleys at each other, Trump announced that a ceasefire had been agreed to by both nations, and that the fighting is over. If you would like to see Trump's Truth Social announcement, which is written in the usual over-the-top style, it is here. Over the weekend, both Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth described Iran's nuclear capacity as having been "completely and totally obliterated," and yesterday Trump added that, thanks to his maneuvering, the peace between the two nations is "going to go forever" and that "I don't believe they will ever be shooting at each other again."
Both of these claims are laughable. Starting with "completely and totally obliterated" (and the fact that Trump and Hegseth both used the exact same words is a pretty big clue this is just a political slogan), there is no way to know exactly how much damage was done until the Department of Defense concludes its analysis, which Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine already said would take at least 2 weeks.
That said, there are some early indicators, and what those early indicators strongly suggest is that the bombing did not achieve what Trump and Hegseth say it did. There is some pretty useful information that is available to everyone and their brothers, and that is satellite photos of the sites where the Iranian nuclear facilities are housed. While the U.S. government has better-quality pictures than the ones produced by commercial satellites, there are several things that the non-governmental satellite photos reveal:
There is little question that, from a tactical standpoint, the attack was a great success. The U.S. managed to execute a massive bombing campaign without loss of life or materiel. But from a strategic standpoint, the early returns are that it did not achieve what it was supposed to achieve.
And note that while the Pentagon will complete its assessment in a couple of weeks, that doesn't necessarily mean that the average American citizen will have considerably greater clarity than they have now. First, Iran knows a thing or two about keeping secrets, and so the U.S. (and Israel) will be working with imperfect information as they try to reach their conclusions. Second, if the Pentagon assessment is anything along the lines of "We didn't do as much damage as hoped," the White House isn't exactly going to be eager to share that. And, to be entirely frank, even if the White House DOES produce a report that is glowing, we are going to take it with many barrels of salt. Hegseth could very well do some editing to serve his and Trump's purposes, and any document produced for public consumption could be as truthful as the annual reports on Trump's health that claim he's 6'7", weighs 185 pounds, benches 400 pounds, and is so fit he could line up as running back for the Dallas Cowboys.
And now, let's take a look at Trump's absurd claim that he has brought a permanent peace to the Middle East (or, at least, a permanent peace between Israel and Iran). Maybe if he had ever actually read the Bible, he would know that the rivalries that define the Middle East, and that often erupt in violence, have been in place for, oh, 4,000 years or so. It is rather unlikely that Trump managed to change that calculus in the span of 48 hours. As we consider what's next, we'll break the discussion into two parts:
The Short- to Medium-Term (the next 18 months or so)
There is no doubt that Trump and his team think that he's secured a great political victory with this strike. And he and his underlings are going to brag about it until they are blue in the face. The White House will be supported in that by the powerful right-wing media machine, led by Fox, which has already been celebrating this weekend's actions as a triumph on par with D-Day or Hastings or Thermopylae.
If indeed this is it (for now), we just don't see how such momentum can plausibly last. Sure, there are victory laps being taken this week. But a single attack waged over a single day just isn't going to linger in the memory until the next meaningful elections, more than a year from now. Probably the most successful operation of this sort in recent memory was when Ronald Reagan ordered the bombing of Libya on April 15, 1986. That was met with a pretty rousing response on both sides of the political aisle (and Z can still remember the t-shirts people were selling that showed an F-111 Aardvark and the tagline "Good morning, Mr. Gaddafi, this is your wake-up call"). But Reagan himself was done with elections, as he was already in the middle of his second term. And in that year's midterms, just 6 months after the attack on Libya, the Republicans lost 8 (!) seats in the Senate, and another 5 in the House.
And if this is NOT it (for now), then Trump has opened many cans of worms, nearly all of which could work to his detriment. Yesterday, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) practically came running into the Senate chamber, waving a poll from Republican firm GrayHouse, showing that 90% of Trump voters support the bombing of Iran. Cotton held this out as proof that the attack is not dividing the MAGA base.
