President Donald Trump is workshopping a message on the joint U.S.-Israeli military operation against Iran, according to a journalist.
The 79-year-old president approved a military strike against Iran over the weekend with the stated goal of regime change, but he’s still trying to work up a message to communicate his intentions in the major Middle East conflict, according to The Economist’s Gregg Carlstrom.
“Trump is basically calling up every journalist in his phone to workshop different timelines and goals for his war,” posted Carlstrom, the publication’s Middle East correspondent.
Carlstrom listed some of the justifications that Trump has trotted out with various outlets.
“In the past two days: @washingtonpost: the aim is ‘freedom for the people’ of Iran,” Carlstrom reported. “@axios: maybe we can ‘end it in two or three days’ with a deal.”
“@nytimes: might be ‘four to five weeks,’ I have ‘three very good choices’ who might take control in Iran,” he added. “@abc: actually, nevermind, we killed those choices.”
Carlstrom added, “He doesn’t sound convinced by any of it. He’s throwing spaghetti at the wall.”
Trump has long campaigned on the idea that he would pull back from U.S. involvement in the Middle East and Europe to focus on domestic policies, but since the start of this year his administration has toppled the leader of Venezuela and launched a major war in Iran that could easily blow up into a regional conflict.
“Ultimately I suspect he just wants to say he ‘solved’ a problem that has vexed every American president since Jimmy Carter,” Carlstrom wrote. “But there’s no clear idea what that looks like and no plan for how to get there. And there are plenty of possible scenarios in which Trump declares victory and leaves the region with an absolute mess.”
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