A Shot in the Dark
On Fox News, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt explained that “Nobody knows what it means to accomplish peace through strength better than President Trump. He is the one who came up with that motto and that foreign policy doctrine.” Of course, peace through strength doesn’t actually mean bombing other countries, it means not having to. And though it will surely shock many Fox News viewers, Trump didn’t invent the doctrine or the motto. Roman Emperor Hadrian seems to have first dibs around 1900 years ago. In America, the doctrine of peace through strength has been around since George Washington was delivering his state of the union addresses, and the phrase peace through strength has been an Air Force motto since 1944, was a core message of Barry Goldwater’s 1964 campaign, is on the side of a US aircraft carrier, has been used as a book title, and was most famously deployed by Ronald Reagan (who was also the first presidential candidate with the campaign slogan, Let’s Make America Great Again). This is all a long way of saying that this administration is addicted to lying—whether that means relatively small lies about who came up with a doctrine or a slogan or really big lies across just about every policy issue. The constant lying makes it even more difficult—especially in the short term—to analyze the causes and effects of the massive decision to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. Was Iran really that close to a nuclear weapon? (US intel said no, Trump said yes.) Were the nuclear facilities in Iran really obliterated? (Trump says yes, but he started doing so way before it would have possible to make such an assessment). Exactly how much damage did we do to Iran’s nuclear program? (Trump said Iran’s nuclear sites were ‘obliterated,’ but questions remain about enriched uranium.) Is America just focused on a one and done strike to the nuclear sites or are we after regime change? (The top figures in the administration hit all the Sunday talk shows to insist that regime change wasn’t a goal and then a few hours later, Trump said that maybe it was.) And these are the relatively simple questions. The bigger more complex ones will depend on how Iran responds and how America responds to that response and so on. And trying to understand and apply broader meaning to these realities on the ground will be made even more difficult by the fog of war layered beneath of the fog of misinformation that comes out of this administration every time they speak. Here’s what we know for sure. The plans to use US bombers and bunker busters to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities has been in place for years, across several administrations. The next part of the plan is up to the team Trump has assembled. If I said we had a good idea of what that will look like, then I’d be lying, too.
+ “I find that rational people have trouble accepting this absence of forethought. Everyone wants to believe in the existence of a three-dimensional chess game in which the American president has some secret long-term strategy. But he never does.” Anne Applebaum: Trump has no strategy.
+ David Frum thinks the bombing campaign was the right move (and given Iran’s current weakness after decades of terror sponsorship, region-destabilizing, and a determination to destroy Israel, it’s not difficult to make that argument). But that doesn’t mean the right move was made by the right person. The Atlantic (Gift Article): Right Move, Wrong Team. “Trump did the right thing, but he did that right thing in the wrongest possible way: without Congress, without competent leadership in place to defend the United States against terrorism, and while waging a culture war at home against half the nation. Trump has not put U.S. boots on the ground to fight Iran, but he has put U.S. troops on the ground for an uninvited military occupation of California.”
+ Frank Bruni in the NYT: Trump Goes to War. And These Are His Advisers? “When an American president makes an especially weighty decision, there’s some small comfort in knowing that seasoned, steady aides were in the mix, complementing the commander in chief’s instincts with their expertise. President Trump dropped 15-ton bombs on uranium enrichment sites in Iran with Tulsi Gabbard as his director of national intelligence and Pete Hegseth as his defense secretary.”
+ Iran has fired missiles at US bases in Qatar. So far, there are no reports of casualties. Is this the start of a wider effort or just a limited response to save face? That answer will be key to how things play out in the near term. The Iran of today is a far different country and threat than it was just a few months ago. See today’s second item for more. Here’s the latest from CNN, Times of Israel, and BBC.
