7 Very Simple Reasons Why Trump Chose a Regime Change War in Iran
The president is not a complex man and it appears his rationale for this decision is not too complex to understand either.
“When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big league ball players, the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. Now, I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war. Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.”
Last weekend I presented this for your consideration as the beat of the war drums began growing louder:
This weekened, now that so many Americans are worried and perplexed about what will come next and why, I thought I’d offer a stylistic and thematic sequel.
Why exactly did Trump do this? The administration has put forward a whole lot of explanations and we all know they’re bullshit. So what is really going through Trump’s head? What pushed him to abandon over a decade’s worth of pledges to never attempt a Middle East war like what President George W. Bush unleashed in Iraq? And why can’t he just come out and tell us why we’re really doing this?
Having surveyed the coverage that has emerged since yesterday’s strike which resulted in the death of Ali Hosseini Khamenei (1939-2026), here is my initial explanation for why Trump chose as he did:
Israel, Saudi Arabia, and (most likely) the UAE encouraged him to do this. This benefits them more than us.
He was embolded by his success in kidnapping Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro.
He was being egged on by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth who both want this for different ideological reasons. (And no, I do not indulge in this “Department of War” bullshit.)
Trump sees his friends in Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE as the “winners” in the region.
Trump likes to back “winners.” He doesn’t have real principles, he has self-preservation instincts. In his view, the way to survive is to support and stand with the winning side. And Trump correctly assesses that a Jewish state in alliance with the region’s Arab monarchies will win. Hence the “Patton” clip above. Trump correctly understands this about the American psychology and “Patton” is apparently one of his favorite movies. So now he gets to play general in real life.
The CIA tracked Khamanei the last few months and gave Israel the intelligence of where he would be and when—at a high level meeting with a whole bunch of other regime officials, now obliterated also. Trump knew that Khamanei would die.
Finally—and most importantly for Trump—backing Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE against Iran means boosting the business interests of his family, his golfing buddy Steve Witkoff, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and his whole menagerie of allied crypto scammers, conspiracy theory podcasters, sex traffickers, and Russian gangsters. Trump and his folowers may want to imagine themselves as George Patton but they’re really Jerry Maguire. They think that decapitating the Islamic regime in Iran will bring them more money. And they’re right to think that, it might very well do that. But it’s more likely that won’t be the case and this is just going to devolve into years of quagmire that pours endless amounts of blood and gold down the toilet. I am not at all optimistic here and no American should be. We’ve been on this ride too many times now and know how it ends.
Oh man, am I ever perpetually dating myself (Xennial solidarity) with this reference but I don’t care, I’m going to keep pulling it out as this is simply who we are as Americans:
And—why not?— as a bonus to you all, I will just point out the downsides that Trump is perhaps not considering in the above calculations:
The price of gas is almost certainly going to shoot up (oil already jumped 10%) as Iran will disrupt the shipping of oil and other goods through the waterways they control.
This is ridiculously unpopular. Only 21% of Americans support starting a war with Iran, so Trump can kiss the midterms goodbye.
The MAGA base is now further fragmented. This will aid the fascist “cohort” that conservative filmmaker Jeremy Boreing named at the end of January in his interview with Triggernometry: “Tucker Carlson is part of a small cohort of people—cohort includes Marjorie Taylor Greene, cohort includes Steve Bannon, cohort includes Nick Fuentes, although I’m not saying that Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson believe all of the same things—but these are people engaged in an actual political project.”
Anti-Trump opposition is now further unified and energized. Leftists, liberals, moderates, independents, libertarians, populist-nationalists, conspiracy theory-obsesssed antisemites and even the NeverTrump Bulwark neoconservatives like me are now unified together against a war with Iran and it’s embarrassing to have to stand alongside some of these clowns. It sucks having to read stuff from people like Matt Walsh and agree with it:
This will further exacerbate global antisemitism. Yesterday on Facebook, I had to argue with an old coworker from 17 years ago who wrote that “we now have a government that is completely controlled by the nation of Israel. As long as Donald Trump is in charge this will not change. We are in this position because Israel provided underage girls for Donald Trump to rape for the last thirty years. Donald Trump is protecting himself by giving Israel everything it wants.” When pressed for evidence all he could point to was Jeffrey Epstein’s longstanding association with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Too many people are really stupid and this war will only inflame their emotions and confusion.
At some point, the regime may activate its terror cells around the world and we could see attacks on synagogues and other Jewish institutions. Prominent Jewish leaders need to be very cautious and consider extra security right now.
In addition to putting American troops’ lives at risk—three have already died—Trump has put himself, his family, and everyone working for him in greater personal danger by doing this. The Islamic regime in Iran is much more likely to attempt to assassinate him and/or others around him as retaliation.
One would think that this last point should have been enough to deter Trump from going along with the Israelis and Arab monarchies. But he’s probably just not thinking about it because he’s such an idiot.
“Well, we like war! We like war! We’re a war-like people! We like war because we’re good at it! You know why we’re good at it? Cause we get a lot of practice. This country’s only 200 years old and already, we’ve had 10 major wars. We average a major war every 20 years in this country so we’re good at it! And it’s a good thing we are; we’re not very good at anything else anymore! Huh? Can’t build a decent car, can’t make a TV set or a VCR worth a fuck, got no steel industry left, can’t educate our young people, can’t get health care to our old people, but we can bomb the shit out of your country all right! Huh? Especially if your country is full of brown people; oh we like that don’t we? That’s our hobby! That’s our new job in the world: bombing brown people. Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Libya, you got some brown people in your country, tell them to watch the fuck out or we’ll goddamn bomb them!”
A very good analysis. I note the emphasis in Trump’s first statements/posts on this now being the time for Iranians to seize power. I think those Trump are close to have convinced him the regime in Iran is close to collapse and these attacks will push it over the edge, enabling Trump, going into the mid terms to present a quick victory. In reality, the lesson of history is that air attacks actually consolidate the regime in power.
There are a few other points that need considering:
1. China gets (got!) most of their oil imports from Iran and Venezuela. This is part of the shaping operation to cut China off at the knees to deter it from attacking Taiwan in the next couple of years.
2. It is significant that none of the Democrats' congressional leadership who were briefed in the past few days on Iran have disputed the need to cripple Iran, only objecting that it was done without Congressional authorization (a real problem to be sure, but not one that started with Trump) and that it poses the risk of a forever war. All of the opposition on the merits is coming from the backbenchers like AOC, who are not the sharpest lightbulbs on the racetrack.
I think you are discounting the strategic reasons to go forward with the strike. And Trump doesn't want to say them out loud because he doesn't want the Chinese to lose face and feel compelled to respond.