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Following Donald Trump's gut is probably not the best way to run a war. The war in Iran has many complicating factors that the First Gut didn't consider before jumping in. These could very well come back and bite Trump in a different part of his anatomy, and possibly sooner rather than later.
First, Trump has said the goal of the war is regime change. There are (from time to time) other goals, but this is at least a concrete goal. He said: "We want to go in and clean out everything. We don't want someone who would rebuild over a 10-year period. We want them to have a good leader. We have some people who I think would do a good job." So Trump wants a more thorough house cleaning than in Venezuela, where he swapped in a new dictator for the old one but otherwise left the regime intact. Now he wants a thorough spring cleaning and unconditional surrender.
The problem, as a leaked report from the National Intelligence Council concludes, is that even a large-scale military assault on Iran is unlikely to oust the entrenched ayatollahs. Among other things, the ayatollahs were expecting the U.S. to attempt to kill Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and prepared for it. Power in Iran is relatively decentralized. Taking out a dozen or so top leaders will not cause the regime to collapse, That is very different from a completely centralized regime like Russia, where killing Vladimir Putin and the whole Politburo would cripple the regime.
Suzanne Maloney, an Iran scholar and vice president of the Brookings Institution, said: "There's no other force within Iran that can confront the remaining power that the regime has. Even if they're not able to project that power very effectively against their neighbors, they can certainly dominate inside the country." There is no way Trump will be able to pick the new leader of Iran the way he did in Venezuela.
Indeed, as if on cue, shortly after news of the leaked report broke, the ayatollahs picked a new leader, namely Mojtaba Khamenei. If that last names seems familiar, it is because he is the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader who was killed last week. Needless to say, it would be hard to come up with a regime change that involves less actual change than replacing a fundamentalist theocrat with his own son. In fact, there's a pretty good case to be made that swapping Khameneis is actually a step backwards. Dad was 86, and was not going to hang on that much longer. Junior is 56, and will surely be around for decades. Plus, given what happened, he and his security team are going to be on high alert for a very long time.
What Trump is sliding into, whether he knows it or not, is—to borrow a phrase from Karl Marx—a "pie in the sky, by and by" situation. As with Vietnam, a really great resolution seems to be on the horizon, but it's always just out of reach. Given the almost total lack of vision or long-term planning here (more on this tomorrow), it's well within the realm of possibility that the Trump administration will just keep chasing and chasing and chasing. We didn't get that pie today, but we'll get it tomorrow, sure as shootin'!
Second, there is a chance that if the U.S. and Israel can kill enough of the leadership, there will be a power vacuum at the top and Iran will descend into civil war. That is what happened in Syria, a much smaller country. Iran is home to many ethnic groups—Kurds, Armenians and Azerbaijanis, in particular—with ties to neighboring countries who might try to change Iran's borders to join up with their compatriots. The 200,000-man strong Revolutionary Guard would never tolerate dismembering Iran. Nor would the 400,000-man regular armed forces. In Libya, Moammar Gaddafi fell 14 years ago and still no one group controls the country.
Israel might not mind Iran becoming a failed state but that would not be in the interest of the U.S. or Iran's Arab neighbors. They want the region to be stable so oil, goods, money, and people can flow easily. They do not want millions of refugees fleeing a civil war, nor fighting that could spill over Iran's borders at any time.
Third, war is expensive. Bombs and missiles cost money. Deploying troops costs money. Fuel costs money. Infrastructure and logistics cost money. Some reports say the U.S. is burning through at least $1 billion a day. Trump is expected to ask Congress to appropriate $50 billion as the first installment. Deficit hawks are not going to like that. It is going to unleash a battle in both chambers of Congress, with the deficit hawks demanding equivalent cuts elsewhere in the budget and Democrats refusing to go along. In principle, the bill could be packaged as a reconciliation bill, which cannot be filibustered in the Senate, but that would require almost all the Republicans to be on the same page, which might not be so easy. And remember this is for a war Congress did not declare and which not all members want.
Fourth, Trump has spent a year telling Europe that it is not important and he is not interested in defending anyone or anything beyond the borders of the U.S. Now he wants help from the Europeans, not necessarily in terms of planes and ships, but more in terms of using the bases various countries have around the world for staging, refueling, logistical support, etc. Who could have predicted this (other than every senior official at the State Dept.)?
Maybe all the European leaders will snap to attention and say: "Yes, sir. Of course, sir. Whatever you ask, sir." But maybe they might have a couple of conditions of their own this time. Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said "The war in Iran began unbeknownst to the world and was not a decision shared by anyone. Of course, it was well outside the rules of international law. We don't need to say it." That doesn't sound like a synonym for "Yes, sir."
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz met with Trump last week. he did not seem pleased when Trump told him he didn't want a lecture about the illegality of the war. One German newspaper described Metz' visit with the headline: "Clueless tourist stranded in crisis zone." Spain's leader, Pedro Sánchez, noted that Europe can hardly fault Russia for an unprovoked attack on Ukraine without faulting America for an unprovoked attack on Iran. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is a first-rate diplomat, but getting all the noses pointed in the same direction will be a supreme challenge, even for her.
Fifth, remember when Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy was humiliated in the Oval Office when Trump told him: "You have no cards"? He still has no cards, but he does have the world's best and cheapest drones. And Trump wants them right now. But Ukraine needs them for its own war and is not likely to give them up without getting something of value in return. The cheapest thing Zelenskyy could ask for is having Trump switch sides in the "peace" talks with Russia and publicly taking the Ukrainian position that Russia attacked Ukraine and is not entitled to any Ukrainian territory as a reward.
A less cheap request could be for Patriot missiles or ATACM missiles. The Patriot is a surface-to-air defensive weapon for shooting down incoming planes, missiles, etc. and costs $1-6 million per missile, depending on range and payload. The ATACM is a short-range surface-to-surface attack missile that flies at Mach 3 and has a ceiling of 160,000 ft (30 miles). The range is 180 miles, much shorter than the tomahawk missile, which can hit targets 1,000 miles away. ATACMs cost $1.5 million each. Trump has refused to give Ukraine tomahawks for fear it will then target Moscow and upset his buddy Vladimir. ATACMs, however, are tactical weapons, for fighting land battles. They are less threatening to Putin.
Yet another problem is that Trump, probably the greatest grifter since Bernie Madoff, figured out how to make money off a war. He is allowing the E.U. to buy weapons they can then give to Ukraine. The trouble is the E.U. agreed and paid for the weapons but now Trump doesn't want to part with them because he needs them for Iran. This does not improve trans-Atlantic relations.
And these are just a few of the problems with the war itself. We'll have more tomorrow, including a breakdown of a biggie that could haunt Trump and the GOP in November. (V & Z)