THE SILVER LINING IN TRUMP’S IRAN WAR

    Almost every media outlet, almost every commentator, and almost every media outlet—left, center, right—agree that Trump’s Iran war launched on 28 February and formally ended on 17 June was a disastrous and humiliating defeat in every possible way for the United States.

Trump’s war achieved none of its objectives, variously stated, variously emphasized.  They were: unconditional surrender, regime change, destruction of Iran’s military capabilities (missiles, planes, ships, and the capability of producing more missiles), cessation of Iran’s support for proxy forces (Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthi), and a permanent termination of Iran’s nuclear programs and assurances that it would not get nuclear weapons.

 

The contentious negotiations ending the war made clear that Iran did not surrender, much less unconditionally.  Although many Iranian leaders were killed, the regime survived with younger, stronger, more dedicated leadership; with more power concentrated in the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.  US intelligence shows that a substantial portion of Iran’s military forces survived attacks; Trump now rationalizes that Iran should continue to have missiles.  No changes in its support of proxies or its continued nuclear enrichment program have occurred.  Worse, Iran took control of and closed the Strait of Hormuz, open to international shipping before the war, and still retains control, with the prospect of charging fees for passage.

 

Trump has further eroded the little trust remaining in his word.  In the three-and-a-half months of the war, he announced that the war was won and its end was just a few weeks, days, or even hours away—about 40 times.  He made threats of civilizational destruction, which implied the use of nuclear weapons—the threats alone being war crimes.  (No more credible is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who repeatedly trumpeted the devastating effects of US attacks, but, as Iran has proven its resilience and its success in asymmetric warfare, he has fallen silent.)

 

Trump has severely damaged relationships with major US allies.  He unilaterally started the war on a whim, without consulting aides or allies, and then found that he needed assistance from NATO countries when the war did not go according to his fanciful wishes.  His demands for their support offended them, none gave support, and some refused even to allow military overflights.  In response, Trump declared that the US never needed their support—a flip-flop calling into question the seriousness and stability of his demands.

 

Trump has shown the vacuity of anything which might be called thinking about America’s strategic interests.  He never considered what every war-planning exercise assumed in a war against Iran: its closing the Strait of Hormuz.  In his expert-free ignorance after the event, he said that no one had expected such a response.  Instead, he prefers to personalize and politicize all issues, to attack his predecessors and to abort their work regardless of its merits.  He condemned the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA),which the Obama administration achieved and from which Trump withdrew the US in 2018.  He will get no agreement with Iran about its nuclear programs as good as the JCPOA; he will be furious that Obama outdid him.

 

Trump will make the American taxpayer pay for his failed war.  One of Trump’s objections to the JCPOA was his claim that Obama paid Iran billions to agree to its terms.  Except for the US settling a long-standing dispute for $1.7. billion, the JCPOA merely allowed Iran access to $50-$55 billion of its own funds held in foreign accounts.  By contrast, the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Iran and the US commits $300 billion to Iran.  The US claims that this money will come from private investors and foreign governments—unlikely because Iran lacks a stable legal system conducive to investment.  More likely, the funds will come from Arab governments in the region as political cover, with covert US reimbursement.

 

As an ignorant buffoon, an incompetent bungler, and a corrupt mobster, Trump has failed in his war, humiliated the US, and embarrassed America.  He has harmed the US internationally by undermining alliances with traditional allies.  He has needlessly risked the lives and welfare of its troops and killed untold numbers of civilians in other countries in pointless war.  By squandering resources required for the defense of its interests here and abroad, he has weakened America’s national security.

 

But all is not lost.  There are lessons to be learned from this humiliating defeat.

 

Lesson one: the Department of Defense (DoD) has learned nothing about asymmetric warfare from its long and deadly involvements in Vietnam and Afghanistan, countries smaller, poorer, less populated, and less advanced than Iran.  It must learn that overwhelming military firepower—Hegseth’s lethality—, even with enormous death and destruction, cannot ensure achieving US objectives.  No amount of bombing defeated the Vietnamese communists, the Taliban., or now the Iranians. It must learn that US arrogance prevents it from realizing that second- and third-world countries have loyal, resilient citizens and creative strategies and tactics suited to their environments.  DoD must face the realities of modern, often asymmetric, warfare.

