It is a special kind of folly to make long-term predictions amid the fog of war. Nobody knows how Operation Epic Fury will end. But there are already a few things we can celebrate and condemn.
On the celebration side: The professionalism and courage of the American military stand out. So does the just demise of Ayatollah Khamenei, amid scores of his murderous henchmen. Other things worth celebrating are merely possibilities at this point. If the nearly half-century of Iranian repression at home and terrorism abroad is poised to end, along with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, that would be cause for monumental celebration. And whether you celebrate it or not, it would be a massive addition to Donald Trump’s presidential legacy.
On the other hand: This is no way for a constitutional republic to go to war. The ever-changing rationales, the failure to consult Congress, and Congress’ refusal to demand consultation and authorization are outrageous no matter how this war ends. If the war and its aftermath are deemed successful, there will still be a price to pay as our system of checks and balances will seem to future presidents as even more of a dead letter. Conversely, if this ends in disaster, one could see a renewed effort to restore that system to prevent such calamities in the future.
Everything unfolding in and above Iran depends on the consequences, intended and unintended, of one man’s unilateral decision to launch a war. In short, we’re all on blowback watch.
Opponents of toppling the mullahcracy have relied on no argument more than the specter of blowback. This is the always reasonable concern that the unintended consequences of an action will be worse than taking no action at all. The term originated in 1950s era CIA, but the idea goes back at least to Thucydides. As former CIA analyst Chalmers Johnson wrote in his 2000 book Blowback: “Even an empire cannot control the long-term effects of its policies. That is the essence of blowback.”
Cultivating fear of blowback has been the organizing principle of Iranian national security for decades. It built an “axis of resistance”—Hezbollah, Hamas, a pliant vassal regime in Syria, etc.—to make the price of attacking Iran too steep to contemplate. That was the primary motive for an Iranian nuclear program.
What the ayatollahs, and their political and intellectual praetorians in the West, didn’t appreciate is that the concept of blowback isn’t just a check on American or Western power. It’s a universal phenomenon (just ask Russian President Vladimir Putin).
Consider that Operation Epic Fury is largely the direct consequence of the heinous October 7, 2023, attacks led by Iran’s proxy, Hamas. The blowback from those attacks led to the pulverizing not just of Hamas, but of Hezbollah, and indirectly the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. It also led to the degradation of Iran’s own defenses to the point where Operation Epic Fury became feasible.
It remains to be seen whether the operation will be successful. Regime change from the air is hard. Regime change from the air that doesn’t lead to chaos on the ground—as with Libya in 2011—is far harder.
The potential for this all to go sideways is not a particularly adroit or novel insight. Such warnings, largely from Trump’s critics, are a staple of every op-ed page and cable news discussion.
What has been less discussed is whether Trump subscribes to blowback theory. It’s easy to miss as the bombs drop, but Trump’s whole approach to military action is for quick “wins” with few lasting entanglements. That’s why he is already talking about “off ramps” and restarting negotiations with Iran.(It’s also partly why he didn’t actually change the regime in Venezuela. He merely replaced an incalcitrant autocratic thug with a pliable one.)
Right now, it’s reasonable to worry about the blowback from unilaterally launching a war against Iran. But if things get too messy for him, specifically if Iran’s strategy of roiling the whole region, disrupting the flow of oil and panicking financial markets, succeeds, the debate could shift suddenly. Instead of the charge that he was too reckless in taking bold action, the criticism could switch to how he got cold feet before finishing the job, leaving the whole region in turmoil.
Trump may seem like a hypocrite to many detractors for violating countless promises to end “forever wars,” but a forever war remains the last thing he actually wants. That doesn’t mean he won’t get one. Because Trump cannot control the long-term effects of his policies.
