Forever War

President Trump entered the Iran war promising a quick victory, decisive action and another demonstration that, in his own telling, no challenge was too big for the man with “the world’s biggest hammer.” Five months later, the hammer is still swinging wildly, loose nails are everywhere, and the toolbox is falling apart. The administration has discovered an inconvenient truth: starting a war is considerably easier than figuring out how to end one.

The president now finds himself trapped between three deeply unappealing choices. He can escalate the conflict and risk a broader regional war, rising civilian casualties and dwindling U.S. military stockpiles. He can tighten sanctions and wait: something no president who measures success by tomorrow morning’s headlines particularly enjoys. Or he can declare victory and head home, leaving behind many of the very problems that he invoked as justifying the intervention in the first place.

Meanwhile, America’s allies have learned that international agreements now come with an expiration date roughly equivalent to a carton of milk. A nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia was celebrated one day, only to acquire a brand-new condition the next. Canada discovered that trade agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. And NATO countries don’t know from one day to the next whether they still have an ally in the U.S. or a serial antagonist. Diplomacy has become improv theater, with every participant wishing someone had brought a script.

Trump’s hubris recently expressed itself with the swagger and flourish of a peacock’s conspicuous display, bragging that he was limited only by “my own morality” in an interview with The New York Times.

Emboldened by the seemingly painless operation to capture Nicolás Maduro, he evidently decided this initiative could be easily replicated and dubbed it the “Venezuela Model.” But the Venezuela Model didn’t survive first contact with the reality of Middle East geopolitics.

Five months after the start of the war, Trump has accomplished none of his stated goals.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that a president who campaigned on projecting limitless strength has instead collided with the oldest lesson in foreign policy: power has limits. And as Trump’s party approaches the midterms, they face the the novel discovery that, even if their president wields the world’s biggest hammer, not every problem is a nail.

(Cartoon from the archives)