With clear eyes, hard facts, critical thinking, new political strategy, empathy, and a soupçon of Schadenfreude
Props to Thomas Edsall in today’s New York Times.
Meantime, whitehouse.gov presents a “Welcome to the Golden Age!” complete with exclamation mark. For me, Morning Joe’s act is getting stale, but I thought he did a good job this morning on colossal absurdity of a White House celebration of our glorious economic prosperity:
Prof. Mearscheimer has been teaching international relations at the University of Chicago since 1982. He is well respected, but some of his analyses are highly controversial.
Here, Prof. Mearscheimer provides a remarkably comprehensive, granular, and detailed analysis of the United States’ current predicament in Iran. The subject lends itself to thinking in bumper sticker slogans; if that is your preferred way of thinking, then you will have no interest in this video. On the other hand, if fact-based thinking is your preference, then this video is for you.
I have argued that surrender is the least bad of Trump’s various bad options. I remain of that view. 100 percent. Maybe 200 percent. Watch the 57 minutes of this video and you will see why—in enormous detail.
So, why hasn’t he surrendered? And what will happen if he persists in this attitude?
First of all, let me acknowledge that far greater men than Donald John Trump have failed to understand that they were screwed, blued, and tattooed, and that their best option was to take their losses and amscray.
Second, with the June, 2026, memorandum of understanding he tried, sort of, to semi-surrender. In my view, it didn’t work (1) because elements within Iran did not want peace, even on terms that were favorable to Iran and (2) because Trump wasn’t willing to accept the full consequences of his very bad hand.
As Mearscheimer points out, Trump has specifically articulated a fear that the Iran war will cause a depression—and that he will be remembered as another Herbert Hoover.
With that thought in mind, with so few cards to play, and with his extraordinarily warped view of reality, I think there is a good chance he is going to nuke Iran.
That, I think, is what he means when he keeps blathering about “annihilation.”
Trump is the world’s worst gambler—a vital skill about which he has no clue.
If so, that’s strong evidence of psychosis.
And if that’s what he does think, then why in the name of Buddha would he want to drive any remaining unpatriotic Canadians into the arms of Prime Minister Carney?
Does he think that uniting Canadians in opposition to his economic aggression would help him to achieve the submission that he so clearly yearns to achieve?
And does he want to leave no doubt in the mind of even the least observant that he is in fact a powerless nitwit?
In today’s New York Times, Frank Bruni and Bret Stephens have a conversation on The Pompous Proof of an America in Decline. It’s worth a read:
Frank Bruni: Canada, a previously close ally of ours with less than one-eighth of our population and less than one-tenth of our gross domestic product, just made clear that it won’t be bullied by us and has contempt for what we’ve become. Iran makes a daily mockery of our unhinged overlord’s immature predictions of a lickety-split war and premature declarations of an easy-peasy victory. Could President Trump, so obsessed with his potency, be making the United States look any weaker, Bret? Is he the pompous proof that the era of American dominance is done?
Bret Stephens: Wasn’t it Teddy Roosevelt who said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick”? Trump’s presidency, if not his whole life, amounts to an inversion of the phrase.
Frank: As you made wisely and scarily clear in your most recent column, his speaking loudly while carrying a puny strand of spaghetti is more than a national embarrassment. It’s an opening — for Russia, for China, for a world order in which our say and sway are gravely diminished. Is this a phase? Or is it something more profound?
Bret: Trump is putting America in a position that Niccolò Machiavelli warned all princes against: We are hated, but not feared. That’s not just among enemies like Iran or China, whose rulers carefully watch the U.S. for signs of indecision and weakness. It’s also among our closest friends and allies, Canada chief among them. That said, I really do think that this is a phase related to Trump’s unique awfulness, which expires politically on Jan. 20, 2029. I hope Canadians and other allies bear with America through this period of temporary insanity before we regain our bearings, moral as well as political. Or am I too sanguine?
