SHRUNKEN AND SHRIVELED

How Iran Strikes Put Trump’s Impotence on Full Embarrassing Display

All the reasons Trump is the opposite of a 4-D chess player are on brutal display in the Tehran rubble.

Opinion

While Iranians are sifting through the rubble caused by over 100 Israeli strikes on strategic targets across their country, questions about the Trump administration’s role in the strikes are swirling in the air in capitals worldwide.

The narratives being peddled by the Israeli and U.S. governments are not making matters clearer. It does not help matters that both are notorious for their lies.

The Israelis quickly sought to make it appear that they coordinated the attack closely with Team Trump. They argued that Trump’s public statements of opposition to such attacks was all a ruse designed to mask the joint Israeli-US intent to strike a blow to Iran’s nuclear and missile launch capabilities.

Trump meanwhile issued a statement which began, “I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal.” It then went on to say that he warned Iranians that if they didn’t that they would have content to contend with the fact that the U.S. “makes the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the World, BY FAR, and that Israel has a lot of it..and they know how to use it.”

He then said, “Certain Iranian hardliners spoke bravely, but they didn’t know what was about to happen. They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse!” This led into another plea from the U.S. president for Iran to make a deal to “save what was once known as the Iranian Empire (sic).” For emphasis, in his signature ALL CAPS style, he wrote, “JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”

While the Trump statement was written to suggest the strikes were all part of a US-Israeli plan, a statement put out by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio immediately after the attacks asserted, “Tonight, Israel took unilateral action against Iran. We are not involved in strikes against Iran.”

The statement went on to assert that because of our lack of involvement, “Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel.” While inconsistent with Trump’s remarks, Rubio’s statement does fit more easily with the seeming reality of the chill between the U.S. and Israel that made headlines when Benjamin Netanyahu was snubbed by Trump during the U.S. president’s recent trip to the Middle East.

Other reports suggested the U.S. shared intelligence with the Israelis to help them prepare for the strikes. As seasoned Middle East analyst Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations told me, in the hours after the attack there was “a lot of BS flying.”

Call it the fog of war. Or call it the fog of having to deal with leaders like Trump and Netanyahu.

Two things concerning Washington’s role in the attacks are, however, clear. One is that that despite the U.S. efforts to perform their now familiar clean-up on Aisle Trump duties, none of the possible scenarios for what actually happened with regard to the Israeli attacks reflect well on the U.S. president and his team.

The other, related to the first, is that this latest development only extends the Trump Administration’s foreign policy losing streak and, combined with his fumbling efforts to look like he’s on top of this when he is clearly not, make him appear increasingly impotent.

Consider the scenarios that might be true. If Trump is a master of the universe and he was playing 4-D chess negotiating with Iran while plotting Israel’s sneak attack and his goal was to use the threat of the attacks to push Iran toward a deal, that did not work.

If, as the Israelis assert, Trump greenlit the attack he owns the war that will now take place and has put U.S. personnel in the region in grave jeopardy. Further, it suggests that either the negotiations with Iran were a sham or they failed.

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If he did not OK the attacks and actually argued against them as several experts with whom I have spoken believe, then it reveals yet again how little sway the U.S. has over an Israeli ally it continues to supply with vast amounts of military aid.

If he knew about Israeli plans and considered an Israeli war with Iran an equally effective way to eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat, then he was being reckless and the jury is likely to be out for a long time about whether he was right and whether the losses incurred actually justify the returns.

In any of these scenarios, of course, Trump’s position is doubly bad because there was in fact, a pretty good deal with Iran to keep it from developing nuclear weapons, the one negotiated by the Obama Administration, that Trump pulled out of in 2018.

He undid it and now appears to have been unable to do his usual sleight of hand of condemning or undoing a deal then renegotiating and claiming credit for a deal that was pretty much the same as the one he pulled out of (see NAFTA). He will own the consequences which, should this turn into a protracted war or should there be significant civilian or U.S. casualties, could be severe.

For a president who came into office professing mastery of the art of international diplomacy, great relations with world leaders, and ability to make peace in the world’s most volatile regions, this latest development is yet another setback.

Indeed, it demonstrates that despite his self-image and in ironic contrast to his critique of his predecessor, Trump may be turning out to be the most impotent American president of the modern era.

The war between Russia and Ukraine was not ended within “24 hours.” What is more, Trump’s efforts to court Vladimir Putin have largely been met with derision and rejection from the Russian president. The carnage in Gaza continues. In both cases, the problems are growing worse because of the reluctance of Trump to apply real pressure on leaders with whom he once boasted he had strong relations.

The “Liberation Day” tariffs have been a flop producing virtually no gains of any sort for the U.S.: no real deal, only political backlash and market volatility. Trump, who likes to boast that he has “all the cards,” has been revealed to be holding little more than jokers in negotiations with the Chinese.

Trump’s rejection of international trade norms and threats have alienated many of our closest allies who are now working furiously to find ways to move forward without the U.S. The leaders of many of those allies have in fact openly mocked or tweaked Trump, sometimes while sitting next to him in the Oval Office.

Mockery of a U.S. president is not unprecedented. Rifts with allies happen. Biden did not have much influence over the Israelis either.

But signs of Trump’s weakness internationally are spreading and its costs are rising in human, military and economic terms. The new crisis in the Middle East could compound those costs geometrically and, in so doing, diminish a U.S. president who appears to be shrinking daily on the global stage.

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David RothkopfChief Global Affairs Columnist

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