This strikes us as very selective, to say the least. To start, there is little question that some very loud people (e.g., Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-GA; Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, etc.) are very unhappy about what happened. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), providing an excellent illustration of the old adage that politics makes strange bedfellows, has gone further, and has joined Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) in co-sponsoring a resolution that would curtail Trump's power to take additional actions against Iran.
It is certainly possible that these folks are part of the 10%, and just happen to get undue attention by virtue of, well, being loud. However, even if that's true, it's easy enough for the 90% to be supportive of a military strike when it's: (1) a one-off, and (2) it's already over, and it's known that there was no loss of life. If this broadens into a lengthier conflict, and if the U.S. ends up conducting more extensive and more regular military operations, then that 90% is going to shrink by a lot.
We tend to doubt that there will in fact be more extensive and more regular military operations, however, because Trump is certainly savvy enough to realize he's playing with fire here, and because he's likely already accomplished what he set out to accomplish (more below). Plus, thanks primarily to Israeli operations over the last 6-12 months, Iran is not in a position to fight a conventional war right now.
But while there is not likely to be a conventional war, it is nearly inconceivable that Iran will not retaliate against the U.S. in some way, at some point in the future. When we heard yesterday that Iran was making nice, and was politely advising the U.S. government about its plans for a strike on a U.S. base, and was politely willing to agree to a ceasefire just 48 hours after having been bombed, we could not help but think of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. That's the treaty in which Germany and the U.S.S.R. agreed not to fight each other during World War II. Neither side had any real intention of honoring the agreement, long-term; both were just buying a little time to position themselves for the upcoming fight (for what it is worth, the pact was in effect for about 10 months before the Germans violated it).
In other words, we would guess that Iran is currently buying itself some time. What might they do with that time? Well, they could use it to rebuild (not unlike the Soviets did), so that they're ready for a conventional war at some point in the future. They might also use that time to actually become a nuclear power (again, depending on how much damage was actually done this weekend, they could be less than a year away from that). The Iranians might also want to retaliate in ways that aren't violent, per se, but that would seriously disrupt U.S. politics and would put the screws to Trump and the Republican Party. If so, the folks running Iran are clever enough to know that you want to make trouble in an actual election year, not the year before an election year.
How, exactly, might Iran retaliate, short of launching some sort of conventional military strike? Well, they could sponsor some sort of terrorist act or acts, through one of their surrogates, like Hezbollah. The Trump administration is also claiming that Iran has dozens, or maybe hundreds, or maybe thousands of sleeper cells in the U.S. that it might activate at any moment. We pass this claim along, because it's at least possible it's true. However, it also conveniently supports the Trump administration's harsh anti-immigrant (more specifically, anti-Muslim immigrant) policies. We'll also note that, to us, this feels more like the setup of a summer blockbuster movie, maybe starring Harrison Ford or Tom Cruise, than it does a real thing.
Our guess—and keep in mind that geopolitics isn't really our bailiwick, so judge our assessment accordingly—is that the Iranians will prefer to wield a scalpel rather than a scimitar. A campaign of cyberattacks of some sort, perhaps aided by Iran's friends in Russia, would seem to be a given. Further, and as we noted yesterday, Iran could create chaos if it closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the global oil supply passes. If the Iranians did that in, say, April of next year, the effects would hit right around the same time as the usual summer spike in gas prices. That, in turn would affect many other aspects of the U.S. economy, and at the same time that Trump's tariffs might be fully manifesting themselves. It could get ugly pretty fast.
Incidentally, Trump knows very well that oil prices could well be his Achilles' heel here. Yesterday, he warned: "EVERYONE, KEEP OIL PRICES DOWN. I'M WATCHING! YOU'RE PLAYING RIGHT INTO THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY. DON'T DO IT!" This is roughly as realistic as his demand that retailers eat the costs of his tariffs. Petroleum is a very-low-margin business, and so any increase in costs has to be passed on down the chain, up to and including the consumer. This is the reality of the situation, and it does not change, even when you write in ALL CAPS.