Frank: I desperately want to agree with you, because I love this country and have so often been proud of it and think we’ve done such enormous good and want us to do yet more of it. But in my gut? You’re too sanguine. Trump strikes me not as an aberration who had the luck of flawed opponents, a feckless Democratic Party and a system in which the Electoral College rather than the popular vote decides presidential elections, which is, of course, how he won in 2016. He’s an expression of America’s id and a reflection of its uncorking. He rose as — and because — so many Americans stopped appreciating our blessings and started wallowing in our resentments. He’s the sign that we summited and have begun the descent. That’s my worry, at least, but I’ve always been someone who girds for the absolute worst so that I can be pleasantly surprised when the merely disappointing happens.
Bret: There’s no doubt Trump has taken advantage of something ugly in the American soul: A few years ago, I compared his relationship to the Republican base to that of a burlesque performer who, with one discarded piece of clothing after another, brings out the inner lewdness of an audience. But I also think, or rather know, that Americans disapprove of his presidency by a wide and growing margin; that Democrats are likely to win back one or probably both houses of Congress in November; that most of us treasure the idea of America as a city on a hill, a destination and an ideal.
That’s not gone.
Frank: But if America’s insistently aggrieved citizens can’t agree on who gets to enter and try to prosper in that hilltop city? If different camps have irreconcilably different versions of the America they treasure? That’s what feeds my dread.
Bret: I keep returning to a line in Bill Clinton’s first Inaugural Address: “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.” I believe in my bones that it’s true. Historically speaking, we’ve been worse (the Jim Crow South), done worse (Japanese internment, the evils committed against Native Americans), messed up worse (the Smoot-Hawley tariff and Neutrality Acts of the 1930s) and even elected worse (James Buchanan, though Trump may be giving our worst president a run for the money).
We’ve even made the exact same mistakes. My son and I are reading Rick Atkinson’s magnificent account of the early years of the American Revolution, “The British Are Coming,” with its description of our failed attempt to conquer Canada in 1775. My guess is that this third attempt of ours (the second came in 1812) to conquer our hardy northern friends will end much the same way.
Frank: While the individual components of the argument you just made are apt and accurate, I have a problem with the whole we’ve-survived-darker-days line of defense that has been trotted out incessantly over the Trump years. It’s too seductive, too convenient, too obvious.
Bret: Obviousness is not necessarily a defect. Sorry, go on.
Frank: We’ve-seen-worse surely says as much about our desire for reassurance as it does about the actual state of play. Also, our present world is different in ways that weaken historical analogies. I mentioned our fractiousness a bit ago; the internet intensifies that, amplifies it, creates warring truths and pollutes the information ecosystem — as little, if anything, before it did.
Bret: I just had the wonderful experience of spending some time in Abilene, Kan., three miles from the middle of nowhere off I-70, at the Eisenhower presidential library, museum and childhood home. On one hand, it brought home the stark contrast between Eisenhower’s kind of Republican presidency and Trump’s. On the other, I was reminded that at the time, a lot of Americans saw the country and its culture in dire straits — and also dismissed the president as an idiot.
Frank: That last reminder is an excellent one. I remember when everyone around me was freaking out about the singular horror of Ronald Reagan. Then about the singular horror of George W. Bush. Now the same people wish fervently that Trump were more like either of those predecessors of his.
That said, I don’t think, 20 years from now, many people beyond the cronies whose net worth Trump quintupled will be nostalgic for him or this wretched chapter of American life.
Bret: I’m sure you’re right. Reagan had unsuspected tenderness. Bush had obvious decency. Trump’s inner life is a mangy hollow. …
In December, 2024, Trump brought a bogus defamation case in Florida federal court, Trump v. American Broadcasting Companies. Rather than fighting and winning the case, as most had expected, Disney decided to pay Trump off, to the tune of $16 million. It was not Disney’s finest hour.
