ANALYSIS — President Donald Trump’s decades-old fixation on Iran threatens to derail his second term, as he displays the kind of “magical thinking” about the Middle East that has hobbled previous commanders in chief.
Overly optimistic views helped spawn the lengthy and expensive post-9/11 conflicts that Trump ran against during three presidential campaigns. But after starting his own war there, he has been flip about what might matter most: Who will be the next Iranian leader? He told an interviewer on Friday that he would be open to another religious leader taking over the Islamic Republic — but history suggests religious clerics tend to have more extreme views.
“Their leadership is just rapidly going. Everybody that seems to want to be a leader, they end up dead — and it’s an amazing, amazing thing that’s taking place before your eyes, because for 47 years we were pushed around and we shouldn’t have been,” Trump said Wednesday.
That came a day after he said that “the worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen,” adding, “You go through this and, then in five years, you realize you put somebody in who is no better.”
Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies CEO, this week said, “I often say that President Trump’s views on Iran were shaped by the hostage crisis and his disgust at both the Islamic Republic’s terror and [President Jimmy] Carter’s fecklessness.”
Trump included those themes in a Saturday video announcing the strikes.
“For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted, ‘Death to America’ and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder, targeting the United States, our troops and the innocent people in many, many countries,” he said. “Among the regime’s very first acts was to back a violent takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, holding dozens of American hostages for 444 days.”
He also cited the 1983 Marine Corps barracks bombing in Beirut and said Iran was probably involved with the [2000] attack on the USS Cole, adding, “Iranian forces killed and maimed hundreds of American servicemembers in Iraq.”
Yet, how he intends to avoid becoming the king of the long entanglement — a proposition opposed by many Americans and his “Make America Great Again” base — remains murky.
Trump this week signaled that he views Iran as, somehow, exempt from his opposition to so-called “forever wars.”
“The United States Munitions Stockpiles have, at the medium and upper medium grade, never been higher or better,” he wrote on social media. “As was stated to me today, we have a virtually unlimited supply of these weapons. Wars can be fought ‘forever,’ and very successfully, using just these supplies (which are better than other countries finest arms!).”
(In response to a query about that major Trump shift, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, mostly congratulated her boss for being “courageous.”)
‘Glorious future’
Trump told the New York Post in a Monday telephone interview that he would not hesitate to deploy American ground troops into Iran “if they were necessary.”
“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground; like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” Trump said as fighting spread across the Middle East.
“I say, ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary,’” he added.
Longtime U.S. diplomat William J. Burns warned in 2019 of the “temptations of magical thinking” about the Middle East. His definition: “The persistent tendency to assume too much about our influence and too little about the obstacles in our path and the agency of other actors, led to indiscipline and disappointments — steadily diminishing the appetite of most Americans for Middle East adventures.”
Matthew Kroenig, a former Pentagon and intelligence official, said on Monday his assessment was Trump’s “real red line” was a warning to Iranian leaders earlier this year to stop killing protesters. When they ignored him, “there was no way Trump was going to back down,” he said.
In his Saturday video, Trump urged Iranians to “take over your government — it will be yours to take. … Now is the time to seize control of your destiny, and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach.”
A revolution could take time — and require external support.
Yet, Sen. Rick Scott, a member of the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, shared some “magical thinking” of his own.
“So, hopefully, somebody will show up that cares about the people of Iran and says enough’s enough,” the Florida Republican told Fox News on Sunday. “We want to get back and be part of the world economy and give opportunity to all the people of Iran. That’s what all of us would like.”
Virginia Democrat Tim Kaine, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees, said Tuesday that “the question that Virginians and, I think, Americans are asking is, haven’t we learned anything?”
“Haven’t we learned anything from 25 years in the wars in the Middle East, more than 14,000 U.S. troops and contractors killed, more than 65,000 troops and contractors injured, hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, $8.2 trillion that could have been spent here at home, spent in wars in the Middle East,” he told reporters Tuesday. “And what did we get out of it?”
‘Naively hoped’
During a White House event Monday, Trump made quips about his White House ballroom project and signaled he wouldn’t stop in Iran until he deemed the job done — although he has yet to clearly define victory.
“We’re already substantially ahead of our time projections. But, whatever the time is, it’s OK. … We projected four to five weeks, but we have the capability to go far longer than that,” he said. “Somebody said, today they said, ‘Oh, well, the president wants to do it really quickly; after that, he’ll get bored. … I don’t get bored.”
Leavitt on Wednesday wouldn’t rule out Trump deploying ground forces, echoing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
To that end, retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, a commander during the 2003 Iraq conflict, said in a statement that “the purpose of this war is regime change.” (Trump appeared to confirm that in a Thursday interview with Axios when he declared, “I have to be involved in the appointment.”)
“They naively hoped air forces alone would cause the regime to collapse, but they are not getting their intended effect. The regime still stands, and protests have been largely limited,” Eaton said. “I can tell you what happens if we do [ground operations] in Iran. There will be an insurgency. Our troops will be much easier targets for extremists. Many will be killed in action or wounded. It will become more and more difficult to get out. If you think Iraq was bad, Iraq 2.0 in Iran will be so much worse.”
Some of Trump’s congressional allies have dismissed such concerns.
Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., was asked after the Monday White House event if he worried that the “Make America Great Again” base might rebel against the Iran conflict.
“No … I am not,” he replied. “They’re bad actors. They killed Americans. In Iraq, they supplied armaments. … Hezbollah is part of their outfit; they supply them with armaments. They do business with China. … I think we’re good.”
One Middle East expert warned that hopeful thinking alone wouldn’t be enough to produce a pro-Washington Iranian government.
“It’s important to remember that this was a dictatorship unlike any other dictatorship. Yes, the supreme leader was making the final decisions, but it was also a decision-making process that included a lot of consensus-building and conversations between a number of senior leaders,” said Victoria Taylor, a former State Department official who focused primarily on Iran and Iraq.
“Simply to remove the supreme leader and one layer of leadership is not necessarily going to change the direction of policy in the country. I think, ultimately, this is a system that’s been created with multiple layers and a succession plan designed to ensure its own survival and continuity,” added Taylor, now director of the Atlantic Council’s Iraq Initiative. “And, so, I would continue to expect some of the ideological tenets of the regime will continue.”
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