The Memo: US faces sea of risk if Trump presses ahead with Iran attack
President Trump looked to be on the cusp of deciding whether to join Israel's attack on Iran on Wednesday.
Trump told reporters at the White House that he had 'ideas' of what he wanted to do but had not reached a definitive conclusion. In general, he said, he likes 'to make a final decision one second before it's due.'
Late on Wednesday afternoon, the Wall Street Journal reported that, the previous day, Trump had told senior aides that he had signed off on plans to attack Iran but had not ordered those plans put fully into motion until he saw whether Iran would abandon its nuclear program.
Iran has vigorously defended its right to continue enriching uranium, even as the nation's leaders have insisted the substance is intended only for civilian use.
The political push and pull over whether U.S. forces should directly participate in the Israel-led assault is intense. It has huge stakes for the region at large, and perhaps for Trump's presidency as well.
On a purely practical level, it has been widely reported that Israel needs direct American assistance to accomplish even its most short-term goal of destroying the Iranian nuclear program.
One of the key Iranian enrichment facilities, at Fordow, is built into a mountain. Destroying it likely requires the use of enormous 'bunker buster' 30,000-lb bombs which only the U.S. possesses or has a plane capable of transporting: the B-2 bomber.
Many voices in Trump's party support muscular American backing for its Middle East ally, with figures like Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to the fore in making that argument. But in the wider Make America Great Again (MAGA) world, there are voices who are highly skeptical of such an enterprise.
The divide was shown to dramatic effect in a long and contentious interview between Cruz and Tucker Carlson on the topic which went viral on Wednesday. Carlson is perhaps the most influential figure warning against the U.S. getting sucked into another major foreign conflict after years of being mired in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The arguments of the pro-war side extend beyond merely the standard U.S. support to Israel, which has long relied on a gusher of American military aid.
Proponents say Iran is at a key crossroads – unusually dangerous because of the relatively short time it would hypothetically need to become a nuclear power, but unusually weak because of the series of setbacks suffered by its proxies and those to whom it was sympathetic: Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and the now-toppled regime of former President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
But if some people see a rare window of opportunity to topple the theocrats who have run Iran since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, others warn about the sheer scale of the risks.
One obvious issue is the potential vulnerability of U.S. troops elsewhere in the region if American forces attack Iran directly.
There are an estimated 13,500 U.S. forces in Kuwait, 10,000 in Qatar, 9,000 in Bahrain and 2,500 still in Iraq, The New York Times estimated on Wednesday. All would be in close range of Iran.
Of course, those troops will all be on heightened alert and are well fortified. But the loss of any U.S. lives at all could change the political dynamics for Trump at home.
Back in 1980, then-President Carter suffered a disaster in the Iranian desert when an attempt to rescue hostages failed. Several helicopters used in the covert mission failed and eight U.S. service members were killed.
The circumstances were admittedly very different, but the fact remains that the loss of American lives can easily become politically catastrophic. Then there are the economic effects of an all-out war to consider.
The price of oil has climbed roughly 10 percent over the past week. A sustained price rise will be a drag on industry and a driver of inflation. The Strait of Hormuz, which passes along the Iranian coast, is a conduit for about one-fifth of global oil supplies.
Another huge question: What would be the objective of an American assault? Would it be simply to destroy Iran's uranium enrichment facilities or would it be aimed at toppling the regime?
If the latter is the real objective, there are a multitude of complications.
Even though many Iranians are unhappy with the leadership of the mullahs, that does not mean they would welcome Washington toppling them, especially at the behest of the hated Israel.
Who would replace the current leadership, and what legitimacy would the new leadership have? How would a new government even be arrived at? And, if that process proved tortuous and violent, what role could the U.S. have in trying to pacify a nation of almost 90 million people?
None of it seems appealing to many of the Trump voters who grew tired of what MAGA figures like Steve Bannon call 'forever wars' elsewhere.
Meanwhile, even if the U.S. did have more modest objectives, pertaining to the destruction of nuclear capability, the Iranians could rebuild that over time.
Indeed, Iranians might well consider it an imperative to do so at full velocity — if they come to see the failure to acquire nuclear weapons as one reason their enemies felt at liberty to attack in the first place.
To be sure, many worst-case scenarios might not come to pass.
But there are more than enough factors to give Americans serious pause for thought as Trump considers his next move.
The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.
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