Divided America is Vulnerable in War

Donald Trump's decision to bomb Iran has triggered a maelstrom of destabilizing political pressures. Can we fight and fracture at the same time?

American B-2 bombers struck three sites in Iran Saturday night, the denoument of a crisis triggered in late May, according to the New York Times:

In late May, [Trump advisors saw] intelligence that made them concerned that Israel was going to move ahead with a major assault on Iran… And in the two weeks leading up to the Camp David meeting, Mr. Trump’s top advisers met multiple times to get on the same page about what the menu of potential options might be… Monday, June 9, Mr. Trump got on the phone with Mr. Netanyahu. The Israeli leader was unequivocal: The mission was a go.

Mr. Netanyahu laid out his intentions at a high level, according to three people with knowledge of the call. He made clear that Israel had forces on the ground inside Iran. Mr. Trump was impressed by the ingenuity of the Israeli military planning… After he got off the call, he told advisers, “I think we might have to help him.”

This is already a microcosmic example of everything you worry about with Donald Trump. No one boasts more about strength, and the importance of appearing strong, than Trump. Forget the cavalcade of roided-out wrestler types in his entourage, and remember what he said back in 1990 about the Chinese suppression of the Tiananmen revolt: “They were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength.” At times, he seems to follow his own advice, but now? When the baddest military on the block goes to war, it should go on its own timeline. We should never be blackmailed into escalation by a yapping-dog client state. Trump grasps this with Volodymyr Zelensky, an actor in a commando sweater. But he went weak in the knees around Bibi Netanyahu, and here we are.

Realizing the situation is not about optics, the optics are nonetheless terrible. Trump last year ran on being “the only president in generations who didn’t start a war.” Along with a promise to immediately “stop all government censorship,” the idea that Trump Alone would wave off the hawks in the Pentagon and State Department who urge us into forever wars was central to his platform:

Now the administration is acting like a coked-out version of the Bush White House, offering premature “mission accomplished” bromides after its porn-titled bomb run (“Midnight Hammer” might as well have been “Operation Throbbing Man-Shaft”). Defense chief Pete Hegseth boasted “American deterrence is back” before we had any idea if Iran planned to make good on its retaliatory threats, which Trump already promised would be “met with even greater force than what was unleashed today.” The possibility that all this will backfire and we’ll end up lashed to Israel in an “existential” forever-war of exactly the type Trump promised to reject is real.

Trump made a tactical mistake, but the bigger problem is political. At a different time in our history (even Trump’s first term, when a decision to bomb Syria had everyone from Brian Williams to Van Jones orgasming over American military prowess), America’s consensus-building mechanisms would be working overtime to rally the population. Ostensible European allies, who have a bigger strategic interest than we do in this matter, would be doing the same. This would all add to pressure on Iran and make the gambit less likely to end in disaster. That moment is gone. Reactions to “Midnight Hammer” have been bonkers even by the standards of the Trump era. We may be a country that can no longer go to war for any reason without risking internal collapse. Is that a good thing? Maybe, maybe not: