Trump Bombs: A Few Questions

Donald Trump has decided to follow the lead of Benjamin Netanyahu in bombing Iran, with the purported aim of destroying or at least weakening Iran’s nuclear weapons program. A few questions spring to mind.

  1. Everyone knows that a military escapade is the strategic stanch of choice for every political leader bleeding popular support at home. Netanyahu himself has the most obvious vested interest in prolonging the all-out war in the Middle East that he embarked on at precisely the moment when his own political and legal future was at its most seemingly irreversible ebb. Now Trump, looking increasingly feckless and haphazard in his infinitely fickle policy “decisions” (which his most ardent apologists self-parodically continue to portray as unfathomable genius), rushes into the middle of Israel’s war escalation to claim Iran as his own prize by slamming Iran with even bigger bombs than Israel is able to muster. Is it cynicism or merely common sense to ask how much of Trump’s motive in this suddenly hawkish turn is a flailing desire to (“re”)establish himself as a leader who ought to be taken seriously, at a moment when most Americans (not to mention most of us occupying the rest of the cosmos) have come to regard him as arguably the most politically consequential flat-out fool in world history?
  2. It is undeniable, at least to any rational human I would say, that Donald Trump is utterly under the thumb of (or, if you prefer, in thrall to) Vladimir Putin. We also know that Putin has long been strategically invested in Iran, and is being supported militarily by Iran in his current war of subjugation against Ukraine. We know, furthermore, that Trump recently spoke to Putin in one of those private phone calls with his hero that he is all too happy to boast about on social media, and that according to his own account of the call, he spoke to Putin about a range of current issues, including Iran. Is it in any way reasonable or plausible, given everything else we have seen and heard of Trump on global issues since 2016, and particularly given his absolutely consistent deference to, and aggressive public advocacy for, Putin’s global perspective and declared interests, to think that Trump would have signed off on effectively throwing the United States into a (congressionally undeclared) war against Iran — a putative Putin ally — without having received significant assurance in one form or another that Putin would condone or at least tolerate the action by remaining neutral? 
  3. More disturbingly, is it reasonable to think that Putin would have given his explicit or tacit nod of approval or tolerance to such (or any) American military action without extracting some sort of explicit or tacit assurance from Trump vis-a-vis his (that is, Putin’s) own actions in…well, let’s say “somewhere”?

Whatever the truth about the above questions, this much may be said without any special inside knowledge: Trump never crosses Putin in any serious or lasting way, on any issue of relevance to the latter. He has made non-involvement in “regional conflicts” a major policy approach throughout each of his terms in office, often and infamously in ways that entail abandoning, when not outright opposing, allies or potential allies in favor of catering to the authoritarian lunges of the anti-American tyrants he admires — the “winners,” to use one of Trump’s favorite distortions of language and morality. He has openly and regularly attacked and demeaned Volodymyr Zelensky in ways that not only parrot Kremlin talking points, but more importantly give moral equivalency cover for Putin’s murderous aggression in Ukraine, and yet he never displays anything more than a respectful pretense of insignificant distance between himself and Netanyahu, probably the democratic leader who most closely resembles Trump in ego-motivated stances, calculated exploitations of power for personal advantage, and a willingness to do almost anything to advance his primary cause, namely his own practical success and popular glory — not to mention sucking up to Putin, which Netanyahu does almost as consistently, though more cleverly, than Trump, including making Israel one of a handful of nations to join the U.S. and North Korea in voting against the recent UN resolution recognizing Ukraine’s sovereignty.

Oh, and just to add a fourth question to my list for fun: I wonder how the “Never Trump” neo-conservatives are going to negotiate the rhetorical currents over the next few weeks, now that Trump is blowing with the Israeli winds and making Bush-Cheney-like moves in the Middle East. Thanking Trump for this wonderful development will either put them on the side of pure pragmatism (“Whatever works for our interests, regardless of its motives or fall-out”) or on the side of falling under the spell of Trump’s endlessly cynical fan quest merely because he happened one day to fall upon an issue they like.


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