I wanted to share with you some additional thoughts and observations on Trump and Israel's war of choice with Iran:
1. The pattern of the Trump administration's conduct - hapless efforts to justify the war, ever-shifting war objectives, exaggerated gestures to signal control - all suggest that, only a few days into the war, Trump has already lost control.
2. 19th-century Prussian strategist Helmuth von Moltke famously said that "No plan survives first contact with the enemy." But this goes beyond that. Trump's plan A came crashing down only 48h into this war. The administration's plan - based on an exaggerated view of Iran's relative weakness - was that the theorcacy in Iran would implode shortly after the assassination of the Supreme Leader. By Monday morning, before the markets opened, the war was supposed to be over, and Trump would be basking in yet another glorious victory, proving all his skeptics wrong. But no such implosion has occurred. Nor are we seeing signs that it is likely to occur in the short term.
3. As a result, it is increasingly Iran that is defining the geography of this war, its intensity, and most crucially, its length in time. This does not mean that Iran is winning the war - there is no evidence of that at all. But Iran's prospects of getting Trump to lose the war or cut it short are increasing precisely because Trump is scrambling for a Plan B. Indeed, in comparison, George W. Bush's Plan A in Iraq didn't start falling apart until August 2005 - five months into the war.
4. As the failure of Plan A became clear, and as Trump realized that the Iranians would not agree to a ceasefire, Trump started shifting his messaging. Knowing that the Iranians thought Trump could not sustain the war for long, Trump suddenly started saying that the war may go on for four weeks - seeking to disabuse the Iranians from the idea that time is on their side.
5. Rather than declaring victory (having killed the Supreme Leader), Trump has decided to throw good money after bad, but now with an even more shocking plan: Arming Kurdish separatists in Iran and, most likely, also sending US troops into Iran through the Kurdish areas together with Israeli special forces. What was supposed to be a 48-hour air campaign is fast deteriorating into a land invasion with US troops on the ground.
6. Neither the Iranians nor Trump will back down in the next few days. Trump thinks he can turn the tables on Iran with his Kurdish plan, and Tehran believes a land invasion will help unify the population against invaders and separatists. Both believe they can absorb and sustain the casualties, which likely will be massive. Yet, not a single death in this unnecessary war can be justified.
