After bombing Iran, President Donald Trump sent out one of his trademark all-capital-letters missives: “NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!” he wrote. Dream on.
Trump has become the latest American president to plunge violently into the Middle East. His adventure, like most of the previous ones, will not achieve its goals. Instead it will further destabilize a region that has been suffering from outside intervention for the better part of a century.
By Trump’s own account, he ordered the bombing because Iran was “very close” to building a nuclear weapon. How did he know? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel told him.
For years, Netanyahu has been wildly exaggerating the state of Iran’s nuclear program. Western intelligence agencies have consistently reported that Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons program, and that the country’s Supreme Leader has forbidden the development of such weapons. In March Trump’s own Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, repeated that finding. She told a Congressional hearing that US intelligence agencies “assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.”
But who cares what intelligence agencies conclude? Trump knows better! Pressed about Gabbard’s testimony, he was utterly dismissive: “I don’t care what she thinks.” Bombs away, facts be damned.
The reason Trump bombed Iran is simple: Israel asked him to do it. But what does Israel hope to gain? The bombing strengthens its argument that the central problem in the Middle East is not its treatment of Palestinians, but Iran. Yet it is unlikely to end Iran’s nuclear program. It may have the opposite effect. Neither Trump nor anyone else would dare to attack Iran if it had nuclear weapons. The logical conclusion in Tehran would be: We’ve got to build some. This attack makes a nuclear-armed Iran more likely, not less.
Nearly 10 years ago, President Obama foresaw the possibility of war with Iran. He succeeded in preventing it. His 2015 nuclear deal with Iran effectively resolved the dispute. Trump recklessly trashed it. Joe Biden refused to return to it. Had that deal remained in force, this war would not be happening.
The ultimate goal of Israel’s attacks on Iran, including the one it maneuvered Trump into launching, is regime change. It is a far-fetched fantasy. In Iran, as in every country, people rally around the flag when their homeland is bombed. Israeli leaders want to install Reza Pahlavi, son of the last Shah and fervently pro-Israel, as Iran’s new monarch. Memo to Reza: don’t sell the house in Virginia.
One of the most striking aspects of Trump’s decision to bomb is that he campaigned for the presidency as a peacemaker. He said he would end “forever wars,” but now he’s starting a new one. A decade ago he warned: “President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly—not skilled!” Now Trump has done precisely what he wrongly predicted that Obama would do.
READ: Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick Calls Trump’s Military Attack on Iran ‘Peace Through Strength’
Sunday’s bombing also showed once again how fully the United States has merged its Middle East policy with that of Israel. This long process has produced one of history’s most striking geopolitical partnerships. Israel, with a population of 10 million, shapes the Middle East policy of the United States, supposedly the world’s superpower. The fact that a single pro-Israel donor, Miriam Adelson, gave Trump a $100 million campaign contribution last year reflects more than the descent of America’s political system into legalized bribery. It shows that American foreign policy, like much else in Trump’s Washington, is for sale. Israel has bought it. This bombing shows how effectively the Israeli tail wags the American dog.
READ: Bernie Sanders Calls US Entering Israeli-Iran Conflict a ‘War Based on Lies’
Since the end of the Cold War, Democratic and Republican presidents have waged war almost by instinct. Bill Clinton bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days. George W. Bush plunged the world into chaos by invading Afghanistan and Iraq. Barack Obama devastated Libya and spent a billion dollars to support jihadis fighting in Syria. Joe Biden sent Israel tens of thousands of bombs to indiscriminately drop on Gaza. Trump promised to end that approach to the world. Instead he has embraced it.
Bombing Iran is about more than Iran and Israel. It is yet another example of the American impulse to solve the world’s problems through violence. Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program were underway when the bombs fell. That was not coincidental. Netanyahu’s nightmare is that the United States and Iran would make peace. His dream has been to push them into war. Trump made it come true.
