The Dumbest War in American History

And We Lost

At the beginning of the second Trump administration, I wrote that I wasn’t enjoying my job anymore, because it was at once too easy and too awful: the people in charge are evil, stupid, or both, and those who support them are either evil, stupid, or both. That’s all there is to say — over and over. Anything else strains the truth. Now, I find that the illogic and stupidity actually make it more difficult to provide a commentary. Analysis must necessarily impose some rational pattern on the world, but it feels like a fool’s errand or even potentially misleading to seek the whys and wherefores of how this regime makes its decisions. The “4D chess” approach to Trump punditry once imposed a spurious rationality on what was self-evidently chaos; now it feels like any attempt to understand what’s going on risks the same.

Events themselves have no regularity or predictability: I intended to write today about the Iran deal, but right now it looks up in the air again, as Israel is trying to scuttle it by continuing its campaign in Lebanon. Opposition among hardliners in Iran also seems to be growing. Nevertheless, we do have something in writing: the text of the Iran deal. It’s really not a deal; it’s a “Memorandum of Understanding, “ it’s an agreement to agree. It looks like an astonishing capitulation: it gives Iran control of the Strait of Hormuz, it does not deal with nuclear weapons—again it punts there—, and it gives 300 billion to the Islamic Republic for a “reconstruction” fund. This administration was talking regime change and total war at the start of the conflict, and now they are treating Iran’s government as a legitimate, reasonable partner. The Israelis are upset at Trump’s about-face, but they should have known that anything he says really doesn’t mean much of anything. It’s all bluster. There’s a legal term, “mere puffery,” which refers to statements so outrageous that a reasonable person could not be expected to take them seriously. That’s basically Trump’s every word—mere puffery. The shapelessness of the world is just because Trump’s thoughts and actions are shapeless and arbitrary.

There is actually one predictable pattern in Trump’s behavior, and that’s that he’s completely unreliable and terrible to do business with. This looks like one of his business deals: a lot of noise, brutal recriminations, hair-raising threats, grandiose plans and promises, and then he walks away, leaving behind a mess, usually a much crappier version of what he claimed he was gonna do, and, of course, leaving his partners and creditors in the lurch. This is all he is in the end: a schiesty hustler. He got tired of the war; it isn’t working the way he wanted, so he’s trying to pull out. If you ever thought Trump is capable of behaving strategically, let alone undertaking some “civilizational” plan, you are far dumber than he is. And that’s all he needs to stay in business—bigger suckers.