Iran: Trump’s most dangerous gamble

By giving the green light to U.S. attacks in Iran, Donald Trump has sought to show, once again, that he is a president of action, willing to use his country’s immense military power to bend any nation that stands in his way. It is a high-stakes gamble that raises numerous questions and could ultimately define his presidency and legacy, as Iraq did for George W. Bush. The first U.S. casualties, in an offensive that is highly unpopular according to the polls, may put him to the test.

On Sunday, the U.S. Central Command, responsible for U.S. forces in the Middle East, reported the deaths of three U.S. soldiers and serious injuries to five others. While it did not provide details on how or where the incident occurred, its statement mentioned shrapnel wounds and concussions among other lightly injured service members, suggesting an Iranian missile. Iran has launched hundreds of rockets and drones against U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf.

For now, Trump appears euphoric and claims the offensive is moving much faster than expected. According to him, U.S. forces are on their way to sinking the Iranian fleet and have already destroyed the country’s naval headquarters. He also maintains that Iran’s new leaders want to negotiate after the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the bombings.

But there are no signs that, at least for the moment, the Iranian leadership is weakening or yielding its positions. “The U.S. administration seems to expect that Khamenei’s death will pave the way for an implosion of the entire theocratic system, but there are no signs that the system is losing control,” said Trita Parsi, vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “And there is a very dangerous element for the United States: Khamenei was a religious leader with many followers in Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Pakistan, and this could lead to significant destabilization in those states and attacks against U.S. assets there.”

The regime’s resistance could prolong the U.S.-Israeli offensive beyond what Trump calculated — and cause more casualties among U.S. soldiers, something voters may not forgive. Operation Epic Fury has been deeply unpopular from the start: only 27% of Americans approve of the attacks, while 43% condemn them, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. The announcement of the bombings already caused sharp divisions within the MAGA movement, the president’s most loyal supporters.

Trump’s fixation on Iran, which he has attacked for the second time in nine months, makes clear how much foreign policy dominates the term of a president who, during the campaign, appealed to the isolationist sentiments of his supporters.

The candidate who promised not to meddle in other countries’ wars now has on his hands — among other geopolitical priorities — the oversight of Venezuela, effectively turned into a U.S. protectorate since the January 3 intervention; supposed negotiations with Cuba, where he says he could carry out a “friendly takeover,” hinting at another possible regime change; attempts to end the war in Ukraine; and managing, together with other countries, how to proceed after the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs he imposed last year.

For months, his advisers have unsuccessfully tried to persuade him to pay more attention to the economic situation and the cost of living —issues far more important to voters in an election year, one that will determine whether Republicans maintain their fragile control of both chambers of Congress or whether Democrats regain control of an institution key to placing limits on Trump.

For now, the question is what will happen in the coming days in Iran. “Heavy and pinpoint bombing [...] will continue uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of peace throughout the Middle East and, indeed, the world,” the president promised on Saturday in a message on his social network, Truth Social.

With this statement, the Republican signaled a shift from his previous preference for quick, highly cinematic strikes with relatively low risk for U.S. soldiers. Trump acknowledged the likelihood that this time there would indeed be casualties among U.S. troops, unlike what happened in the intervention in Venezuela to capture Nicolás Maduro or, last June, in the attack on nuclear facilities inside Iran.

A longer campaign could trigger Iranian reprisals in other countries in the region — in its first response, Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles against U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf — and could expand the conflict to other parts of the Middle East. This is especially likely if radical groups backed by Tehran decide to retalliate.

It is also unclear what might happen inside Iran regarding calls for regime change. The massive U.S. military deployment cannot, on its own, impose a new government. It does not include ground forces, and never in history has such an objective been achieved solely through long‑distance bombing.

It also remains to be seen whether the Iran’s Armed Forces and its citizens will heed Trump’s call to rise up against their government or instead rally around it in the face of a foreign aggressor. And if an uprising were to occur, it is equally uncertain what might replace the current ayatollah-led regime.

Jonathan Panikoff, from the Atlantic Council, predicts that the most likely outcome would not be a liberal democracy, but rather “something like Guardistan” that installs a new supreme leader to reassure millions of conservative Iranians, while keeping real power firmly in the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.

Even if a democracy were to emerge, there is still no clear roadmap for how that would happen: it is unknown whether it would be possible to replicate the current experiment taking place in Venezuela, or whether a civil war would begin instead. The Iranian opposition, after decades of the Islamic Republic, is deeply divided, with a large part of it in exile. Nor has Trump’s staying power been tested — he is not known for his patience — if the situation drags on or if his troops begin to suffer casualties or setbacks.

“By attacking Iran, President Trump is risking the lives of U.S. servicemembers for an unnecessary war under the false notion that a country as weak and remote as Iran, which cannot strike the American homeland, posed an imminent threat to the United States,” Rosemary Kelanic, director of the Middle East program at the think tank Defense Priorities, posted on X after Saturday’s strike.

She continued: “No case has been made to the American people about what this war is about, let alone why it is vital for our security. There is no articulated or clear set of objectives for striking Iran, nor is there a feasible military plan for achieving U.S. aims, whatever those may be, at acceptable cost and risk. Wars launched without clearly defined goals can expand beyond strategic sense — and as 25 years of failed U.S. policies show, it is easier to start a war in the Middle East than to end one.”

Over the course of these two months of threats against Iran, Donald Trump consistently insisted that he wanted to reach an agreement through diplomatic channels. His favored envoys, Steve Witkoff and his own son-in-law, Jared Kushner, traveled on three occasions for as many rounds of indirect negotiations, in Oman and Geneva, over Iran’s nuclear program.

Meanwhile, however, the United States was building up a massive naval and air deployment in the Middle East, including two aircraft carriers —one of them, the Gerald Ford, the largest in the world and the most modern in the U.S. fleet, which was used in the operation in Venezuela.

“It is possible that last year’s cost-free bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites and the more recent intervention in Venezuela made Trump and those around him highly confident that they could achieve ambitious ends with limited means at a low cost,” Richard Haass, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote on his Substack newsletter. “But history warns that regime change is easier called for than successfully carried out — and that while it only takes one side to begin a war, it takes two to end it. Iran now has a vote in how big this conflict becomes and how long it endures.”

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