What do you do if your partner in a war to rid Iran of nuclear bomb-making capabilities says, “I’ve had enough. I’m going home.”?
No “Mission Accomplished” banner for Donald Trump, at least in the world’s eyes, though you can be sure that Trump will compare his military exploits to D-Day, and victories at Gettysburg, Saratoga and Trenton.
A more apt analogy might be to Napoleon’s and then Nazi Germany’s retreats from Russia.
But what of his primary partner, Israel, and the Gulf States that have endured rocket attacks to their civil and commercial enterprises, and will now fear continued barrages by Iran and the choking off of trade through the Strait of Hormuz?
Trump’s “victory” march home would be a hollow one, exposing his frail, bruised ego. Like a bully who underestimates a victim who fights back, Trump retreats when confronted by stronger than expected opposition. In the war with Iran he has no legislative or judicial majority to back him up.
What he has are allies who will have learned he is an unreliable partner. Short of defusing Iran’s nuclear program he has reinvigorated it.
The most powerful man in the world—on paper—has been exposed as a paper tiger, surrounded by either incompetent planners or by wiser officials whose counsel he ignored.
At the beginning of the campaign against Iran, Trump evoked America’s World War II military goal—unconditional surrender by Nazi Germany and Japan. No longer is that top of Trump’s mind.
Facing an existential threat, Israel has the most to lose if Trump folds before the enriched uranium is contained, by force or negotiated truce. What will Israel do?
Can it afford to continue pounding Iran by air? Would it risk sending in an elite ground force to secure the uranium, if that is at all possible? Would Trump bless further attacks or consider them an insult to his dominance?
Israel’s strategists have had recent successes, long-term in their planning, in Iran and Lebanon. But a Trump “premature” withdrawal would leave Israel vulnerable in achieving its ultimate objective of defanging Iran’s nuclear ambitions. For Trump, this has been a war game. For Israel it is an existential conflict.
