Donald Trump has trapped himself in his war with Iran by announcing that his intention is regime change. That uncertain objective is linked to his most urgent objective at home. While pursuing regime change in Iran, he is desperately attempting to stop regime change through the midterm elections. He needs a swift victory in Iran to avoid a quagmire, but he needs a long war to attempt the assertion of unconstitutional emergency authority over the electoral process.

Plunging into war followed Trump’s signature style: he negotiated in bad faith, turned to bombing when the sides were making “significant progress”, according to Oman’s foreign minister, was heedless of international law, and shut out congressional consultation. He offered as his imperative Iranian “imminent threats”, which the Pentagon briefed congressional staffers after Operation Epic Fury began was simply without basis in fact. There was no intelligence suggesting an “imminent threat”. Where’s the WMD?

Trump has created a scenario in which he has cornered himself, so he has declared he has a series of supposed “off-ramps”. “I can go long and take over the whole thing, or end it in two or three days and tell the Iranians: see you again in a few years if you start rebuilding [your nuclear and missile programs]. In any case, it will take them several years to recover from this attack.” His fantasizing, however, reveals the absence of any strategy.

Shortly after contriving that confused statement, he announced that the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had died in an airstrike. Trump has no idea what will happen other than more bombing. He is spinning hour by hour. The Supreme Leader has killed the Supreme Leader. His war is ultimately about himself, branded like everything from the Trump-Kennedy Center to the Donald J Trump Peace Institute to the President Donald J Trump International Airport to, now, the Trump Iran War. He boasts: “No president was willing to do what I am doing.” The war, above any of its geopolitical dimensions, is about the narcissism of the will.

Three days before Trump began his attack, the director of the joint chiefs of staff, vice-admiral Fred Kacher, was summarily dismissed after serving for only three months. The Pentagon offered no reason for his removal. The day before, the Washington Post reported that the chair of the joint chiefs, Gen Dan Caine, had “cautioned” Trump and other officials “that shortfalls in critical munitions and a lack of support from allies will add significant risk to the operation and to U.S. personnel”. But Trump did not want to hear or heed the risk assessment. Off with a head.

Achieving regime change would require more than a lightning raid or assassinations. Obsessed with short-term gain, Trump could not tolerate a prolonged or complex war either psychologically or politically. Rather than a Venezuelan-like foray, he........

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