It’s Donald Trump’s war now. The decision to bomb Iran revealed the conflict between some of the president’s fundamental impulses.
Secretary Pete Hegseth tells us “erased” Iranian nuclear sites
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth called the United States on Iran an “incredible success”.
- The United States hope that Iran will bend after a bunker bombardment. But there is no guarantee.
- Trump’s debate opposed its promise to avoid “endless wars” with the prospect of an inherited achievement.
The greatest hope of the president Donald TrumpThe bombing of Iran: a nuclear rogue program which had challenged half a dozen of its predecessors was finally destroyed.
The deepest fear: only four years after the chaotic withdrawal of Afghanistan ended the longest war in America, the United States is now entangled in another war in a volatile region, with perilous and uncertain consequences.
“Our objective was the destruction of the nuclear enrichment capacity of Iran and a stop of the nuclear threat posed by the sponsor of terror n ° 1 in the world”, ” Trump said In an announcement of the end of the evening in the East Room on June 21, interrupting the plans of Saturday evening of the Americans with news that Bombers B-2 had abandoned the most powerful conventional bombs in the world on three sites considered to be crucial for the Tehran nuclear program. “Iran, the Middle East intimidator, must now make peace.”
This is the calculation behind “Operation Midnight Hammer”, in any case – that despite his initial boastful, Tehran will be forced to abandon his nuclear program.
But Trump recognized that there were other possibilities.
“Don’t forget, there are many targets,” he said, surrounded by a solemn trio of advisers-vice-president Jd vanceSecretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. “If peace does not come quickly, we will continue these other targets with precision, speed and skills.”
A war between Trump’s fundamental pulses
The White House debate on the advisability of launching bombers has disagreed some of Trump’s most fundamental impulses.
One is his fervent opposition in its three presidential campaigns against “Forever Wars”, including expensive and controversial conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its “America First” program reflects a determination to focus less on places like Ukraine and more on the challenges close to their home.
Although most Republicans Congress leaders praised the president for the decision, some people eminent in the Maga movement did not do it. “This is not our fight,” complained about Georgia Marjorie Taylor Greene’s representative on social networks. “Whenever America is on the verge of grandeur, we get involved in another foreign war.”
On the other hand, Trump is also famous with problems that have frustrated standard solutions. Witness, for example, of his desire to press the limits of the law in identification and deport undocumented immigrants.
The long efforts to negotiate with Iran, like a large part of diplomacy, probably did not seem to reach the kind of dramatic and decisive conclusion that it promotes.
Iran’s bombing also reflects its alliance with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin NetanyahuWho maintains that Iran’s nuclear program is an existential threat to its country. For the Prime Minister, realizing his decade dream to destroy this program is the heritage.
It is also Trump’s inheritance of Trump – a powerful message for a president who can no longer appear at the Oval office.
Netanyahu struck this agreement. “Congratulations, President Trump,” he told Tel Aviv. “His leadership today has created a pivot in history that can help lead the Middle East and beyond a future of prosperity and peace.”
Congress leaders informed the planes returned home
For better or for worse, it will be Trump’s war.
On the one hand, he did not seek the approval of the congress, which under the Constitution has the right to declare war, although the president has the power to order the use of military force. The law on the powers of the war, adopted after the secret bombing of the president of President Richard Nixon of Cambodia during the Vietnam War, obliges the presidents to inform the congress and limit the duration of deployments.
After the American bombers left Iranian airspace, the administration immediately informed the leaders of the Congress, Hegseth told journalists a pentagon briefing in early June 22.
Virginia Sen. Mark WarnerThe best democrat of the intelligence committee, said that Trump had risked dragging the United States in a long war “without consulting the Congress, without a clear strategy, regardless of the coherent conclusions of the intelligence community, and without explaining to the American people what is at stake”.
These will be the elements of the future debate, in the echoes of the war in Iraq. What was the severity of Iranian nuclear threat? And how will the voters weigh the issues and the cost?
In Istanbul, the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abbas Araghchi, accused Trump of having “cheated on his own voters” by launching a strike despite his campaign promises. The American administration is “unique and controlled by the consequences of its actions,” he said. But he did not specify if Iran would fight against American forces in the region.
Hours after bunker bombs were abandoned, Iran has launched a new series of missiles to Israel. On June 23, the Minister of Foreign Affairs plans to meet the Russian president Vladimir PutinAn ally but the one who has his own war to fight.