A quagmire
Donald Trump has no idea how to end this war.
Donald Trump started a war with Iran five months ago, and you'll be shocked to learn it's not going well. Obviously, no one could have predicted this. It turns out that if you kill the leader of a country, they get very mad.
"Trump is increasingly frustrated that a conflict he once thought would be over in a matter of weeks has dragged on with no end in sight," the Wall Street Journal reports. "Some of Trump’s advisers now worry that the war—which has resulted in higher prices, falling approval ratings and the deaths of more than a dozen U.S. servicemembers—is consuming his presidency and damaging Republicans’ already dim prospects in the coming midterm elections."
The Journal reports that Trump is now in "revenge mode," as he doesn't think Iran will respond to anything but military force. However, he might also be worried about his own safety. "Some top aides have been advised by intelligence agencies that the Iranians are seeking to kill them and have been told to stop taking car services," the article states.
Obviously, Iran is trying to inflict as much damage on the U.S. as possible, and any gestures it's made toward peace were probably just a tactic to draw things out. It's important to recognize that none of this needed to happen. Trump simply wanted to take out another enemy after what he saw as a successful operation in Venezuela, and now we've found ourselves in another extended conflict in the Middle East.
Trump surely would have cut and run if it weren't for the fact that Iran now has an iron grip on the Strait of Hormuz, which means it can do damage to the global economy. Because of that, there's no end in sight to this war, and Trump continues to act out of desperation.
Thor Benson
Hopefully this war doesn't continue on for years and end up in the lap of a Democratic president, as we've seen happen before. Regardless, I think it's quite likely that Iran will maintain tight control of the Strait of Hormuz for the foreseeable future—putting the country Trump wanted to defang in a better position than it was before the war began.
I've been warning that we should not go to war with Iran for about a decade now. I guess I was right about that. I think a lot of people were.
Speaking of foreign policy, if you're interested in the terrible things Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been up to lately, I just put out a YouTube video on that:
