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<\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>The trouble with strongmen is that they can easily change their minds. <\/p>\n<p>In his inaugural address last year, President Donald Trump promised to be a \u201cpeacemaker\u201d who ended wars of choice. He is now embroiled against Iran in the mother of all regime changes. Perhaps ground realities will force him to drop that goal. Even his cabinet, not to mention Congress and US allies, however, are in the dark about what his exit plan looks like. As Trump told The New York Times in January, his sole restraint is \u201cmy own morality\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009It\u2019s the only thing that can stop me.\u201d America\u2019s constitutional system has so far given no reason to doubt him. What happens in the widening theatre of war is another matter.<\/p>\n<p>Leaving aside Israel\u2019s opening strike, Trump\u2019s moment of peak potency was choosing to go to war with Iran. From then on, Trump lost his monopoly on how the war unfolds. Many others \u2014 not just Iranians \u2014 now have a say over its direction.<\/p>\n<p>Trump himself is in several minds about his aims. In the first 72 hours, he has variously said he wants to eliminate Iran\u2019s nuclear weapons programme, end Iran\u2019s ability to export terrorism, overthrow its regime or find a new leader inside it with whom he could do business. Most of Trump\u2019s comments come in the form of telephone musings to reporters. To one he said the war could last another \u201cfour to five weeks\u201d; to another, that he was ready to talk with Iran. But he also questioned whether there was anyone left to talk to.<\/p>\n<p>His war aims are thus kaleidoscopic. Contrary to what Trump has said, the US and its allies faced no imminent attack from Iran. There is nothing that was pre-emptive about this war. Nor, as he also claimed, was Iran close to developing missiles that could reach America. His envoy, Steve Witkoff, was hyperbolic a few days earlier to say that Iran was \u201ca week away from having industrial grade bomb-making material\u201d. Oman\u2019s mediators also dispute Trump\u2019s claim that Iranian negotiators were refusing to bend. What Iran offered last week \u2014 zero stockpiling of low-grade enriched uranium \u2014 was better than what Barack Obama got in the 2015 nuclear deal from which Trump withdrew. <\/p>\n<p>Deep scepticism is warranted over Trump\u2019s ability to stop more slaughter on Iran\u2019s streets. Though he is urging Iranians to rise up, they have no way of knowing that would not be suicidal. Regimes are not changed from the air. Trump could help only by invading their country. For the first time he is entertaining that idea. \u201cI don\u2019t have the yips [anxiety] with respect to boots on the ground,\u201d he told the New York Post. At the same time, he is inviting Iran\u2019s paramilitaries to hand over their weapons (\u201cthey would simply surrender to the people, if you think about it\u201d). Perhaps they might disarm in a galaxy far, far away. On this planet, the fog of war starts in Trump\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone who claims to know where this war will go, including Trump, is bluffing. Among the possible outcomes, however, peaceful transfer of power is one of the least likely. Iran\u2019s regime has recently murdered thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of its own people. What remains of the country\u2019s top leadership has its back to the wall. Trump has conveyed to them that this war is existential. Yet he expressed surprise they are firing drones and missiles at the Gulf states that host US bases \u2014 an obvious escalation for Iran\u2019s endangered theocracy to take.<\/p>\n<aside aria-labelledby=\"aside-label\" class=\"n-content-recommended--single-story n-content-recommended--inset\" data-component=\"recommended\">\n<p class=\"n-content-recommended__title o3-type-body-highlight\">Recommended<\/p>\n<div class=\"o-teaser o-teaser--article o-teaser--small o-teaser--stacked o-teaser--has-image js-teaser\" data-id=\"5b46ce3b-46c8-44ad-9806-042976d7fbd9\">\n<div class=\"o-teaser__image-container js-teaser-image-container\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/5b46ce3b-46c8-44ad-9806-042976d7fbd9\" data-trackable=\"image-link\" data-trackable-context-story-link=\"image-link\" tabindex=\"-1\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"o-teaser__image-placeholder\" style=\"aspect-ratio:2048\/1152\"><\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>That is why none of the Gulf monarchies wanted this war. Their place as linchpins of the global economy is now dangerously exposed. Trump did not listen to his Gulf friends. Nor did he pay heed to the risk scenarios laid out by General Dan Caine, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff. A country Iran\u2019s size cannot be transformed by remote control. <\/p>\n<p>His bet was that Iran would quickly fold. So far, there is no sign of that. We are thus now moving into an endurance test. The longer Iran can sustain its Shahed drone attacks, the likelier they are to claim a significant toll of US and other lives. The war threatens to turn into a contest over which can hold up longer \u2014 Iran\u2019s ability to produce drones versus America\u2019s capacity to intercept them. <\/p>\n<p>A prolonged conflict will also eat into American pocketbooks. Trump\u2019s Maga supporters believed that he would mark a sharp break from the era of forever wars and squeezed incomes. They were mistaken. Trump has seen George W Bush\u2019s record and raised it. There is nothing good to say about Iran\u2019s regime. But it has shown a better instinct for reading Trump\u2019s intentions than his voters.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/mailto:edward.luce@ft.com\" title=\"\" data-trackable=\"link\"><em>edward.luce@ft.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/611e8f6f-18c7-4886-a733-9e8aac2fceda\">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,…\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":41670,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41669","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\/41669","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=41669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}