Trump recently claimed that a new nuclear deal could be reached if Iran only said the “magic words”—that it would not produce a nuclear weapon. Iran has used those magic words several times in recent years, including this past week. On Tuesday, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, posted on X, “Our fundamental convictions are crystal clear: Iran will under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon; neither will we Iranians ever forgo our right to harness the dividends of peaceful nuclear technology for our people.” Under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which went into effect in 1970, Iran has the right to produce nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
Like the war on Iraq, launched by the George W. Bush Administration in 2003, today’s war on Iran is based on a lie about weapons of mass destruction. This week, President Trump claimed that Tehran posed “imminent threats” to American soil. Washington is rightly concerned about Iran’s ballistic missiles, many hidden underground in so-called missile cities. Their longest range is two thousand kilometres, far enough to hit Israel and U.S. personnel or facilities across the Middle East. That is, indeed, deeply worrisome. But Iran has no ability to hit anywhere close to the United States.
Alan Eyre, a longtime Iran watcher at the State Department, now at the Middle East Institute in Washington, told me that Trump’s “stated objective for these attacks—imminent threat—is not believable, and his real objective—regime incapacitation if not regime change—is unlikely.” Operation Epic Fury, he went on, may not be able to destroy by air “the myriad interlinked institutions and infrastructures that constitute the basis of regime power. Even if that were to happen, it is even more unlikely there would be a spontaneous generation of new organic institutions that would underpin a viable alternative government. What is more likely once the guns stop is a degraded regime and an increasingly immiserated Iranian populace.” Eyre added that there’s no guarantee that the U.S. military can stifle an Iranian response, which could destabilize the region.
The war has triggered global alarm. The U.N. scheduled an emergency meeting for Saturday afternoon. Long-standing U.S. allies called for an end to the air campaign. On X, the French President, Emmanuel Macron, wrote that the “outbreak of war between the United States, Israel, and Iran carries grave consequences for international peace and security.” The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, said, “We cannot afford another prolonged and devastating war in the Middle East.” The Swiss government called for “full respect for international law.” In a joint statement, the top two leaders of the European Union urged against “any actions that could further escalate tensions or undermine the global nonproliferation regime.”
At home, many Democratic leaders and at least two Republicans challenged Trump’s decision—or right—to go to war. In a post on X, Representative Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, said, “This is not ‘America First.’ ” Senator Rand Paul, another Kentucky Republican, quoted James Madison, a Founding Father and the fourth U.S. President, who said that the executive branch was “most prone to war,” which is why declaring it is a right reserved for Congress.
Others noted Iranian support for extremist movements, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, that have killed hundreds of Americans in the past four decades, and the thousands of Iranians the regime has killed in recent protests. “No one will be sad to see them go,” Senator Jeanne Shaheen, of New Hampshire, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, noted. But she said that Trump “has shown a disappointingly cavalier approach towards the use of force, even when it risks the lives of the tens of thousands of U.S. service members and diplomats in the region as well as our allies and partners, who are already under attack.”
The President has still not outlined the U.S. exit strategy. Will it be after a hypothetical uprising has held elections and formed a new government? The Bush Administration tried that in Afghanistan in 2001, and in Iraq in 2003—and was stuck in each country for years, at the cost of thousands of American lives and trillions of dollars. Senator Andy Kim, of New Jersey, called Trump’s decision “foolish” for putting Americans in harm’s way without an imminent threat and putting Iranian dissidents in danger without a coalition to protect them. Trump has talked about both a limited mission against Iran and, overnight, a “massive” operation. The specifics of his calculations remain unclear—to other elected officials as well as to the rest of us. ♦
