Trump Is Reportedly Ready to Drop the Nuclear Demand
It was the whole reason for the war. David Shuster on what's left when you give away the point.
Cliff’s Note: What’s below is David doing the thing he does that nobody on television gets to do anymore: saying plainly what this war means for the people who have to face voters in November, and being just as blunt about the ways Democrats could still blow it. No network standards desk, no anchor chair to protect, no producer in his ear.
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If you’ve been thinking about it, now’s a good time to subscribe.
—Cliff
by David Shuster
Donald Trump is cornered on Iran. And now, it’s only a matter of time before the old rotting Orange man forces the United States into an epic economic catastrophe or geopolitical humiliation.
Regardless of whether Trump keeps bombing Iran or pulls U.S. forces out of the Persian gulf and declares victory, the results will not change. The Iranian regime is still there. The Strait of Hormuz, which was open before the war, is now an Iranian bargaining chip. The Iranian nuclear question remains unresolved. American weapons stockpiles have been chewed down. And the Republican party is approaching the midterm elections with all the joy of a skydiver who just discovered their parachute is decorative (or a tanker ship captain who has been told the Strait of Hormuz is safe).
There is no way Trump can avoid the crash or fix any of this. If he keeps bombing Iran, the regime will keep the Strait of Hormuz blocked (and perhaps escalate across the Persian gulf) moving the globe closer to a massive energy shock. If Trump accepts Iran’s terms for opening the Strait, including the regime collecting millions of dollars in tolls on each ship, Trump will own a historic loss.
Whichever path Trump chooses is not going to be a U.S. victory.
Trump went to war insisting that Iran’s nuclear ambitions were intolerable. Trump’s demand, repeated by all of his cabinet secretaries and GOP sycophants, was maximalist and magnificently simple: Iran must surrender.
Now, according to reports, Trump has told aides he may drop the nuclear demand in order to get out of the war.
This is the Trump Doctrine in its purest form: first demand everything, then negotiate away everything, and finally announce that the other side has surrendered.
The Iranians, of course, will not need to surrender. They will just need to sit quietly counting their toll receipts and keep speaking in Farsi while Trump makes his grand declarations. Trump will inevitably respond to media follow ups with retorts about “fake news.”
Trump is already using that phrase in response to reports the Pentagon is running out of missiles, precision guided weapons, and defensive interceptors.
One analysis found that the United States could require years to replenish some of the advanced weapons used during the Iran conflict. Despite what Trump reportedly thinks, replacing sophisticated weapons is not a matter of ordering another thousand from Amazon. Factories take time. Supply chains take time. Money takes time.
The munitions shortage matters because the United States has other enemies. China has not disappeared. Taiwan has not sailed into the Pacific. Russia has not retired.
A prudent president would regard the Iran strain on the U.S. military as a strategic warning.
Trump will probably regard it as an excellent television opportunity to make yet another record breaking DOD budget demand.
The military problem is bad. The political one is worse, and it lands in November. Subscribe now to read more!