 

Lesson two: American military prowess has been exposed as highly limited in its warfighting capabilities.  It expended billions in sophisticated, costly munitions against simple, inexpensive weapons, with only modest success.  Its depleted supplies of these weapons will take years and billions to replace.  Meanwhile, their loss leaves the US and its putative allies at greater risk of conflicts in other theaters.  DoD must shift procurement priorities, from an arsenal stocked with relatively few, expensive weapons to one stocked with many, relatively low-cost weapons.

 

Lesson three: American wars abroad have huge costs at home.  The economic costs are real; the costs of goods and services go up, and many businesses suffer from shortages, disruptions, or delays.  The political costs are no less real; popular support for the war at the start—the Iran war was unusual in lacking such support—subsides as the war continues.  Since Vietnam, America’s wars have lacked sustained domestic support and have fostered discontent.  Only by relying on a small professional army has the US been able to sustain long-term conflicts.  So wars fought in its citizens’ name but without their commitment have demoralizing and divisive effects.  DoD leadership must advise—insist, if possible—that the president not fight wars and sustain combat without popular support.  Flag officers might stand by the Constitution and the War Powers Act.

 

And there is a silver lining.

 

Lesson four: American leadership in international affairs has been permanently demoted to a new, lower status.  When Trump led the US into war, he found that he could not lead others, especially when he started it without a by-their-leave.  Trump may do so again (Greenland, Cuba, Panama, who’s next?), but successive presidents will know, for instance, that the Gulf of Mexico is no longer an American lake, more generally, that America will have to work as one of many equals, not necessarily as the first among equals.  Unless they follow his example, Trump’s successors must ingratiate themselves with the international community and accept a more modest role in international affairs.  At the very least, this reduced role will mean that the US will undertake fewer, if any, wars on its own initiative and will thereby encourage, even oblige, other nations to assume greater responsibility for their defense.  In fact, for the past few years, many nations have been doing exactly that.  Reacting to Trump’s erratic views, his impulsive actions, and his wavering support of Ukraine, NATO countries are increasing their defense budgets and coordinating their weapons and weapon systems with each other.  Sweden has abandoned neutrality and joined NATO; Japan is revising its military doctrine from a strictly defensive posture to a more long-range, offensive one.  As a result, US allies will have less need for US leadership and little tolerance of its arrogance.

 

The advantages of a more modest international role in matters of defense might lead to non-military advantages to the US.  With a shrunken sense of America’s exceptionalism, the US might be willing to work more collegially with other nations on issues of international concern: climate change, the non-proliferation of nuclear-weapons, epidemic control, artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies, among others.  After Iran, humility may become America.

 

In short, the silver lining of Trump’s Iran war is the humbling of the US.  No longer will it bully-rag other countries.  No longer will it resort to unilateral or coercive action and displace consultation and cooperation.  No longer will it be the paterfamilias of the family of nations; it will be just another member of that family.  Perhaps this family of democratic nations will welcome an avuncular Uncle Sam. 

WHY DOES TRUMP HATE AMERICA?

      MAGA—Make America Great Again—is the slogan for Donald J. Trump’s ultimate con job on America.  It implies that America, once great, has lost its greatness and that Trump can restore it.  It implies that destruction of that greatness, interrupted by the presidency of George W. Bush, occurred during the presidencies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Behind the slogan is an inchoate view of America envisioning demographic and political chaos produced by non-white immigrants, legal or not, and residents, citizens or not, of color.  Trump is no political scientist, but he is susceptible to the pervasive influence of racism and sensitive to trends in America’s political environment.

 

Trump has been a lifelong racist.  In the 1970s, in his mid-20s, he was found guilty of racial discrimination in apartment rentals.  He admitted no guilt in the settlement and a few years later was found to have returned to discriminatory practices.  In 1989, at the age of 43, he took out full-page ads in four New York papers calling for the return of the death penalty and the execution of the five black men accused and convicted of rape and attempted murder in Central Park.  Although they were later exonerated and successfully sued the city for $41 million (in 2014 dollars; $58 million in 2026 dollars), Trump persisted in calling for their execution for murder although the victim survived.

 

These two episodes more than 25 years before Trump’s first term in office revealed who Trump is.  His racism is clear.  His violation of the law is clear.  His disregard of a settlement with the government is clear.  His disregard of a court’s finding is clear.  His disregard of fact is clear.  Everything which Trump did then he does now, and everyone should have known he would never do differently.  What is also clear is that at least a third of the American population shares or tolerates Trump’s racism, disregard of the law, and indifference to facts.  As I have written in other blogs, this third will remain an abiding threat to American democracy.

 

Trump was rotten from the start.  I skip the psychodynamics of his relationship with his mother when he was very young and its effects on his attitudes toward and trust of women.  By the time he was 13, he was already so undisciplined and misbehaving that his parents sent him to a military school.  His conformity to its requirements did not improve his character; it trained him to camouflage his impulses and his motives, and to con or dominate his contemporaries.  The result: no friends from those or later days, only convenient associates in transactional relationships.  (As a dog and cat lover, I note that he has never had pets—lucky for them.  As a narcissist, Trump lacks the empathy for pets, as he lacks it for people, and would resent pets attracting attention and thus diluting or diverting attention from him.)

 

As a student, Trump was a flop, mediocre at best.  His claim to have scored a perfect 1600 on  his SATs is just his usual lying braggadocio.  His claim to have graduated first in his class at Wharton Business School—admission secured by family connections—has no documentary support; in fact, he graduated (because of family influence?) without honors.  Moreover, in “testimony to Congress, Michael Cohen revealed that, under the direction of President Trump, he had sent letters to Trump’s high schools, colleges and the College Board (creator of the SAT), threatening them with legal action and jail time if they ever released Trump's academic records” (Forbes, 14 Apr ’24).  Obviously, Trump has reasons to conceal his academic records.

 

Trump learned his racism at home.  Growing up in a country as non-white minorities are nearing majority status in the country—expected tipping point is 2045—, he resented or feared their racial domination, just as slave owners feared black uprisings, and whites fear second-class status—white displacement, if not replacement—, with their loss of political control.  His legal loss in discriminatory housing rentals suggested the power of minorities under the law.  Trump hates America for the threatening prospect of a non-white-majority populace.

 

Trump learned his anti-intellectualism in his schools.  His academic inability to perform at more than an average level of attainment wounded his ego.  He resented those more capable than he and, even more, the standards which judged him mediocre at best.  His choice of career required no academic distinction, but the New York social world of elites educated at elite schools expected more cultural, intellectual, and social sophistication than he, an ignorant bully, could muster or hope to muster.  Although he aspired to join its social circles, they excluded him; his success as a developer, as measured by money and fame (really, notoriety), did not gain him entry or acceptance.  Perceiving the importance and influence of well-educated people and their resistance to him, Trump hates America because of them and their institutions of learning, which enjoy worldwide reputations for academic achievement, and set standards of cultural and intellectual excellence which he perceives as both reproaches and restrictions.

 

In retaliatory reaction, Trump has waged war on those institutions which cultivate excellence in their fields—witness his attempted perversion of the Kennedy Center.  He is attacking the acme of American education, its research colleges and universities.  He is reducing staffing, funding, and programs at government agencies and universities conducting research in the physical and social sciences, health and medicine, and education.  He is undermining public and private institutions which have made notable contributions, among others, to reducing pollution, increasing solar and wind energy, discovering new drugs, and improving medical treatments.  He is impeding businesses from incorporating advanced technologies which these institutions have fostered.  He is distorting the information presented at national parks, museums, and monuments to accord with a simple-minded, white-skinned version of American history.  Far outdistancing the background count of traditional American anti-intellectualism, Trump hates America for its accomplished thinkers and performers in all fields.

