Wait, Is Trump About to Go to War With Iran? |
Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.
The term Orwellian is often trotted out as a cliché, but it suits the confluence of President Donald Trump’s two big actions today—holding the first meeting of his “Board of Peace” and finishing the mobilization of a massive military force on the flanks of Iran, ready to attack the Islamic Republic as soon as this weekend.
His Board of Peace, to which Trump said the U.S. would commit $10 billion (for what, it’s unclear), seems largely theatrical. The war in Gaza, which Trump claims to have ended, persists—Israel continues its demolitions, while Hamas is tightening its grip on the place and refusing to disarm—and the board’s larger goal of supplanting or overseeing the United Nations worldwide is fanciful, to say the least.
Meanwhile, the point of the armed buildup around Iran—the largest assembly of U.S. warplanes and warships in the region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq—is remarkably unclear. The U.S. armada mobilized to the region includes 18 warships (two of which are aircraft carriers) and many fighter jets, bombers, antimissile systems, and electronic jammers on nearby bases. This is enough to fight a weekslong battle, hitting targets related to any and all of those missions and disabling or intercepting most of the missiles that Iran might launch in response. But for what purpose—and with what chance of success, whatever the purpose might be—is another question.
Does Trump want to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, dismantle its ballistic missile sites, pull down the regime, or simply threaten a combination of all three to pressure the Iranians to make a “deal”—but a deal to do what?
In January, Trump threatened “strong” military action against Iran if its leaders killed any of the growing mass of anti-government protesters. Tehran canceled the execution of one protester, leading Trump to pronounce his demand satisfied. However, troops and police proceeded to mow down thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of protesters in the streets, to no objection from Washington. As was the case in Venezuela, democracy and human rights were pieces of Trump’s original war rhetoric—but not in his war policy.
Many were shocked when his real policy in Venezuela turned out to be abducting its criminal president, Nicolás Maduro, and compelling his successors—who had been deputies in Maduro’s Cabinet—to cede control of their country’s oil to the United States. Maria Corina Machado, the leader of Venezuela’s democratic opposition, who expected to take power if Maduro were overthrown, was pushed under the bus. (Her attempt to gain Trump’s favor—giving him the Nobel Peace Prize trophy that she won but that he thought he’d deserved—was a futile gesture.)
So what, exactly, is Trump up to in Iran?
Is he now going after its oil? Probably not, though keeping the oil from being traded to Iran’s biggest customer, China, might be part of the equation.........