How Donald Trump Went to War with Iran

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President Donald Trump’s refusal to engage in any coherent foreign policymaking process is the root of his decision to launch the Iran War.

Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan of The New York Times have provided the most thorough account to date of deliberations in the Trump administration that led to the war with Iran. Although the journalists’ product may be only the first draft of this piece of American history, the details in their multi-sourced reporting—including even who sat where in a meeting room—have the aura of authenticity. Their story yields four main impressions. 

First, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu played a central role in leading President Trump to launch the war, so much so that Israel can be called the prime mover of President Donald Trump’s decision. The opening of the journalists’ story features the unusual scene of a foreign leader being invited into the White House Situation Room to present his government’s agenda-setting proposal for subsequent discussion among US officials. The Israelis presented a best-case picture of the prospective war, predicting a popular Iranian uprising that would overthrow the Islamic Republic’s regime and asserting that this regime would be weakened so fast by the US-Israeli attack that it could not close the Strait of Hormuz or inflict any significant damage on other US interests in the region.

Several of the president’s cabinet members later expressed—appropriately, as events turned out—much skepticism about the Israeli forecast of an uprising and regime change in Tehran. “Farcical,” in the view of CIA Director John Ratcliffe. “Bullshit,” according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. In the more measured words of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, the Israelis “oversell, and their plans are not always well-developed. They know they need us, and that’s why they’re hard-selling.”

Despite those assessments from his own subordinates, Trump liked the Israeli pitch. “Sounds good to........

© The National Interest