I can’t deny that my distrust of Donald Trump and his administration informs that reluctance. To pick perhaps the most relevant, but hardly sole, example, the Maduro operation was paved with lies. We were told it was about stopping fentanyl. That was a lie. Venezuela is not a fentanyl hub. We were told it was about interdicting drugs to the United States and that each blown-up boat saved tens of thousands of American lives. This was materially dishonest. Drugs from Venezuela tended to go to Europe, not America. And the “lives saved” statistics were embarrassingly stupid. But more to the point, once we grabbed Maduro, Trump revealed that he was really motivated by his longstanding desire to “take the oil.” He kept the regime in place and set up shop.
So, when I hear Trump say—repeatedly—that he and his administration were planning on repeating the “Venezuela model,” I believe him. During the Iraq War, it was a left-wing lie that we were in a “war for oil.” I see no reason to leap to the defense of this administration against a similar charge, not with regard to Venezuela and not with regard to Iran. Can you really believe that if Operation Epic Fury had played out exactly as Trump hoped, we wouldn’t now be debating the morality and legality of Trump appropriating Iran’s oil resources in collusion with some Delcy Rodríguez in a turban or IRGC uniform?
But that, by itself, is not a sufficient reason to oppose this war especially now that we’re in it. It is manifestly true that Iran was at war with us for decades. That the administration and its defenders in Congress might be using this as a pretextual talking point doesn’t mean it’s not true.
What is actually untrue, as far as I can tell, is that an attack from Iran was “imminent.” Sure, as Noah Rothman argued on the latest Editors podcast, it’s true that when it comes to Iran the issue is always about degrees of imminence. But Trump’s insinuation that we were weeks away from being in a nuclear exchange is pure Trumpian nonsense.
Where Trump is more believable is when he says he didn’t expect Iran to attack its neighbors. I also find the reporting that the administration simply didn’t “expect” Iran to play the Hormuz card entirely believable.
That brings me back to this claim that the strait is not closed. This strikes me as word games more than persuasive analysis. If it’s not passable for American or allied shipping, thanks to the utterly reasonable reluctance of insurers and shippers to take the risk, then you can call it something else. But it means the same thing. I don’t really care that the situation is much better than the traditional war game scenarios of thousands of mines and an Iranian military blockade. If Iran gets the same result with just the threat of drones and speedboats, it’s still a huge problem.
Think of it this way. If you get a specific cancer diagnosis, it’s worth knowing that 10 years ago the diagnosis would have been an irreversible death sentence, but now it’s more treatable with chemotherapy. But you still have cancer. You still have to fight it, at great emotional, physical, and financial expense. And you still might die. I do not find the solace that some of my friends do in the alternative histories and hypothetical scenarios we’ve avoided.
Nor am I as blasé about how we got into this war. I think it matters that Trump didn’t prepare the American people or meaningfully consult with Congress or our allies. The moral hazards of his choice will be evident for years to come. Already we’re seeing Trump talk about NATO as if it is a dead letter, because allies he’s been belittling and bullying since he took office are not helping in a war of choice they weren’t consulted on.
Which brings us to the issue of consultation. If you asked me before the war whether I would support it, all other things being equal, I would have almost surely said yes. Again, I’ve long been persuaded on the “why” question. But if you asked me whether I would support a unilateral war of choice, I probably would have said no. I think this is the crucial difference between me and some of my friends. They think eliminating the Iranian threat and removing the regime was so necessary that seizing any opportunity is justified. If that’s your position, then as a logical and psychological matter, that means you think the political, legal, strategic, and constitutional objections aren’t very persuasive. You can still regret that Trump didn’t do it the “right way,” but now that he did it, such objections are irrelevant.
I simply disagree with that.
But I don’t disagree as much as some folks. I do think some people just want the war to fail because they want Trump to fail. That doesn’t make such people “traitors” or “America haters” as I’ve heard some friends say. It does make them wrong. It is in America’s interest to win this war. And just because it’s also in Trump’s interest that we win, that fact doesn’t change.