I am happy to report that the worm has turned.
Yesterday, faced with threats by the Federal Communications Commission to yank licenses from ABC stations—to appease Trump’s anger at Jimmy Kimmel—the Disney company brought a new case, called American Broadcasting Companies v FCC, in federal court in the District of Columbia.
Always ask who the lawyers are.
In this case, lead counsel is a woman named Beth Wilkinson, a boutique litigation star who doesn’t eat Cheerios for breakfast. Instead, she eats nails. Specializing in bet-your-company litigation, Ms. Wilkinson has been lead trial counsel in 60 cases.
Disney and its attorney are planning to take no prisoners.
Good for them. It’s none too soon.
I highly recommend this video from last night’s PBS Newshour for a lucid, hardheaded explanation of the current status of the Iran War.
Here are a few additional thoughts.
Yes, Iran is hurting economically and militarily. Yes, Trump is so desperate for an “off ramp” that he would willingly give the Iranian rulers a very sweet deal if only they would give him some means of saving face.
But here’s the deal—from the rational bad person’s point of view: if they buy off Trump, there’s a strong likelihood that he won’t stay bought. Trump is a psychotic, delusional man-child who thinks the U.S. Navy, Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps are his toy soldiers. He is entirely capable of making a deal with you this week and trying to kill you next week.
From the rational bad people’s standpoint, the only possible way to be sure of getting peace is put Trump in a place where he is thoroughly humiliated—a place where he is forced to admit defeat.
1. He could send in the ground troops. (Or maybe try dropping a few nuclear bombs.)
2. He could let the stalemate continue more or less indefinitely.
3. He coule accept Iran’s terms and surrender.
That’s all there is and there ain’t no more.
Pretty much no one thinks he’s going to go for the ground troop option. Nor is the nuclear option attractive.
A lot of people reckon that the stalemate scenario is the most most likely, and of course they might be right. But I don’t agree.
Why? Broadly speaking, two reasons.
First, continued stalemate is going to make his political problems even worse. It’s going to risk nationwide and worldwide recession. And it’s going to invoke one of his very biggest fears—being remembered as a second Herbert Hoover.
Secondly, one of Mango Mussolini’s core beliefs is that he is the world’s greatest con men—that he can serve up a shit sandwich and make you believe that it is Panera’s latest premium masterpiece.
Put those two thoughts together, and I think he will conclude that surrender on Iran’s terms is the least bad of three very terrible options.
Today in the New York Times, heavy hitter David Sanger, assisted by reporting from heavy hitters Jonathan Swan and Eric Schmitt, elucidate in calm and rational prose, in excruciating detail, the Iran dilemma in which Trump finds himself. From one point of view, the piece is brilliant. From another point of view, it reads like a parody of the distinguished New York Times covering a shit storm, followed by a dumpster fire.
For a long time now, it has been apparent to anyone of the meanest intelligence that, on Iran, Trump is up that famous tributary without a means of locomotion. But Trump’s intellectual acumen does not reach the level of a person of the meanest intelligence. So … he is only now realizing that he is well and truly screwed, blued, and tattooed.
A couple of observations, before we get to the estimable prose of Mr. Sanger. Firstly, it is welcome news to learn that Trump still has the mental ability to come to terms with reality, however belatedly and imperfectly. I thought he probably retained that I ability, but I was far from sure.
Secondly, if Trump wanted to walk through Door Number One and begin a program of massive war crimes amounting to genocide, he would have faced one obstacle that Sanger does not address, namely, Trump would have had to give the order and the United States military would have had to obey the order. My suspicion is that the Joint Chiefs whispered a few thoughts in Trump’s shell-like ear apropos of the duty to disobey illegal orders.
Thirdly—and you already knew this, but isn’t it fun to hold the thought in your mind?—when Trump, inevitably, cuts and runs, leaving Iran in control of the Strait and in possession of whatever nuclear assets it now how, his base is going to be well and truly pissed.
