Analysis: Trump keeps everyone guessing on whether he'll go to war in Iran — perhaps including himself
He might do it. But he might not. And you've got no idea whether he will. Then again, neither does he.
Donald Trump's riffing ahead of the most wrenching national security decision in either of his presidencies is nothing like the complex war-gaming and careful tilling of public opinion that most commanders in chief require before they send Americans off to fight.
Trump's vague soliloquies and ambiguous comments, on camera and online, seem glib and even negligent given the grave potential consequences of a US attack on Iran's nuclear sites.
But it's how he rolls. He wants to keep friends and foes guessing. He's shown that he believes unpredictability and volatility — factors that most presidents seek to avoid in national security crises — offer him a key advantage.
Trump loves to be the center of attention with the world hanging on his every word. His equivocating creates space for him to postpone the moment of decision and to avoid locking in definitive courses of action he can't reverse. His fans say it's genius. But there's not much evidence that strategy transfers from a real estate magnate's boardroom to complex geopolitical showdowns and global peacemaking.
Iran's ayatollahs, Israel, US allies, members of Congress, pundits, reporters and Americans watching at home can never be certain what Trump might do next. And no modern president has ever managed the run-up to a possible war as though he is sketching a series of cliffhangers to compel viewers to watch the next episode. Trump is no JFK calmly averting nuclear war with high-pressure diplomatic chess during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Trump's critics have dreaded the moment when he'd face the kind of international crisis he largely avoided during his first term. And his style has serious drawbacks.
His administration has yet to take the American people into its confidence and explain why it has suddenly changed its view that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon. Now, Trump says it's weeks away from one. There's no sign the administration intends to seek authorization from Congress for a possible new act of war against Iran — as the Constitution requires. And it's refusing to say whether it's gamed out how an attack on Iran's nuclear plant at Fordow could reverberate through a treacherous region and whether it has any kind of exit strategy.
This would be troubling in isolation. But following Washington's disastrous history of plunging into quagmires caused by paltry planning for the day after shock-and-awe beginnings, it's tempting fate. And Trump's serial dishonesty and scorched-earth leadership style mean millions of Americans will need a lot more than his word to trust any decision to wage military action.
The president's plans might be a mystery. But his calculation is a simple one.
He must decide whether US interests are served by joining Israel's assault on Iran to try to destroy the Islamic Republic's nuclear program with unique bunker-busting capabilities that only the United States possesses.
It's a tough call because of the potential consequences: Iranian attacks on US bases in the Middle East, potential terrorist attacks on US targets, and a shockwave that could destabilize the world if the regime in Tehran collapses.
The latest developments are ominous. A third US aircraft carrier group is moving toward the Middle East. A fierce war of words between Trump and Iran's clerical leaders is heating up. And the president is huddling in daily Situation Room meetings with his top national security aides.
CNN reported on Wednesday that the president is preoccupied with finding a way to strike key targets of Iran's nuclear program without being dragged into a full-scale war. Sources familiar with the matter said he wants to avoid the kind of open-ended conflict like those in Iraq and Afghanistan that he's vowed to avoid and that he used as a catalyst for his rise among MAGA voters skeptical of war.
These revelations might offer Americans some comfort since they suggest that the president is weighing the implications of his decisions with greater diligence than his offhand patter suggests.
There's some logic to his position. No one expects Trump to put US troops on the ground — they could be a sitting target in Iran or in any post-war failed state insurgency, as happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump's first-term assassination raid that killed Iranian intelligence chief Qasem Soleimani didn't unleash fury against US targets that many analysts expected. And US bases in the region are heavily defended against missile attacks. There's also some question about how much Iran's degraded military can now throw at the US and Israel.
But US foreign policy of the last 25 years is haunted by false assumptions about the behavior of adversaries when they are attacked. As Trump said himself last month in Saudi Arabia, US officials were often meddling in societies they didn't understand.
So, it's fair to ask whether Trump has any idea what he's getting into.
A watching world is no wiser after the president's public appearances Wednesday.
'I mean, you don't know that I'm going to even do it. You don't know. I may do it, I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do,' Trump told reporters who asked him about his plans for Iran as he unveiled two massive flagpoles at the White House. 'Nothing's finished until it's finished. You know, war is very complex. A lot of bad things can happen. A lot of turns are made.'
Later, in the Oval Office, Trump told CNN's Kaitlan Collins that he hadn't made a final decision on what to do as he's besieged by pressure for action by Israelis and warnings from his own MAGA base to stay out of foreign wars. 'I have ideas as to what to do, but I haven't made a final — I like to make the final decision one second before it's due, you know, because things change.'
Trump's lack of precision worries Democrats.
'It's obviously unclear where his head is at right now. I think he was pretty indecisive on the subject of Iran, which I can understand,' California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff said on 'The Situation Room.'
'This is a difficult call. But I don't think we got much guidance as to whether he is optimistic about talks with Iran leaning in towards a potential strike on Iran,' Schiff said, reacting to one of Trump's meandering press availabilities. 'It was pretty nebulous, the kind of usual stream-of-consciousness.'
There's confusion about conflicting intelligence assessments in the US and Israel about Iran's nuclear progress. Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner is part of a group of senior lawmakers who are given access to the most sensitive classified information. But he's as much in the dark as anyone about what's next.
'I'm a member … of the Gang of Eight. We're supposed to know,' Warner told CNN's Kasie Hunt. 'I have no foggy idea what this administration's plans are or what the foreign policy is vis-a-vis Iran.'
The question of the administration's contingency planning is also coming into focus. But don't expect any details.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was confronted by Michigan Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin during a hearing on Wednesday. Slotkin speaks from experience: She was a CIA officer who completed combat tours in Baghdad after the George W. Bush administration's disastrous lack of forethought for how to win peace in Iraq.
'Have you commissioned any day-after planning?' Slotkin asked. 'Any force protection, any use of ground troops, in Iran; any cost assessments, because I don't think we doubt what we can do as a country, and in the attack. It's the day after with Iraq and Afghanistan that so many of us have learned to be so deeply concerned about.
Hegseth reacted with disdain. 'We have plans for everything, Senator,' he said.
Trump showed similar hubris. 'I have a plan for everything, but we'll see what happens,' he told reporters on the Oval Office.
The president also says he's open to diplomacy. But there's no sign of a James Baker-style peace shuttle.
Far from offering his adversary a face-saving off-ramp. Trump is demanding total surrender at the outset. While this may match Israel's goals, it's a nonstarter for Iran's revolutionary corps of leaders in Tehran, who've founded their regime on more than 45 years of defying successive American presidents.
Trump often seems to be operating in a parallel universe. He for instance insists Iranian leaders wanted to meet and 'to come to the White House.'
Iran strongly denied any such aspirations.
'We are not begging for anything,' Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi told CNN's Christiane Amanpour. 'As long as the aggression continues, as long as this brutality continues, we cannot think of engaging.'
This points to one of the liabilities of Trump's diplomacy, which also helps explained his failed Ukraine peace drive. His administration shows little skill in creating openings and multilayered negotiating scenarios that can loosen entrenched positions. Trump makes maximalist demands. When interlocutors demur, the process grinds to a halt.
So, for now, the country seems on a path to another venture in the Middle East, with uncertain consequences.
But Trump had one more cliffhanger.
'Anything could happen,' he said, when asked if the regime in Iran could fall in a response which exemplifies his entire presidency.
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