 

Because Trump feels threatened by those with expertise, he selects ignorant and incompetent advisers—witness Pete Hegseth, Robert Kennedy, Jr., and Kash Patel—and rejects informed and capable experts.  He fears them contradicting or correcting him, thereby exposing his ignorance and incompetence.  Thus, before his literally ill-considered attack on Iran, he did not consult or heed either DoD or DoS experts.  Moreover, because of his lack of consideration of others—I go beyond his lack of empathy here—and this reliance on coercion, he could not conceive of Iran’s resistance, its resort to retaliatory attacks on regional allies and bases, and its ability to counter American military supremacy by the obvious-to-experts closing of the Straits of Hormuz.  This conjunction of his dominant characteristics reflects the Greek belief that character is destiny.

 

Fundamental to Trump’s hatred of America is his hatred of American democracy.  Think of it as having not one, but two, axes.  The horizontal axis is political equality; every person has the same rights under the Constitution and the rule of law.  The vertical axis is opportunity (always enhanced by education) to be, as the Army once put it, the best that you can be; opportunity sorts people by their abilities, which are unevenly distributed among people.  American democracy promises and is capable of both equality and excellence simultaneously.  Trump’s beliefs are the antithesis of these axes.  His horizontal axis is a uniformity of mediocrity throughout the general populace so that none can challenge his rule—thus his attacks on education.  His vertical axis is the stratification of preferred individuals—family members, friends, business cronies, plutocrats, and MAGA supporters—over all others, who constitute the masses.  Those who are preferred are advantaged economically and privileged legally.  Trump’s authoritarianism rejects equality and excellence, and, regardless of merit, favors the few at the expense of the many.

 

Trump is the personification of this inversion of democratic principles.  He thinks himself superior to all others and above the law; he dictates orders regardless of the Constitution and the law.  He exaggerates his capabilities and his accomplishments as unique or superlative.  He promotes himself in vanity displays of banners with his likeness, buildings renamed for him, and new monuments and military parades in his honor.  These demonstrations of his self-love reflect and are directly proportional to his hatred of America because of its democracy.  His claim to want to make America great again is America’s greatest hater’s biggest and most successful con.

THE LEFT’S POST-TRUMP DELUSION: REFORMING TO RECONSTITUTE DEMOCRACY

      From time to time—times widely spaced—, I check in on Fox News for reassurance that the gaslighting of alternative realities and alternative facts continues with brio and gusto.  Otherwise, I mainly peruse the independent media—no New York Times or Washington Post for me—for news and commentary.  Each outlet—blog or Substack—has its perspective, but all are agreed that a “blue wave” in this fall’s election and another in the 2028 election will rout Republicans at every level, though not, of course, everywhere.  Most see a weakening of Trump, a reduced number of Congressional Republican representatives and senators, and a shriveling of the MAGA base.  Most see a revitalized Democratic Party blending moderates and progressives.

I see nothing of the sort.  I see difficulties prevailing in these elections, with federal forces intimidating voters or disrupting voting, election officials obstructing vote counts, and SCOTUS decisions on election cases invariably favoring the Republican Party and supporting the conduct of the Trump administration.  Even if a “blue wave” sweeps out Republican rubbish, I see a great deal of post-election rhetorical frothing and fulminating, but little significant or lasting in the way of the political reforms required to reconstitute a functioning democracy.  I see quarrels among different factions of the Democratic Party about diagnoses, priorities, and proposals to remedy the defects in democracy exposed by Trump’s and Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025’s successful attacks on this country’s political infrastructure.  I see compromises and kluges which leave matters only incrementally improved.  I see Democrats investigating more than legislating, quarreling about punishment and forgiveness, and further alienating a public which wants elected officials to govern, not settle scores (with Republicans and MAGA die-hards who deserve to have their scores settled).

 

My dour outlook reflects my belief that Trump, administration officials, and Republicans supporting him at all levels of government, have demoralized a majority of Americans and paralyzed them politically.  Their disillusionment with Trump which now threatens to overwhelm him, his administration, and his allies results from discomfort at the economic effects of tariffs, inflation, the curtailment of social safety-net benefits, anti-immigration efforts, and his Iran war.  Their disappointment at Trump’s failure to deliver on his promises—most had little chance of realization—has been matched by their recognition that the implementation of his promises has been inflationary or destructive.  The wall to keep immigrants out was never going to be built, much less funded by Mexico.  Tariffs have raised prices, disrupted trade, and devastated farming.  ICE raids have impaired operations of farms, hotels, and hospitality and construction industries, among many others.  Its anti-immigration raids purporting to target only the “worst of the worst” have swept up not only some illegal immigrants, many guilty of only misdemeanors, including illegal entry, but also many legal immigrants, visa-card holders, naturalized citizens, and even native-born citizens in a gulag of concentration camps euphemistically called detention centers.  Trump’s Iran war is an unmitigated disaster.  Whether the disillusionment or disappointment of many Americans with Trump and MAGA will motivate them to vote at all or for Democrats is debatable.  Whether they will believe Democrats and vote for their promises for what they want—lower prices, health care, better schools, an end to wars, etc.—is also debatable.

