Get the Ricochet app
Ricochet will work fine in a browser on your mobile devices, but for the best experience please download our app.
Saudi Arabia just announced its intent to stay out of the Abraham Accords. Israel just announced its rejection of Trump's Hamas peace plan. These are both consequences, in my view, of Trump's having gone wobbly on Iran.
It is clear to both of these nations that Trump is not serious about finishing the job. For whatever reasons, he wants to negotiate (trying to negotiate with the IRGC, although Iran is not talking to the US and has rejected negotiations at this point, even issuing demands that presume the existence of an Iranian victory in the Gulf). Trump has announced clearly that he doesn't want to destroy Iranian infrastructure, doesn't want to bomb, and certainly does not want to put any boots on any ground in the Gulf.
Going wobbly on Iran means going wobbly on Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as the Houthis, and Iranian proxies in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.
It appears that bombing campaigns alone will not do the job. This means Trump needs to ask the public for support on a plan for Iran. That, or quit the endeavor entirely. It is questionable whether the American public has any interest in pursuing anything in Iran. From what I gather, sentiment is strongly against doing anything there. So the nation as a whole appears to have gone wobbly on Iran.
Trump has done more to date than any president to counter Iran, by far. This even includes Reagan, who deferred to Casper Weinberger when he told the bombers to stand down after the Beirut Barracks bombing—after Reagan had been talked into a disastrous decision to place unarmed Marines in a vulnerable position.
This, after Jimmy Carter, in his infinite stupidity, turned the country over to the Ayatollahs.
In my view, the IRGC is a terrorist organization in control of a nation, and it should be treated as such. Negotiating with terrorists has never been a good idea. The current arrangement has Trump allowing terrorists to continue to control oil resources in one of the potentially wealthiest nations on the planet.
The IRGC is doing for Iran what Hamas did for Gaza—keeping busy re-establishing its terror networks all over the Middle East while the president dithers.
Trump's decapitation strike in coordination with Israel was a master stroke that displayed clear-sightedness on the issue. His present insistence that he can negotiate with this enemy is delusional, and everyone seems to recognize this but Trump.
If he was not committed to any goal, why did he strike in the first place? He says his goal was to prevent a nuclear Iran, one that will not be achieved for any length of time unless the IRGC is destroyed. He refuses to recognize this, instead shifting the goalposts to opening the Straits, a move that essentially concedes region-wide power to the IRGC.
The Israelis, recognizing that Trump is not committed to finishing the job, are making preparations for the aftermath of the debacle by destroying Hamas (as well as Hezbollah) entirely. And Saudi Arabia must go back to playing both sides so as not to incur further ill will from either its subjects or the IRGC.
So the Middle East will go back to the status quo ante with a bloodthirsty enemy still able to threaten its neighbors, and by extension, Europe, the US, and the rest of the world.
Trump had a chance—even created the opportunity—to end IRGC control of Iran and its oil resources. Failure to destroy them will confirm to the world that the US is a paper tiger and an unreliable ally. The American dominance that Trump has engineered to this point will be lost, as will the midterms and likely any pretension to electoral victory for Republicans for the foreseeable future.
That will be bad for America.
I would suggest that Trump go to the American public with an address from the Oval Office, articulating the unambiguous goal of destroying the IRGC entirely as the only way to prevent Iran from ever acquiring nuclear weapons. That he acknowledge that efforts to date have not succeeded. That future generations of Americans deserve a world in which Iranian nuclear weaponry is not a possibility. That he ask Congress for a formal declaration of war against the rulers in Iran. And that he persuade the Arab nations to support the goal of destruction of the terrorist organization sending missiles at their people and infrastructure. The address would conclude with a clear course of action to accomplish those goals.
Unfortunately, he is unlikely to do any of that.
Discussion (88)
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
I see this as a good idea.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Unless the Iranians are dumb enough and still sufficiently equipped to pull off a 9/11 attack on American soil, requesting a declaration of war would be an electoral disaster and might even fail if enough GOP members balked.
The years of Saudi expenditures of $zillions for a global network of madrassas teaching that old time religion in connection with the popularity and influence of the revived anti-western, anti-democracy Islamic Brotherhood vision of Islam rising in the ashes of capitalism and communism (and not forgetting the entrenched shia nutballism in Iran) means that without a comprehensive strategy to take away the hearts and minds of people in Islamic countries from warlike, sterile ideas, we are just playing whack-a-mole. Islam has never been reformed or secularized. It either creeps or roars back in whenever a people seemingly move away (e.g. Turkey, Iran).
The very fact that the insanely ultra-religious Saudis and the complete weasel Qataris are positioned as our putative allies against the various jihadi groups (Hezbollah, Hamas, Houtis, and probably the future governments of Syria and Iraq) is problematic.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Nano - I don't think this was his war to win, so he isn't wobbly. He ran on ending wars, not starting. He offered to help Israel with American support. Both Trump and especially Israel have cut Iran off at the knees and Iran is the one that is wobbly. There are other ways other than military to hamper the enemy. They are in a terrible place economically, while Trump has empowered Iran's neighbors who also have oil and ways to ship it.
No, the country, nor Congress, ever gave the green light on this. We cannot continue these huge costly wars with supporting militarily, financially, while other countries like in Europe have already said no. A new world war? this is what it is turning into - Trump is smart and there are many avenues he can pursue. In the meantime, Israel needs to also compromise including with the Gaza deal.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
That sounds as if they think Trump is going to lose the midterms, which he might.
I think that is smart, not wobbly.
In this conflict's timeline of events starting with the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, future historians will judge the United States and Israel unkindly. I wouldn't, but there won't be enough people who share my opinion to defend Israel and the United States.
We do need to worry about the future. Opinions have a weird way of becoming "facts."
I had a great chart on my office wall for many years. It had been produced by the Wall Street Journal. It tracked the stock market along a line of world events. One of the points on the chart was the label "Iraq invades Kuwait." Thank you, Wall Street Journal. Until I saw that, all I had been seeing was "We invaded Iraq to ensure the Bush oil fortune." :)
"Truth" is sometimes just the gossip most often repeated, not the fact of a situation. :)
The quicker Gaza can be cleaned up and rebuilt, the better. If we can get it done now, ten or twenty years from now, people will understand what happened and see the United States and Israel favorably, which will be a good thing.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Why does everyone - and particularly Trump - continue to assume two things that have proven over and over to be false...
(1) our adversaries are motivated by economics ... that putting them "in a terrible place economically" will eventually cause their position to fold. It didn't work with China and its not working with Iran. They want power not money and don't care whether their people are poor or not.
(2) Israel needs to compromise and make a deal including Gaza. They have compromised repeatedly and their alleged counterparties renege repeatedly. Most recently, in 2024 Hezbollah was supposed to withdraw north of the Litani River. Which they did for about 20 minutes. The current Israeli effort in Lebanon was to push Hezbollah AGAIN north of the Litani River.
You're seeing five of 88 comments. Sign in, or join for just $5 per month, to read them all and add your own.