Iran presents a real dilemma.
I’m writing this on Saturday, and the United States is not (yet) bombing Iran.
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For Donald Trump, this is great. It’s great if Israel solves the Iran problem — eliminating Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon — without the United States getting involved. Trump can claim to have achieved a great victory without the United States having paid any price.
Alternatively, it’s great for Donald Trump if he can mean-tweet his way out of a crisis. If Trump can threaten to kill the leadership of Iran, as he has, without actually doing anything, and if, as Trump hopes, Iran surrenders unconditionally, Trump will again have achieved a great victory at no cost.
Or perhaps the Iranian regime will accept some face-saving compromise with Trump that allows both the U.S. and Iran to declare victory, and the U.S. would never have to join the fray.
Any of these solutions, from the perspective of the United States, would be extraordinary. (I’m setting aside the local costs, such as the Iranians and Israelis who will have been killed or wounded, upending relationships between governments, and the like. I’m being parochial here.)
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Trump faces a crisis only if he must make a hard decision. If the Israeli bombs and the mean tweets don’t work, Trump faces an excruciatingly hard choice.
I’m certainly glad that Trump has a former Fox News host serving as his secretary of defense available to give him advice.
If Trump has to act, what should he do?
On the one hand, Trump can choose not to bomb Iran. Iran will develop nuclear weapons. Iran may choose to use one of those weapons on Tel Aviv. Israel would of course retaliate. It would not look good to have World War III, or something like it, occur on Trump’s watch.
Although I’m sure that, if World War III happened, Trump would explain that this was his brilliant plan to solve the Middle East crisis once and for all. And the MAGA loyalists would of course agree.
Even if Iran develops a nuclear weapon and does not immediately trigger a holocaust, that doesn’t solve the problem. As North Korea has demonstrated, once Iran has nukes, it is permanently immune from attack. No matter what Iran might do, its leaders could proceed confidently, knowing that neither Israel nor the United States would attack it. That would permit Iran to do many evil things in the future.
Moreover, other countries in the Middle East — such as Saudi Arabia and perhaps Egypt — won’t sit by silently as Iran develops the bomb. Those countries will develop their own nuclear weapons, and we’ll have multiple nuclear-armed states in one of the most combustible regions in the world. That might not yet be World War III, but it ain’t good.
On the other hand, Trump can choose to bomb Iran, temporarily eliminating its nuclear weapons program. Iran will surely respond, perhaps by attacking American troops stationed in the Middle East, perhaps by attacking shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, perhaps by attacking energy infrastructure to raise the price of oil, perhaps by attacking American soft targets around the world, perhaps by launching cyberattacks on the United States; you don’t need much of an imagination here. Everywhere you look, it’s bad.
At the end of the day, Iran’s nuclear weapons program will have been temporarily destroyed. But that program would likely build back — deep underground, where no one can monitor it — so Iran would ultimately develop a nuclear weapon, after all. In the meantime, the United States will have suffered, one way or the other and, after the bombing stopped, there would be another failed state in the Middle East. The United States can try to turn the remnants of Iran into a liberal democracy, but that generally doesn’t turn out too well — think of Afghanistan and Iraq as the most recent examples.
If I had to guess, I’d say that the United States will bomb Iran. Trump has said that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. For Trump to have said that, and then left Iran with the capacity to manufacture a nuclear weapon, would make Trump look weak. Trump can’t tolerate apparent weakness, so he’ll bomb Iran, consequences be damned.
The counterargument, of course, is that Trump always chickens out. Although Trump would love the first day when we bombed Iran — lots of loud explosions and everyone’s paying attention to me! — he’d hate the day after, when he’d have to deal with the consequences. Since Trump has no guiding principles, he may just chicken out to reduce the immediate criticism he’d have to face.
Either way, I can tell you this:
If Trump chooses not to attack, six months from now pundits will insist that was a bad idea.
If instead Trump chooses to attack, six months from now pundits will insist that was a bad idea.
That’s why it’s easy to be a pundit, but hard to be the president.
On the third hand, six months from now, whatever the result, I guarantee you that Trump himself will insist that the underlying problems were not his fault and his decisions were uniformly perfect.
The man is a fool, but he sleeps well at night.
Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at [email protected].