Analysis: Why it will be hard for Trump to stay out of the conflict with Iran
President Donald Trump is desperate not to fight a war with Iran.
But can he really avoid it?
Compelling national security arguments and domestic political considerations mean it makes sense to stop short of direct US offensive operations in the long-dreaded conflict that Israel describes as a matter of preserving its own existence.
But powerful forces could suck America deeper into the conflict than its current role in helping to shield Israel from Iran's deadly rain of missiles and drones.
CNN reported that over the weekend, Trump rejected an Israeli plan to kill Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to two sources.
But some of this is out of Trump's hands.
Should Iran's battered regime decide it has nothing to lose and attack US bases and personnel in the region, or US targets across the globe, Washington will be forced to respond hard to preserve credibility and deterrence. Another possibility is that Tehran could create duress on Trump to rein in Israel by attacking international shipping in the Gulf or Red Sea and bring on a global energy crisis.
Pressure is also mounting on Trump from inside his own party for action that only the United States could carry out — a mission to destroy Iran's subterranean site at Fordow, which is believed to be beyond Israel's airborne capabilities. The logic of such a strike would be that Iran is now uniquely vulnerable, and a better chance may never come for the US to destroy the possibility of an Iranian nuclear weapon.
CNN's White House team has reported that the president is deeply skeptical about throwing the United States into the fray. Such a move would be fraught with danger. It could lead to the expansion of the conflict beyond its current belligerents and lead to a grueling open-ended war with no clear endgame.
If there is one lesson from the early 21st century, it's that war objectives and analyses of the Middle East drawn up in Washington almost always turn out disastrously wrong. The idea that Iran's brutal clerical regime could fall might be attractive. But the toppling of Saddam Hussein and the civil war in Syria show that Middle East nations can simply splinter when power vacuums open.
A US intervention would also widen deep strains in Trump's political base and dismantle a core principle of his 'America first' movement: that the United States should stay out of foreign quagmires after more than a decade of pain in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is only a few weeks, after all, since the president set out a new vision for the Middle East and American involvement.
'The so-called nation-builders wrecked far more nations than they built — and the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves,' Trump said in a major speech in Saudi Arabia in May. 'A new generation of leaders is transcending the ancient conflicts and tired divisions of the past and forging a future where the Middle East is defined by commerce, not chaos; where it exports technology, not terrorism; and where people of different nations, religions and creeds are building cities together — not bombing each other out of existence.'
A new American war is utterly incompatible with such a vision. Still, hawks in Washington might argue that Trump has a unique opportunity to remove the major impediment to his vision by eradicating Iran's path to a nuclear weapon or even contributing to the toppling of its theocratic leadership.
Presidents have often written in their memoirs about momentous and agonizing choices to deploy troops in foreign wars. Sometimes, however, a decision not to rush in even when it appears tempting requires as much courage.
Dilemmas like the one now facing Trump typically come with negative outcomes either way.
Political heat is already mounting on the president to come off the sidelines even as the United States made clear that Israel's decision to launch major attacks against Iran is its alone and that Washington's forces have no offensive involvement.
One of the complicating factors for Trump is that while Israel's attacks seem to have been successful in taking out top military leaders and nuclear scientists, it remains unclear whether Israel has the capacity to eradicate Iran's nuclear program itself.
Former Vice President Mike Pence said on 'State of the Union' Sunday that if Israel's attack doesn't somehow convince Iran to make major concessions in Trump's diplomatic attempt to end its nuclear program, then the United States should be prepared to join the conflict.
'Now, if the Iranians want to stand down, I think the president's made it clear he's willing to enter into negotiations. But there can be no nuclear program of any kind, no enrichment program of any kind,' Pence told CNN's Dana Bash. 'And at the end of the day, if Israel needs our help to ensure that the Iranian nuclear program is destroyed once and for all, the United States of America needs to be prepared to do it, because this is about protecting our most cherished ally.'
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham argued the worst possible outcome of a conflict between Israel and Iran would be for Tehran's nuclear capabilities — which it has long denied are designed to build a bomb — to remain.
'If diplomacy is not successful, and we are left with the option of force, I would urge President Trump to go all in to make sure that, when this operation is over, there's nothing left standing in Iran regarding their nuclear program,' Graham, a key Trump ally, said on CBS' 'Face the Nation.' 'If that means providing bombs, provide bombs. If that means flying with Israel, fly with Israel.'
These calculations are difficult enough. But Trump also faces a complex domestic political scenario that is the result of his own transformation of the GOP into a more isolationist party. This means he faces a different political scenario than the one before President George W. Bush when he went into Afghanistan and Iraq.
Some of the loudest voices on the right, including Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk, have already warned Trump against fracturing trust with the MAGA base by diving into a new Middle East war. The president has always been extremely careful with his own complex coalition. He's loath to take steps that annoy his voters. One example was his turnaround last week in halting deportation sweeps against agricultural workers — partly to avoid angering farmers and employers in the rural heartlands where he draws much of his support.
Trump's preoccupation with the political costs was evident in a conversation with journalist Michael Scherer of The Atlantic on Sunday.
'Well, considering that I'm the one that developed 'America first,' and considering that the term wasn't used until I came along, I think I'm the one that decides that,' Trump told Scherer. 'For those people who say they want peace — you can't have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon. So for all of those wonderful people who don't want to do anything about Iran having a nuclear weapon — that's not peace.'
The president appeared to be rehearsing an argument for his base that he'd have to use if he joined Israeli action. It's fascinating to watch him wrestling with a conundrum between national security arguments that would face any conventional American president and the sectors of the political movement that lifted him to power. He doesn't seem absolutely convinced yet by his own argument, perhaps because, as Kirk pointed out, younger male voters who flocked to his reelection campaign last year do not want to join a 'quagmire' in the Middle East.
This is hardly where Trump hoped to be early in his presidency — one reason he appeared so bullish even as recently as this month about his effort to force Iran to agree a deal to peacefully end its nuclear program.
Trump started his second term vowing to be a peacemaker.
But five months in, two major wars raging when he took office are worse and the dangerous new conflict with Iran promises the greatest test of 'America first' restraint.
Trump's authority has been flouted by three key leaders: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And his 'art of the deal' approach to foreign policy is a failure.
Putin has ignored Trump's efforts to end the Ukraine war. Xi has twice forced the US leader to fold in their trade war. And Netanyahu's decision to launch the conflict with Iran that American presidents have long sought to avoid appears to have scuttled Trump's Iran diplomacy — and is based on a bet that no American president could afford not to defend Israel even if he differed with its decisions.
At home, presidents must create public trust for their decisions to go to war. Here, Trump may struggle since he's alienated millions of people with his searing approach to affairs at home. This includes his decision to deploy the military in California amid anti-ICE protests last week and warnings he plans to use troops everywhere.
Trump's second term has already belied the notion that the weight of his personality, supposed respect for him among foreign adversaries, and what aides see as an almost magical dealmaking ability would change the world. The promised rush of trade deals shaken loose by his tariffs, for example, has not materialized.
Trump's first peacemaking foray — in Gaza — failed. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are now facing starvation as Israel's pounding of the Strip, triggered by Hamas' attacks in October 2023, continues.
The president's effort to end the Ukraine war never went anywhere. The conflict widened. It spread into Russia with Ukrainian raids on Russian bases that prompted Putin to launch vicious attacks on civilians in Kyiv and elsewhere. The White House made it known that Trump was getting frustrated with the Russian leader and set a two-week deadline to consider tougher sanctions on Moscow. But nothing revealed the risible nature of that spin and Trump's biased attitude to the war more than his excitement on Saturday that Putin had called to wish him a happy birthday.
Events have overtaken Trump's 'American first' reticence to get involved abroad and exposed the shallowness of his statesmanship. Worsening crises may offer a preview of a world that becomes more volatile in the absence of steady and constant American leadership.
Trump's increasingly brittle domestic political grounding and his already questionable authority internationally will only complicate his dilemmas. In many ways the Iran conflict is the kind of international crisis with no easy answers that he avoided in his first term.
Now it could define his second.
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Yahoo
7 minutes ago
- Yahoo
An Iranian attack on US military bases could draw the UK into the conflict
When I got to Chequers on Sunday morning the prime minister had clearly been up for most of the night and hitting the phones all morning with calls to fellow leaders in Europe and the Middle East as he and others scrambled to try to contain a very dangerous situation. His primary message on Sunday was to try to reassure the public that the UK government was working to stabilise the region as best it could and press for a return to diplomacy. But what struck me in our short interview was not what he did say but what he didn't - what he couldn't - say about the US strikes. It was clear from his swerve on the question of whether the UK supported the strikes that the prime minister neither wanted to endorse US strikes nor overtly criticise President Trump. Instead, his was a form of words - repeated later in a joint statement of the E3 (the UK, Germany and France) to acknowledge the US strikes and reiterate where they can agree: the need to prevent Iran having a nuclear weapon. He also didn't want to engage in the very obvious observation that President Trump simply isn't listening to Sir Keir Starmer or other allies, who had been very publicly pressing for de-escalation all week, from the G7 summit in Canada to this weekend as European countries convened talks in Geneva with Iran. It was only five days ago that the prime minister told me he didn't think a US attack was imminent when I asked him what was going on following President Trump's abrupt decision to quit the G7 early and convene his security council at the White House. When I asked him if he felt foolish or frustrated that Trump had done that and didn't seem to be listening, he told me it was a "fast moving situation" with a "huge amount of discussions in the days since the G7" and said he was intensely pressing his consistent position of de-escalation. What else really could he say? He has calculated that criticising Trump goes against UK interests and has no other option but to press for a diplomatic solution and work with other leaders to achieve that aim. Before these strikes, Tehran was clear it would not enter negotiations until Israel stopped firing missiles into Iran - something Israel is still saying on Sunday evening it is not prepared to do. The US has been briefing that one of the reasons it took action was because it did not think the Iranians were taking the talks convened by the Europeans in Geneva seriously enough. It is hard now to see how these strikes will not serve but to deepen the conflict in the Middle East and the mood in government is bleak. Iran will probably conclude that continuing to strike only Israel in light of the US attacks - the first airstrikes ever by the US on Iran - is a response that will make the regime seem weak. Read more: But escalation could draw the UK into a wider conflict it does not want. If Iran struck US assets, it could trigger article five of NATO (an attack on one is an attack on all) and draw the UK into military action. If Iran chose to attack the US via proxies, then UK bases and assets could be under threat. The prime minister was at pains to stress on Sunday that the UK had not been involved in these strikes. Meanwhile, the UK-controlled airbase on Diego Garcia was not used to launch the US attacks, with B-2 bombers deployed from Guam instead. There was no request to use the Diego Garcia base, the president moving unilaterally, underlining his disinterest in what the UK has to say. The world is waiting nervously to see how Iran might respond, as the PM moves more military assets to the region while simultaneously hitting the phones. The prime minister may be deeply opposed to this war, but stopping it is not in his gift.
Fox News
8 minutes ago
- Fox News
Inside the Situation Room, where Trump and his national security team monitored 'spectacular' success on Iran
President Donald Trump reported to the West Wing's Situation Room multiple times across the past week as the conflict in Iran came to a rolling boil and the president ordered strikes on a trio of Iranian nuclear facilities Saturday evening in a surprise operation that took the world by surprise. Trump returned to the Situation Room Saturday as the U.S. targeted Iran's nuclear facilities, and was flanked by key officials such as Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, according to photos from inside the room published late Saturday. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was also in the Situation Room, the White House confirmed to Fox Digital. Trump publicly announced the strikes in a Truth Social post Saturday evening, which came as a surprise to the world, as there were no media leaks or speculation such an attack was imminent. He then delivered an address to the nation on the strikes, lauding them as a "spectacular military success." "A short time ago, the U.S. military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime: Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan," he said. "Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise. Our objective was the destruction of Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity, and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world's number one state sponsor of terror. Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success." "For 40 years, Iran has been saying, 'Death to America. Death to Israel.' They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs with roadside bombs," Trump continued. "That was their specialty. We lost over a thousand people, and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East and around the world have died as a direct result of their hate in particular." Ahead of the strikes, Trump floated Wednesday he might order an attack on Iran as negotiations on its nuclear program fell apart and the president made repeated trips to the Situation Room. "Yes, I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do. I can tell you this that Iran's got a lot of trouble, and they want to negotiate," Trump told reporters Wednesday on the U.S. potentially striking Iran as it continues trading deadly strikes with Israel. "And I said, why didn't you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction? Why didn't you go? I said to people, why didn't you negotiate with me two weeks ago? You could have done fine. You would have had a country. It's very sad to watch this." Fox News Digital spoke to previous presidential administration officials — Fox News host and former Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who served under the first Trump administration, and former National Security Advisor under the first Trump administration John Bolton, who also served as ambassador to the U.N. under President George W. Bush's administration. They both conveyed the serious and historic tone the room and its meetings typically hold. The Situation Room is a high-tech 5,000-square-foot complex in the West Wing of the White House that includes multiple conference rooms. President John F. Kennedy commissioned the complex in 1961 following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion to overthrow the Castro regime in Cuba that same year, according to the National Archives. The complex was built in order to provide future presidents a dedicated area for crisis management, and was revamped in 2006 and renovated again in 2023. "I often would sit there and think about the Osama bin Laden raid," McEnany told Fox News Digital in a phone interview Thursday morning. "This is where we saw our heroic Special Forces take out Osama bin Laden during the Obama administration. And I think we're at another point where similar decisions are being made, and even bigger decisions that may change the course of history are happening right now in that room." Trump had spent hours in the Situation Room since June 16, including on Thursday morning, when he received an intelligence briefing with national security advisers, which followed a Situation Room meeting on Wednesday afternoon, another meeting on Tuesday afternoon with national security advisers and a Monday evening meeting upon his abrupt return from the G7 summit in Canada this week. Top national security officials, including Hegseth, Gabbard, Vance, Rubio and Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, were among officials who joined Trump in the meetings as the administration weighs the spiraling conflict. Bolton explained to Fox Digital in a Thursday morning phone interview that two types of top-level meetings are held in the Situation Room. The first is known as a "principals meeting," he said, which includes Cabinet secretaries, such as the secretary of state and secretary of defense, and is chaired by the national security advisor — a role currently filled by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. "The principals committee usually meets to try and get everything sorted out so that they know what decisions the president is going to be confronted with," Bolton said. "They try and make sure all the information is pulled together so we can make an informed decision, set out the options they see, what the pros and cons are, and then have (the president) briefed." The second type of Situation Room meeting at the top level are official National Security Council meetings, which the president chairs. "He chairs a full NSC meeting, and people review the information, update the situation, and the president can go back and forth with the advisors about asking questions, probing about the analysis, asking for more detail on something, kind of picking and choosing among the options, or suggesting new options," said Bolton, who served as Trump's national security advisor between April 2018 and September 2019. "And out of that could well come decisions," he added. McEnany served as the first Trump administration's top spokeswoman at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the Coronavirus Task Force operated out of the Situation Room as COVID-19 swept across the nation. "A lot of critical decisions were made during the pandemic," she said. "It's a humbling encounter. Every time you go in, you leave your phone at the door. You go in, I think it's like 5,000 square feet, you're sitting there, there's clocks up from every country around the world, the different time zones. And you're just sitting there as critical decisions are made. And, in my case, it was regarding the pandemic, and there's back and forth, there's deliberation, and these decisions are made with the president there, obviously." She continued that during the pandemic, the task force would spend hours in the Situation Room on a daily basis as the team fielded an onslaught of updates from across the country. Trump frequently received the top lines from the meetings and joined the Situation Room during key decisions amid the spread of the virus. "When he was in there, absolutely, there's a deference," she said, referring to how the tone of the room would change upon Trump's arrival. "Yet, you had key officials who spoke up, who were not afraid to give their point of view to him. But I think there's a recognition he's the commander in chief." Press secretaries typically do not attend high-profile National Security Council meetings in the Situation Room, but have security clearances and can call into the room if needed, and are given updates from senior officials. McEnany added that press secretaries wouldn't typically want to be in the room for high-stakes talks because "you don't want your head filled with these sensitive deliberations of classified information" when speaking with the media. Bolton explained that for an issue such as Iran, the Situation Room meetings were likely restrictive and included top national security officials, such as the secretary of defense, director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Sometimes it includes many more people, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Commerce Secretary, things like that," he said. "But in with this kind of decision, it could be very restrictive, so maybe just – well, there is no national security advisor – but, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Director of National Intelligence, CIA Director, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, maybe the attorney general." Trump's first national security advisor under the second administration, Mike Waltz, was removed from the role and nominated as the next U.S. ambassador to the UN in May, with Rubio taking on the additional role. The White House has also slashed NSC staffing since Trump took office, including after Rubio took the helm. Ahead of the surprise strikes on Saturday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt held a press conference on Thursday — the first since Israel launched preemptive strikes on Iran June 12 — and said the next two weeks would be a critical time period as U.S. officials map out next steps. "I have a message directly from the president, and I quote: 'Based on the fact that there's a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future. I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks.' That's a quote directly from the president," she said Thursday. Israel launched pre-emptive strikes on Iran June 12 after months of attempted and stalled nuclear negotiations and subsequent heightened concern that Iran was advancing its nuclear program. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared soon afterward that the strikes were necessary to "roll back the Iranian threat to Israel's very survival." He added that if Israel had not acted, "Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time." Dubbed "Operation Rising Lion," the strikes targeted Iran's nuclear and missile infrastructure and killed a handful of senior Iranian military leaders. Trump had repeatedly urged Iran to make a deal on its nuclear program, but the country pulled out of ongoing talks with the U.S. scheduled for Sunday in Oman. "Iran should have signed the 'deal' I told them to sign," Trump posted to Truth Social Monday evening, when he abruptly left an ongoing G7 summit in Canada to better focus on the Israel–Iran conflict. "What a shame, and waste of human life. Simply stated, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again! Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!" Trump said during his address to the nation on Saturday evening following the strikes that Iran's nuclear facilities had been "obliterated" and that the country has been backed into a corner and "must now make peace." "Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated," Trump said. "And Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not. future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier." Leavitt added during Thursday's briefing that Trump is the "peacemaker-in-chief," while noting that he is also not one to shy from flexing America's strength. "The president is always interested in a diplomatic solution to the problems in the global conflicts in this world. Again, he is a peacemaker in chief. He is the peace-through-strength president. And so, if there's a chance for diplomacy, the president's always going to grab it. But he's not afraid to use strength as well," she said. Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for additional comment on the high-level talks but did not immediately receive a reply.
