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Trump’s Lethal Ad-Libbing in Iraq Enters Its Most Dangerous Phase

A new round of US bombing will only reinforce the dynamics pointing to an American loss—but that wouldn’t prevent the president from adopting still more destructive measures.

An anti-Trump billboard in downtown Tehran.

Since the collapse of June’s hastily signed Memorandum of Understanding between Iran and the United States, President Donald Trump has responded to the steady reversal of American progress in the Iran War by repeatedly going through a now-familiar cycle of feigned indifference, theatrical threats, and humiliating retreats. Last week, the administration signaled that it was preparing for a significant bombing campaign, only to back off at the last moment—reportedly after the Pentagon warned the president that supplies of critical munitions and already-scarce missile interceptors would be depleted by such an escalation. After a brief lull in the fighting earlier this week succumbed to a fresh round of Iranian ballistic missile attacks on US bases in Jordan, the president promised on Wednesday morning, with his typical lack of decorum, to “beat the fucking shit” out of Iran and then launched a new round of strikes on Thursday. The clear takeaway from all these frantic off-the-cuff bids to reshape the guiding narrative of the conflict is that the Trump administration no longer bothers trying to connect the use of violence to any kind of political goal.

A casual observer could be forgiven for thinking that we are trapped in some kind of eternal recurrence loop, condemned to experience its clear pattern of escalation and retreat “once more and innumerable times more,” as Nietzsche once wrote. But despite the sometimes bleakly amusing nature of the president’s ineptitude, we may now be entering the most dangerous moment of the conflict, with no clear off-ramp for either side. Iran’s leaders believe, with pretty good reason, that they have the upper hand and can now wait for Trump to buckle under the coming waves of economic pain. Iran doesn’t seem to care whether negotiations are restarted at all, given that their American counterparts can’t be trusted to send professional negotiators or follow through on their commitments—and that the United States reveals a fresh strategic vulnerability every time the shooting resumes.

On the Iranian side, the conflict is threatening to engulf more of the region. Tehran has already demonstrated the ability to disrupt operations at the UAE’s Fujairah port facility. This site marks the terminus of an East-West pipeline whose capacity the Emirati regime is seeking to double by next year and whose output has helped keep the global energy crisis from spiraling. But a simple glance at a map demonstrates why continued reliance on Fujairah is not a workable long-term strategy if Iran is committed to establishing its hegemony over regional energy exports. The port sits just outside the Strait of Hormuz on the Gulf of Oman, well within range of Iran’s ultra-cheap drones and stockpile of ballistic missiles.

Meanwhile, the Saudi port of Yanbu, while further from........

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