UPDATED 8:53am: We said last week the risk, once started, is Trump chickening out. As of this morning our time, Trump chickened out. Trump always chickens out (TACO). Which, here, long term, is disastrous.
"President Trump has created the conditions for another quagmire in the Middle East, and the question is whether American military excellence can rescue him from his own impulsiveness and incompetence.
"Here is the present situation, in a nutshell: The United States and Israel have established absolute air dominance over the nation of Iran. ... The intention of the air campaign is clear: to destroy the regime’s capacity to harm its neighbours while also creating the conditions for a revolution on the ground. ...
"So why, then, is Trump lashing out at American allies? Why was he 'shocked' that Iran struck Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait in response to American attacks?
"Perhaps the answer lies in a Wall Street Journal report from last Friday. According to The Journal, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned Trump that Iran might attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz and Trump shrugged off the threat and launched the attack anyway. ...
"But Iran did not capitulate. ... Instead, it has effectively closed the strait, and it’s reportedly done so without choking off its own oil exports. In other words, while other nations can’t ship oil through the strait, Iran still is.
"Iran ... could well emerge from the conflict with its regime intact (and perhaps even more hard-line) and its power over the world economy undiminished. ...
"Trump launched a major war on his own initiative while announcing competing and potentially contradictory war aims. Is the goal regime change? Unconditional surrender? Or is it much narrower — the destruction of Iran’s missile and drone forces, sinking its navy, stopping its nuclear programme and destroying its ability to wage war through its proxy forces, including Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and the kaleidoscope of allied militias in Syria and Iraq. ...
"Even when wars are carefully planned, with allies brought on board and a majority of the public in support, they are still highly volatile and unpredictable. ...
"My great concern is that Trump has [instead] created the conditions for failure. ... And now, dismayed that the war has not resulted in the regime’s immediate capitulation or destruction, he’s flailing about, once again threatening the viability of NATO if our allies don’t come and bail him out from a war they did not start and did not ask for.
"As an American, I want our forces to succeed, once they are committed. I want to see the military open the Strait of Hormuz as quickly and painlessly as possible. I want to see the Iranian regime collapse and replaced by a democracy. That regime is loathsome. It’s an enemy of the United States. It deserves to fall. If it does, I will cheer its demise.
"At the same time, however, my patriotism can’t blind me to reality. This is not how our democracy should go to war. Trump is not the right man to lead our nation into battle. People I respect applaud Trump for his courage in taking on Iran. But I don’t see courage. I see recklessness. I see thoughtlessness.
"I see a man who plunged a nation into a conflict without fully comprehending the risks. I see a man full of hubris after achieving success in much more limited military engagements. And he’s now counting on two of the world’s most competent militaries to essentially bail him out.
"He’s counting on them accomplishing a mission without clear precedent in military history: destroying a hostile regime and forcing its compliance entirely from the air and sea, and to do so quickly enough that the economic pain doesn’t overshadow the military gains. ...
"Trump has only himself to blame. He led America into an unconstitutional war. And now he’s compounding that sin by proving to be every bit as reckless a commander as he is a president."~ David French from his column 'Trump Has Only Himself to Blame'
"Either Donald Trump holds his nerve, crushes the Iranian regime, rides out the oil shock and reopens the Strait of Hormuz, or he and America are finished, exposed as unserious, fickle and incapable of forward planning, a superpower manquée felled by drone-wielding barbarians."~ Allister Heath from his column 'This is a turning point in history, the moment the West could be lost'"Morally it was entirely justifiable to attack the Islamic Republic of Iran. ... Whether or not it was tactically correct [or strategically mapped out] ... only history will tell.
"As much as those against the war will be wanting Trump to lose, to embarrass him, this is a very narrow and suicidal position. ...
"Overthrowing the regime would be a success; weakening it so it falls due to domestic pressure (including from the Kurdish north) would be a partial success --- but emboldening it even if its ability to project abroad is significantly weakened, would be ... a victory for the regime, and a victory for its proxies.
"For it would embolden Iran and its proxies to attack not just in the Middle East, but beyond ... This would make us all less safe, it would embolden Islamists across the world to promote their ideology, and for a few to be willing to use force to terrify us all. ...
"At this stage the biggest risk is that Trump chickens out, and wants a 'deal.' There is no 'deal' with those who want you dead, who want your country dead and another dead. As much as the international law purists want pontification from the Western world about the legality of the war on Iran ..., that horse has bolted."~ Liberty Scott from his post 'Whether your agree with it or not, the US has to win in Iran'
"But as with Bush II's Iraq War, the question to come is: do they know what the hell they're going to do next. With this administration, that's unlikely .... So it will need every circumstance to go the way of those Iranians celebrating [in these photos]. As Eliot Cohen says, 'Something of an exercise in ambivalence here. I would like to see the Iranian regime go down hard -- and am not confident Trump knows what he is doing.'
"Let's [still] hope with crossed fingers for a lion of freedom to arise from the attacks."~ PC from the 2 March post Iranians: Yearning to breathe free!
UPDATE: Posted last night from the White House press corps, and now going viral on Twitter:
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