During the run-up to the Iraq War, one of the tropes that was passed around by the George W. Bush’s band of neoconservatives, who were at the height of their hubristic, premature victory celebration, was “Everybody wants to go to Bagdad, real men want to go to Tehran.” Twenty-three years later, at a time when he is reeling from collapsing poll numbers and a major economic and foreign policy setback from the Supreme Court, Donald Trump has taken the nation to the edge of war with Iran.
The U.S. has assembled a massive military force in the region. Two aircraft carriers are leading an armada of a dozen warships and what experts say is 40-50% of the country’s total global air power to threaten the Islamic Republic into — what we aren’t quite sure. The president, along with his Middle East envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, hasn’t exactly been forthcoming with a casus belli. In fact, no one knows precisely why the administration is threatening military action or what it wants Iran to do to stop it.