With those thoughts in mind, let’s read what David Sanger has to say:
Trump Seems Trapped by Iran War, Even as He Wields the World’s Biggest Hammer: A president who thought there were no limits to his power has discovered several, leaving him more frustrated and erratic.
President Trump often celebrates his unpredictability, declaring that it keeps allies and adversaries alike off balance.
By his telling, his willingness to bomb Iranian nuclear sites 13 months ago, and send Delta Force commandos in to snatch President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela from his bed in early January, reflected his determination to execute military operations that would have made his predecessors blanch. He told The New York Times he was limited only by “my own morality,” as he wielded the world’s biggest hammer.
But in recent weeks, he has seemed trapped, his presidency gradually consumed by a war he cannot find his way out of.
He has discovered limits on his power that he could have scarcely imagined as he began full combat operations on Feb. 28, when he set out goals for a swift end to Iran’s nuclear program and the overthrow of the country’s government.
Five months later, those goals remain almost entirely unaccomplished. And Mr. Trump, once confident that overwhelming force would enable him to pursue in Iran what he proudly called the “Venezuela model” — a change of government to one amenable to U.S. control — is now hesitant to plunge back into major combat operations that his intelligence agencies assess are unlikely to work as well in Tehran.
He has been unable to control surging oil prices, or their effects on the stock market.The shipping that crawled to a stop in the Strait of Hormuz, then was opened for a few short weeks, is back to a trickle, with a second choke point, between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, now threatened. And while the president has threatened to take Kharg Island, where Iran ships oil, or to seize its underground stores of enriched uranium, he has said publicly that he knows there is no appetite for sending in ground troops.
Those limits have left him deeply frustrated, his aides say, and have made him more erratic, even by Trumpian standards. Last week alone, Mr. Trump’s energy secretary signed a historic pact with Saudi Arabia to provide civil nuclear power to the kingdom, before the president undercut the deal less than 24 hours later, stunning the Saudis by declaring that the agreement, negotiated over 18 months, was dead unless the country joined the Abraham Accords and recognized Israel.
Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. diplomat with long experience in the Mideast, said that Mr. Trump again “alienated the Saudis, delighted Benjamin Netanyahu and gave Iran strong talking points as to why cutting deals with U.S. is a fool’s errand, bound to be betrayed.”
The next day, he declared that the “original Deal” on the $4.5 billion Gordie Howe International Bridge, a cross-border project named for the hockey star beloved on both sides of the border with Canada, was dead. He imposed 50 percent tariffs on a range of Canadian goods, in what appeared to be a blatant violation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement that Mr. Trump negotiated in his first term and now wants to scrap.
Not surprisingly, Canada disinvited Americans from ceremonies to mark the completion of the bridge, which opens to traffic on Monday.
Mr. Trump’s rewriting of deals, out of anger or frustration, has extended to his party’s domestic priorities. Republicans had assembled chairs at the Capitol for the signing ceremony of a major housing bill — a rare bipartisan agreement celebrated by the White House — when Mr. Trump stunned them by refusing to sign it. His only priority, he said, was the SAVE America Act, his effort to change voting laws, which did not have enough Republican support.
The ceremony was canceled. The bill became law without Mr. Trump’s signature — and also without a chance for his party to get the photo opportunity of action to ease affordability for new homeowners.
Not all of Mr. Trump’s frustrations, people close to the president say, are driven by the war, now so unpopular that only 29 percent of Americans polled by The Washington Post and Ipsos approved of his handling of the conflict. But much of it is. And the angst is clear as he promises to stop Iran’s nuclear program at any cost, while his allies at home want out.
“We got to wrap it up,” Speaker Mike Johnson said last week, voicing a sentiment heard increasingly from Mr. Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters.
But the president does not have a clear way to accomplish that goal. Having entered the conflict with little strategy for victory, he now is struggling for a face-saving way to exit.