Fox News
8 minutes ago
- Fox News
'Not constitutional': Congress invokes new War Powers Resolution to reject Trump's strikes on Iran
Co-sponsors of the War Powers Resolution, Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif, and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., were quick to criticize President Donald Trump for greenlighting attacks on three nuclear sites in Iran Saturday night. "This is not constitutional," Massie said, responding to Trump's Truth Social post announcing the strikes on Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan in Iran. The bipartisan War Powers Resolution was introduced in the House of Representatives this week as strikes between Israel and Iran raged on, and the world stood by to see if Trump would strike. Sources familiar told Fox News Digital that both House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., were briefed on the strikes ahead of time. "Trump struck Iran without any authorization of Congress. We need to immediately return to DC and vote on @RepThomasMassie and my War Powers Resolution to prevent America from being dragged into another endless Middle East war," Khanna said. This week, lawmakers sounded off on the unconstitutionality of Trump striking Iran without congressional approval. Congress has the sole power to declare war under Article I of the Constitution. The War Powers Resolution seeks to "remove United States Armed Forces from unauthorized hostilities in the Islamic State of Iran" and directs Trump to "terminate" the deployment of American troops against Iran without an "authorized declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military forces against Iran." As Trump announced his strikes against Iran – without congressional approval – Khanna said representatives should return to Capitol Hill to prevent further escalation. In the upper chamber, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., introduced his own war powers resolution ahead of the bipartisan duo in the House. While the resolution had been gaining steam with his colleagues, momentum could be stalled due to the strikes. His resolution is privileged, meaning that lawmakers will have to consider it. The earliest it could be voted on is Friday. Kaine argued in a statement that "the American public is overwhelmingly opposed to the U.S. waging war on Iran." "And the Israeli Foreign Minister admitted yesterday that Israeli bombing had set the Iranian nuclear program back 'at least 2 or 3 years,'" he said. "So, what made Trump recklessly decide to rush and bomb today? Horrible judgment. I will push for all senators to vote on whether they are for this third idiotic Middle East war."This week on Capitol Hill, Massie, the conservative fiscal hawk who refused to sign on to Trump's "big, beautiful bill," built an unlikely bipartisan coalition of lawmakers resisting the U.S.' involvement in the Middle East conflict. "This is not our war. But if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution," Massie said. Massie, whom Trump threatened to primary during the House GOP megabill negotiations, invited "all members of Congress to cosponsor this resolution." By Tuesday night, the bipartisan bill had picked up 27 cosponsors, including progressive "Squad" members Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. Across the political aisle, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., signaled her support, writing that Americans want an affordable cost of living, safe communities and quality education "not going into another foreign war." "This is not our fight," Greene doubled down on Saturday night, before Trump's Truth Social announcement. The bill's original co-sponsors also include progressive Democrat Reps. Pramila Jayapal, Summer Lee, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib, who called it unconstitutional for "Trump to go to war without a vote in Congress." White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that Trump would make his decision about whether to bomb Iran within two weeks. "We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE! Thank you for your attention to this matter," Trump said on Saturday night. Israel launched preemptive strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities and military leaders last week, which the Islamic Republic considered a "declaration of war." Strikes between Israel and Iran have raged on since, as Trump said he was considering whether to sign off on U.S. strikes against Iran. The Jewish State targeted Iran's nuclear capabilities after months of failed negotiations in the region and heightened concern over Iran developing nuclear weapons. But Ali Bahreini, Iran's ambassador to Geneva, said Iran "will continue to produce the enriched uranium as far as we need for peaceful purposes," as Israel, and now the U.S., have issued strikes against Iran's nuclear capabilities.
