{"id":31520,"date":"2025-06-22T13:09:46","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T13:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=31520"},"modified":"2025-06-22T13:09:46","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T13:09:46","slug":"trump-has-opened-a-pandoras-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=31520","title":{"rendered":"Trump has opened a Pandora\u2019s box\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\">Your guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington, business and the world<\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=c6894992-5366-4f30-a3ff-d3e837a7c8e6&amp;newsletter-id=65b8fec772badb00166eafc6\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>They say with Donald Trump that accusation is confession. Having warned during the 2024 campaign that Joe Biden, then Kamala Harris, would trigger \u201cworld war three\u201d, Trump is now offering a perilous test of that proposition. In his statement on Saturday night, Trump pronounced his military strikes on Iran a success. America\u2019s bunker-busting bombs had obliterated Iran\u2019s nuclear capacity, he said. It could take a while to find out whether both Iran and Israel \u2014 the prime actors in a show that Trump did not script but in which he is now taking a starring role \u2014 will share the US president\u2019s assessment. But Trump is hoping that his awesome display of power will bring the curtain down on the war. That is not his decision to make.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Whatever happens next, it is worth recalling how Trump got here. Ten days ago, Benjamin Netanyahu torpedoed Trump\u2019s nuclear negotiations with Iran with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/d78d6b82-3f68-4a06-8724-c5f3811b0c82\" data-trackable=\"link\">a series of devastating missile strikes<\/a>. Israel\u2019s prime minister said that Iran was weaponising its nuclear programme and posed an existential threat. Most others, including the US intelligence community, do not share Netanyahu\u2019s diagnosis. Having his desired deal scuppered by Israel\u2019s move, Trump quickly associated himself with it. He demanded Iran\u2019s unconditional surrender and said that he could take out the regime\u2019s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, at any point. Iran did not submit to Trump\u2019s demand. His de facto declaration of war on Saturday night was the outcome.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It also bears stressing that nobody, including Trump, knows what will happen next. It is easy to start a war, especially if you command the most powerful military on Earth. But wars only end when one side gives up. That age-old warning about the fog of war is particularly relevant to today\u2019s Middle East, in which there are often more than two warring parties. The enemy of your enemy can turn out also to be your enemy. Having once been lectured by a younger Netanyahu, Bill Clinton said to an aide, \u201cWho\u2019s the fucking superpower here?\u201d Trump\u2019s brief televised address following the strikes was meant to showcase his command of the situation. In reality, Netanyahu has been dictating events. But even he cannot predict how Iran will respond.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Netanyahu\u2019s interests are not the same as Trump\u2019s. Israel\u2019s leader has made it clear he wants regime collapse in Iran. Trump wants Iran to surrender. The first would be precipitated by a strong Iranian response that left Trump no choice but to escalate \u2014 a prospect he threatened in his address. The second would involve a token Iranian retaliation that enabled Trump to declare mission accomplished. How this unfolds, and who gets to diagnose whether Iran\u2019s actions are token or lethal, is largely out of Trump\u2019s hands. This leaves him as the most powerful military actor in the Middle East but potentially a hollow one. Power is about the ability to shape events. Trump is largely their prisoner.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Whatever happens, Trump\u2019s bombing of Iran has defined his presidency at home as well as abroad. This is Trump\u2019s war now. Iran\u2019s submission would reverberate to his advantage in many ways; a full-blown war could sink his presidency. Among the ironies, Trump\u2019s Iran strikes are being cheered on by many of the \u201cNever Trumpers\u201d who had been warning so starkly of Trump\u2019s autocratic impulses. They are prepared to risk the power-aggrandising opportunity that war will offer Trump. Another irony is Trump\u2019s Maga allies, such as Steve Bannon, are among the biggest sceptics of this latest, and potentially most dramatic, chapter in the \u201cforever wars\u201d that Trump has vowed to end.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Only a fool would take Trump at his word, which he serially breaks. But it is safe to say that his ambition of winning the Nobel Peace Prize is unlikely to bear fruit. Without consulting Congress, and in probable contravention of international law, Trump has taken a fateful gamble. Whether he has fully digested this fact or not, he is now committed to seeing this through to the end. Iran and Israel will have at least as big a say as Trump in deciding when and how that happens.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/mailto:edward.luce@ft.com\" data-trackable=\"link\"><em>edward.luce@ft.com<\/em><\/a><em\/><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/c6894992-5366-4f30-a3ff-d3e837a7c8e6\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":31521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}