A month ago, he exuded confidence that he had found the way to declare victory. On June 17, Mr. Trump signed with a flourish — at the Palace of Versailles, where World War I officially ended in 1919 — a hastily written, 14-point cease-fire agreement.
At the time, Mr. Trump said that a new, more “reasonable” set of Iranian leaders had seen the light, and were being driven by economic interests.
“I believe they have had enough,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with The Times on June 14. He argued that he was able to get the deal because he was threatening a massive attack, prompting Iran to fold.
“We were going in for the big one, and they said, ‘Please don’t do it, we will make a deal.’ And we made a deal right after that,” he said.
It lasted only two weeks.
The Iranians who negotiated the deal appeared to have been in conflict with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, whose forces opened fire on ships that refused to use the channel of the Strait of Hormuz that Iran controls. While Mr. Trump said in the recent interview with The Times that Iranian leaders wanted billions of dollars in Iranian overseas funds unfrozen and oil shipments flowing, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps seems more interested in demonstrating control.
Now Mr. Trump has three main options: military escalation, economic crackdown or declaring victory and getting out. Each has been debated in recent weeks in meetings with Vice President JD Vance; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth; the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine; his son-in-law Jared Kushner; and his special envoy, Steve Witkoff.
Each option seems unpalatable, for different reasons.
On Friday, after signaling all week that he was planning a return to major combat operations in Iran, he pulled back. In briefings, according to several officials, aides cast doubt on whether a massive bombardment, one that cut off electricity and went after Iran’s resilient missile capability, would result in Iran’s return to meaningful negotiations.
And the price would be high. Mr. Trump was told that attacks of that magnitude could lead to huge civilian casualties and mass starvation among the very Iranians he once promised to protect from their own government. When he was asked in the Oval Office on Friday whether he was hesitant to blow up power plants and bridges, because that could constitute war crimes, he said, “I won’t respond to that question.”
But his real hesitation may come from the fact that the war has depleted U.S. stockpiles of missile interceptors. In April, the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that half the U.S. inventories of some key interceptors might have already been used. After 13 consecutive nights of attacks and counterattacks this month, those numbers, some officials say, have reached critically low levels, and were a factor in Mr. Trump’s decision in recent days to hold off on a major escalation in the war.
U.S. officials now worry that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China could be factoring the shortages into calculations of their next moves, in Ukraine and Europe for Mr. Putin and perhaps against Taiwan for Mr. Xi.
Mr. Trump’s second option is to let sanctions sink in, hoping that further crackdowns on oil exports, enforced by the renewed blockade of shipments into and out of the Strait of Hormuz, will have their intended effect.
But those are slow, and Mr. Trump has been predicting economic collapse in Iran since he first pulled out of the Obama-era nuclear deal in 2018 and imposed what he called crushing controls on Iran. Eight years later, the regime lives, under a new leader who could be more dedicated to a covert nuclear program.
That strategy may yet work. But it will require a costly, continuous U.S. military presence, and the possibility of on-again, off-again exchanges of fire that risk more American lives and more attacks on Gulf allies.
The third option is to declare victory and go home. Mr. Trump seemed to be headed that way a month ago, when he said he had chosen a cease-fire and negotiations because he did not want to risk a depression that would invite comparisons to Herbert Hoover.
“He was always the one I didn’t want to be,” Mr. Trump said of the 31st president, who presided over the crash that ushered in the Great Depression. “I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe.” He later noted that if the war continued, the world would have begun to run out of oil stockpiles.
But exiting comes with costs. If Mr. Trump leaves Iran with its near-bomb grade nuclear fuel buried under rubble and with the Strait of Hormuz under de facto Iranian control, he will have failed to address the problem that triggered his attack and created a vast new one for energy markets.
It would define his legacy. And it would make clear that there are more constraints on his power than he believed in January, when he declared that his reach was limitless.