Before Pearl Harbor there were an enormous number of opponents of getting into another foreign war. We can have some grace toward some of these people. World War I was a horrible and stupid war that ruined much of the 20th century, not least because it made World War II inevitable. Sure, some of the original America First types disliked Jews and didn’t care about their persecution in Germany. But that wasn’t why (most) of them opposed another war. You certainly can’t play the movie backward and claim they were in favor of a Holocaust that hadn’t happened yet. Regardless, the point is that once we were at war, the vast majority of the prominent isolationists, noninterventionists, and apologists for Germany dropped their objections and signed up, or otherwise supported the war. The America First Committee literally dissolved and urged members to support the war.
Now this analogy fails on a number of fronts. Operation Epic Fury is more like the Japanese side of Pearl Harbor. We were the ones who launched the surprise attack. Of course, Iran has been launching little Pearl Harbors against us for decades, so I am not saying we’re the moral equivalent of the Japanese. What I am saying is that once you’re in a war, the arguments against getting in it have to take a backseat to the need to win it—or at least end it on the most strategically desirable terms possible.
I believe that. Leaving the regime in place without resolving the Strait of Hormuz dilemma would be very bad. I don’t necessarily think it would be a disaster or a defeat. But I don’t see how it would be anything other than very bad. The regime would, understandably, declare a moral and political victory. It would work assiduously to solidify its control of the population by killing countless Iranians. And if we wanted to stop them, the regime would replay the Hormuz and Gulf states option all over again—because they know it works. We got into the war, at least in part, to get out from under the thumb of Iran’s ballistic and nuclear arsenal. Ending the war under the thumb of its economic arsenal would be … well, very bad.
I’ll just close on a point about me, personally. I get hectored by a lot of people to join a clear side and cheerlead for it. I think I have chosen a “side” when it comes to my preferred outcome: victory or something very close to it. I don’t want America to have a “partner” in the current regime. I want the regime gone and the strategic threat with it. But this position annoys some folks because they want more enthusiasm from me. They think accepting the rightness of a side compels cheerleading. They want me to denounce the naysayers and defeatists as traitors and villains. They want me to support the war without much nuance or fastidious equivocation. It likewise annoys those who demand the reverse: They want me to denounce the war with the same enthusiasm and clarity.
I don’t trust this president, this administration or the Republicans who control Congress. I understand that saying this arouses anger in those who think everyone should drop their objections and figuratively join the war effort or the opposition. All I can say is I understand your anger, but it doesn’t change how I see things. After 10 years of being hectored to get on the Trump Train or to join the “resistance,” I’m not about to give into what amounts to the same argument in miniature. Maybe I’ve become too comfortable in my corner of the remnant, but I find such exhortations to join a popular front or a team unpersuasive.
For years, I’ve argued with people who say I must “support” or “oppose” Trump as if it didn’t matter what he did or said. I simply reject that, and I am willing to accept the consequences.
My job is to say what I believe to be true and make arguments in service to persuading people of that truth. If Trump does or says something I agree with, it’s hackish lunacy for me to say I disagree with it simply because it’s Trump saying or doing it. And vice versa.
I don’t work for the RNC or DNC. My job isn’t to take the talking points of the day and denounce or defend anything. When people say I should “support” Trump (or the GOP or the Democrats) what they mean is I should be a cheerleader regardless of the issues at play. When others say I should “oppose” Trump, they mean I should figure out a way to say he’s wrong about something even if he’s right. Almost no one ever makes a serious argument that my support or opposition will make a difference. To put it in Seinfeldian terms, they just want me to wear the pin. Walking with them—for a while—isn’t good enough.
Trump is not my king or pope. I am under no obligation to treat him as infallible or even presumptively correct on any issue. Nor am I obliged to treat everything he does as a Satanic act and make my arguments fit that conclusion. I just don’t have that team spirit.
That said, I do not think Trump is a good or wise man. I do not think he’s fit for the presidency. That means even when he’s correct about something, I reserve the right to doubt his motives and competence. He has not earned the benefit of the doubt on anything—from me, from his wives, from his supporters, from his business partners. He’s steadfastly earned all the doubts. And, if you want to argue that giving air to those doubts undermines some of the good or necessary things he’s doing, all I can say is, so be it. But I think you should be angrier at him for earning the animosity he receives than you are at those with animus toward him.
