Trump did what he could no longer avoid doing. Israel’s actions and his own rhetoric brought him to a point where inaction posed greater political risks than any risks from action. In 50 to 100 years, when someone declassifies another batch of U.S. administration archives (an optimistic view with three assumptions: that democracy in the U.S. will survive, that the U.S. itself will survive, and that archives will still exist on Earth), they will finally answer the question of whether Trump initially wanted to bomb Iran and whether the rhetoric before that event was just an actor’s comedy, or if he really hoped until the last moment that the bluff would work and ultimately found himself cornered by the intransigence of the Iranians. In the absence of reliable information, I personally lean toward the second option. And the reason I lean this way is not foreign policy-related, but domestic.
Trump is a unique product of the symbiosis of two basic lines in American politics: isolationist and imperialist. Only in his chaotic MAGA and America First speeches do they coexist like relatives. In reality, they are “blood enemies,” political opposites. The main thing we must understand about Trump and Trumpism is that it arose at the crossroads of these two lines. The genius — without any quotes — of Trump is that at a turning point in American history, he organically (the key word in this statement) combined these two lines within himself. This explains much about Trump himself and his politics, as contradictory as his political phenomenon is.
America’s entry into war is a challenge to the ideological alliance that underpins Trump’s triumphant return to the White House, and for this reason alone the decision to strike Iran could not be simple. Beyond that is a war for survival: either the Iranian regime collapses — and Trump is in the clear — or the regime stabilizes and goes into a defensive stance — and Trump “floats away,” but no longer in the clear. So a strike on nuclear sites in any case is not the finale, but only the beginning of some huge changes.
