The ‘America First’ president is helping Israel clean house in Iran
(Originally published March 3 in “What in the World“) Trump may send troops into Iran.
Trump told the New York Post Monday: “I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground — like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it.”
Only Trump decides what U.S. foreign policy is from one moment to the next. But U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who seems to have gained a modicum of influence over Trump when it comes to Latin America, divulged that in Iran “the hardest hits are yet to come.”
In addition to eradicating Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons or the enriched uranium needed to make one, Trump now seems to have adopted Israel’s goal of eliminating Tehran’s stock of ballistic missiles and their production facilities, which could prove nettlesome given that many may be hidden underground. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine stated an even broader goal, adding that the U.S. aimed to “prevent Iran from the ability to project power outside of its borders.”
Trump’s shifting goals reflect the capricious quality that has defined his presidency and sowed confusion over everything from immigration to tariffs. Trump likes to portray his unpredictability as a feature, but few economists or analysts see it as anything but a bug. Add to their number former National Security Council and State Dept. advisor Richard Fontaine, who argues that Trump’s whimsical war-mongering represents a complete reversal of the Powell Doctrine, developed in the early 1990s by then-General and later Secretary of State Colin Powell. Powell’s doctrine held that the U.S. should attack only as a last resort and then only after having won public support for a clear objective and a clear exit strategy, to avoid the kind of open-ended, costly and politically corrosive kind of conflicts that made Vietnam such a disastrous quagmire.
Quagmire, shwag-mire. U.S. and Israeli forces struck targets in Iran for a third day Monday, with Israel adding targets in Lebanon to its list of airstrikes after Iran-backed Hezbollah militia on Monday fired rockets and drones into Israel. After an Iranian drone struck a British airbase in Cyprus, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer gave the U.S. permission to use some British bases for destroying Iranian missiles. After Trump criticized him for having waited, Starmer said: “This government does not believe in regime change from the skies.”
Iran’s own retaliatory strikes still seemed to be expanding, too:
- Iranian drones and missiles have so far struck at least six U.S. bases in Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, and the U.A.E.
- Two Iranian drones reportedly struck the U.S. embassy in Riyadh, while
- others have targeted regional oil and gas production facilities, including natural gas production sites in Qatar.
- Qatar said it shot down two Soviet-made Su-24 bombers entering its airspace from Iran, the first indication that Iran has scrambled warplanes in addition to firing missiles and drones at U.S. bases and allies around the region.
So far, though, the U.S. has lost just three fighter jets, and those to Kuwait’s own air defenses. While the six people flying those warplanes managed to eject safely, an Iranian drone strike against a U.S. base in Kuwait killed six U.S. military personnel.
Pakistan’s war against the Taliban also rages on. On Sunday, airstrikes hit the former U.S. air base at Bagram.