Trump appears to have thought that this was going to be a fairly simple process, and he believed Netanyahu when he was told that this would be a fun and easy adventure. Let's bomb Iran together old buddy. This has very obviously not turned out like Don assumed it would, and he's very likely looking for an off-ramp at this point. Financial havoc? Inflation? A declining stock market? More instability? This sums up the current nightmare Don is facing. Regime change was the plan, but Trump finds it easier to change plans than regimes. What began as a long-haul commitment to roll back decades of Islamic revolution has become a “short-term excursion” to neutralise Iran’s military capabilities. Trump has not quite declared “mission accomplished”. He says he has won, but also that he has more winning to do. This is the familiar stage of rhetorical climbdown, indicating dawning awareness that a problem is more complicated than the president initially thought. Complexity resists his whim. It bores him. Iran turns out to be unlike Venezuela, except in a superficial analysis as energy-exporting countries with a history of hostile relations with Washington. The model of regime decapitation and coercion that saw Nicolás Maduro kidnapped from Caracas and replaced with his compliant vice-president earlier this year whetted Trump’s appetite for an Iranian sequel. But the Islamic Republic has reserves of ideological and institutional resilience. It can also spook international markets by menacing trade in the Gulf. The White House seems not to have anticipated the predictable economic repercussions of war in the Middle East – soaring oil prices, falling stock markets, disrupted supply chains feeding inflation and choking growth. Flashing red lights on the financial dashboard were surely the prompt for Trump’s pledge to bring his military adventure to a swift conclusion. A tacit deal has come into view. Forget freedom. Iranians can still be repressed as long as shipping through the strait of Hormuz is unmolested. Another push for regime change is possible, but no one should be surprised by retreat to lesser goals. This is the Trump method. It was the story of his “liberation day” tariffs, ramped all the way up, then dialled partway down to ease panic on global markets. It was the pattern with threats to annex Greenland, issued with maximum bellicosity, later softened under pressure from European allies. It is hard to sustain that opinion with a clear-sighted appraisal of the people currently setting US policy, their erratic judgment, their scorn for international alliances, their contempt for any legal constraint on the president, their ideological orientation towards a far-right, Christian nationalist, white supremacist worldview. That is without also considering the possibility that Trump’s rambling, disjointed, semi-literate public pronouncements reflect pathological cognitive decline. The Trump doctrine conflates the ego of the president with the security and prosperity of the state. It assumes that one man’s exercise of military power, unchecked by rule of law and without regard for economic consequence, redounds to greater US glory. It contains no concept of the origins of Trump’s power, because that would imply a debt to the past, to previous holders of his office, to the constitution, to democratic allies, to the history of welcoming migrants in search of the American dream and the economic dynamism they brought with them. That is the central lie of the Maga project. Making Trump feel great is the undoing of American greatness. In arrogating power to himself, the president undermines the foundations of his country’s strength in the world and damages its allies. Trump’s ego-trip war has collided with economic reality but he can’t undo the damage | Rafael Behr | The Guardian https://share.google/0lpYaL1V1JBDpgMf7
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