 

Neither the disillusionment nor the disappointment of the disaffected reflects much concern for abstract Constitutional principles or obstruse legal niceties.  Without an electorate urging such reforms, reformers will lack the persistent popular support to make significant changes in federal governance and elections.  Protesters at ICE facilities or of its actions opposed episodic, not systematic, abuses of democracy.  Three, five, eight million marchers in the streets—numbers slowly moving toward that theoretical 3.5% presumably needed to overthrow a government—are unimpressive against an electorate of 175 million registered voters, a voting-age population of 235 million, and a total population of 350 million.  Many Americans are tuning out the betrayal of the foundational principles in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; many are turning a blind eye to the administration’s unprecedented corruption.  And at least a third of the electorate supports antidemocratic principles, evident in 15 years of SCOTUS decisions undoing civil rights which promote political and racial equality, also evident in the rush of most formerly Confederate states to destroy the voting rights, thus the political power, of blacks.  Many more Americans are privately racist or misogynistic in rejecting the foundational principle that “all men are created equal.”  Everywhere, Republicans are doing everything possible to handicap or shrink the franchise, to the disproportionate disadvantage of people of color, women, seniors, and students.  The idea that democracy is a fair competition of political parties and their platforms is anathema to them.  A defeat in one or two elections will not change their minds and deter them from future attempts at overthrowing American democracy.

 

Those few protesting systematic abuses of democracy are unlikely to sustain their efforts after election wins in 2026 and 2028.  Protests emerge quickly like mushrooms, then disappear as quickly.  Occupy Wall Street is an example.  They do not last, but, if they last for a while, they dissipate their energies in internal debates and quarrels, and lose their focus.  Once Trump is gone, even protesters will seek to return to something like their former quiet lives, not stay with the noisy turbulence of reform.  To urge persistence, Thomas Jefferson’s authority is invoked by the saying, wrongly attributed to Jefferson, “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”  Even so, eternal vigilance is in short supply, and the supply is getting shorter as technology distracts us from and disrupts thoughtful efforts to obtain, assess, and act on pertinent information.

 

Antedating these asocial technologies is the reluctance of most Americans to get involved in politics, whether local, regional, or national.  Many give as a reason for not voting the lame self-justification that their votes do not matter; their expression of defeated inflated egoism implies that their individual votes should, but do not, make a difference.  At best, they cynically applaud the “rugged individual” who stands up to authority; Mr. Smith Goes to Washington honors their hypocrisy.  In most fora, Mr. Smiths get resisted, if not reviled, when they speak truth to power—which is why prophets are not honored in their own country.  Of course, if they do not vote and let others self-select themselves to govern, these defeatists become self-defeatists who make little or no contribution to civic life and who surrender some control of their lives to unknown others.

 

Worse, ever since Trump won the 2024 election, in which Republicans secured dominance in all three branches of the federal government, the nation has witnessed the abject subservience of Congressional Republicans to Trump’s threats.  They have let Trump make decisions properly theirs to make.  Commentators accuse them of cowardice.  No doubt, cowardice explains some of their behavior, but general agreement with Trump’s impulses explains more of it.  The same might be said of the electorate at large.  Many, if not most, people shy from political discussion or debate, and the perceived threat of possible acrid and angry disagreements, not to mention doxxing and other forms of retribution.  They lack the courage of their commitments and the strength to act accordingly.  The “land of the free and the home of the brave”—ha.

 

Let me end this discussion with the fervent hope that I am entirely in the wrong.