Adolf Hitler, in a contemplative mood, said that every war at its start is like opening the door to a dark room. Not true in the case of the U.S. war with Iran, which has been more like entering a hall of mirrors. President Donald Trump’s first extended speech about the war, delivered 32 days into it, did not provide a clearer picture.
This is not the fog of war. It’s the fog of Trump’s rhetoric and perhaps his thoughts. Consider this abbreviated timeline: On March 1, he gave a short interview in which he seemed to change his mind about whether he wanted regime change in Iran. On March 6, he demanded unconditional surrender in all caps. On March 13, he said Iran had been “totally defeated.” On March 21, he said the operation had achieved his objectives “ahead of schedule” — although there has obviously been no surrender, with or without conditions. Later that day, he said he would start hitting Iran’s power plants, which would arguably be a war crime, unless the supposedly already defeated country let oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
The White House address on Wednesday provided more of the same dissonance: The war has already achieved its objectives, so the United States will keep waging it, and it will end soon. Regime change, he said, was not his goal but has happily occurred anyway, and he will keep bombing the new, much more reasonable Iranian leaders.
The administration’s most frequently stated objective, and the one Trump emphasized in the speech, was degrading Iran’s military capabilities. The White House offers no criteria for assessing when that objective has been sufficiently met. Trump could have used his speech to announce that he is ending Operation Epic Fury: He said, after all, that Iran is “no longer a threat.” He could announce it tomorrow; he could have announced it on several yesterdays.
Judging by any objective other than hurting Iran’s military, though, stopping now would hardly count as a successful conclusion to the war. Iran’s regime would have survived, and been seen to have survived, the “epic fury” of the U.S. That regime would have shown that it could close and open the Strait of Hormuz at its discretion. Oil prices would be higher. The U.S. alliance with Europe has somehow weakened even further, and America’s Persian Gulf allies would at least be disappointed. And 13 members of the U.S. military have been killed.
On the positive side of the ledger, the Iranian military would have indeed been degraded. But that is a reversible achievement, unless the U.S. stands ready to launch future operations like this one, which the president keeps feeling the need to say will end very soon. All in all, America would be in a weaker position than when the war started.
Yet stopping now, or using force to open the Strait of Hormuz and then stopping, still might be the best available option. The alternative of a true regime-change war would require a large and extended commitment of U.S. troops to Iran. Many Americans have wanted to see the Iranian regime replaced (Trump’s speech was most persuasive on the point about which Americans least needed to be persuaded: that the regime has always been barbaric), but without boots on the ground. Instead of making a choice, the Trump administration appears to have hoped it could secure the end without the means.
This war’s lack of strategic clarity and consistent rhetoric owes a lot to the president’s well-known character flaws, such as his impulsivity and dishonesty. It’s also a price of his failure to abide by the Constitution. Even the most ardent advocate of presidential power during the Founding, Alexander Hamilton, said it was up to Congress to “transfer the nation from a state of peace to a state of war.” (If another country declared or waged war against the U.S., a state of war would already exist and the president could respond without Congress.)
Presidents have usually sought congressional approval for large-scale military operations, as George H.W. Bush did before the Persian Gulf War and George W. Bush did before the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Going to Congress has a practical advantage that is often mentioned: It reduces the chance that the country will go to war without much support from the public. In this case, though, following the Constitution would have brought an even more basic benefit: Before it made its argument to the Congress and the people, the administration would have had to figure out its objectives and how it planned to attain them.
The White House would have had to think through the operation more than it gives any evidence of having done — or, judging from Trump’s speech, than it is doing still.
The post Trump’s hall-of-mirrors speech appeared first on Washington Post.