The Longer-Term (beyond 18 months)
In the week or so leading up to the bombing of Iran, Trump was... erratic. His pendulum kept swinging back and forth between sentiments like "let's give it a couple of weeks, to see if diplomacy can work" to sentiments like "Tehran better be evacuated immediately." There were some outlets, not all of them on the right, who gave the President much credit for keeping the Iranians guessing, and for helping to lay the groundwork for a surprise attack this weekend.
We thought very carefully about this possibility. At this point, we have seen so much of Trump's approach to "diplomacy" that we are disinclined to give him credit for much of anything when it comes to vision, or clever planning, or any maneuvering along those lines. And although we tried to make "Trump played his hand with great skill" work in our heads, just as an exercise in testing our premises, we just could not do it.
First of all, there certainly are presidents who are willing to put on a performance that makes them look dumb, erratic, ill-informed, etc. in the short-term, so that they might achieve long-term goals. Dwight D. Eisenhower was famous for this, to take one example. But we just don't believe Trump is a good enough actor, nor do we believe his ego would allow him to knowingly play "Trump the unhinged" for a week.
Beyond that, we see no reason to think that Iran was actually fooled. As we note above, the Iranian government sent a fleet of semi trucks to Fordo for some reason; that sounds like they knew an attack was imminent. And even if they did not know for sure, Trump's bluster certainly made clear it was a real possibility. There is just no chance that when Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian was told of the U.S. bombing, that he said: "What? I just can't believe it! Trump promised he'd wait at least a couple of weeks before doing anything!"
In short, we don't think Trump was executing some sort of grand, visionary plan here. Surely, U.S. military leadership was prepared for many different contingencies, and that when Trump selected "attack," they attacked. We would also guess, based on past experience, that Trump made the decision very quickly. There has been some suggestion that the President was particularly influenced by hawkish coverage on Fox. That certainly seems plausible to us, though there's no way to be sure if it's true (at least, not right now).
And that brings us to the question, which we raise above, of exactly what Trump's goal was here. And while it is once again too early to have proof for such assertions, we cannot help but think back to his general tendencies, which are: (1) He thinks VERY much about "the moment," and not so much about "the future," and (2) He hates anything that makes him look weak. These things being the case, our guess is that a primary driving factor in Trump's process was that he hates the whole TACO thing, and wanted to prove that he's no chicken. Just a theory, but one that fits the available facts, and that is consistent with his general patterns. It's also worth pointing out that Trump did not include: (1) Congress, (2) any prominent Democrats, or (3) the leaders of America's allies in his decision-making process. That is also a sign of someone who is not playing 3-D chess, and is instead playing... we dunno... whack-a-mole, we guess.
And whether we are right or wrong about the specific dynamics of the last week, it seems very clear to us that there are really only three outcomes available here:
Did I hear Former President Medvedev, from Russia, casually throwing around the "N word" (Nuclear!), and saying that he and other Countries would supply Nuclear Warheads to Iran? Did he really say that or, is it just a figment of my imagination? If he did say that, and, if confirmed, please let me know, IMMEDIATELY. The "N word" should not be treated so casually.In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, we assume that Trump remains OK with casual use of the other "N word."
We listed these as three separate outcomes, but the latter pair are really #2A and #2B. In other words, either the U.S. decides to (once again) muck around in Middle Eastern governance, or else Iran, sooner or later, joins the world's nuclear powers. Of the two options, "Iran becomes nuclear" is surely the more palatable. Nothing will be accomplished by the U.S. once again playing kingmaker in the Middle East, since nothing was accomplished all the other times the U.S. played kingmaker in that region. Meanwhile, if Iran becomes nuclear, well, the glass-half-full crowd can hope that the eventual Iran-Israel nuclear rivalry operates on mutual deterrence, as with the U.S.-U.S.S.R in the Cold War, or India-Pakistan today, or the U.S.-China today.
Either way, we cannot describe the Trumpian approach to Iran as "progress." Remember, the JCPOA was working, by all accounts. Now, a long-term diplomatic solution is off the table and, one way or another, the world is going to be a more dangerous place. We will see, in the next year or so, if Trump and his political party pay a price for that. (Z)