Two years and nine months remain on Trump's term. He has already gotten it into his head that remaking the world map by force will be his legacy. When he loses control of Congress, he'll have only more reason to focus on foreign policy. What then?
I took part in a stimulating conversation about U.S. foreign policy after Trump with Alex Bick at the Miller Center's Battle Symposium. Here's our event: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V-G...
Number of offers to be USDP that I have turned down: 0
It's a Basil Fawlty market on Wall Street
I told @listentotimesradio.bsky.social that unless Trump changes course, Israel may well spoil the U.S.-Iran ceasefire by bombarding Lebanon: youtu.be/1JjlYQhK3nU?...
“The strategic rationale for the American military presence in the region has taken a huge hit,” I told
@nytimes.com. The war in Iran has demonstrated “in a single incident the danger of American misgovernance and poor judgment.” www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/w...
Morality, law, strategy, even capitalism — all sacrificed on the altar of letting Donald Trump run wild at war.
🌎Trump ameaça destruir "todo o Irã" na noite desta terça-feira
Presidente dos Estados Unidos reafirma ultimato para a reabertura do Estreito de Ormuz e garante que suas forças podem arrasar com todas as pontes e usinas de energia em quatro horas
The entire U.S. political system is being indicted in this madness, as Congress stands by while the President threatens to add mass war crimes — which also imperil energy supplies across the region! — to his illegal war.
If Trump acts on his threat to wipe out Iran's power plants and other civilian infrastructure, destruction will spread across the Gulf and deepen the economic crisis, I told @aljazeera.com: youtu.be/GJwPW46Ea94
Trump's war is unpopular in the United States, I told @aljazeera.com, but tragically that may lead Trump to escalate in a bid to force Iran to capitulate or theatrically appear to have ended the war on Trump's terms.
I was pleased to speak with @owenjones.bsky.social about Trump's appalling threats to wipe out Iran's civilian infrastructure, and whether U.S. global hegemony will survive this war:
youtu.be/dKNmHFi0c2w?...
I told BBC Newshour that the Iran war is headed for escalation: the United States and Israel are likely to intensify bombing of civilian infrastructure in Iran — a process already underway — once Trump's Strait of Hormuz deadline passes on Monday. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/n...
The Iran War version of In the Loop will simply be a documentary of the Iran War.
If a sitcom about nothing could last nine seasons, I could spend 18 minutes on the subject of Trump’s war speech. Glad to do so with ABC News Australia: www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...
I told @newsweek.com: "Donald Trump is perhaps the only figure who could have harnessed public anger over Bush's wars and yet revived the long-dormant dream of Bush-era hawks — to attack the Iranian regime." www.newsweek.com/how-donald-t...
I told @newyorker.com: "The Iran war won't keep the United States from remaining the most powerful country in the world. But it could prove to be a turning point by laying bare the poor quality of American governance and the overstretched condition of America's military."
By waging an unpopular war on an essentially unilateral basis, “Trump has taken undemocratic warmaking to new heights,” says @stephenwertheim.bsky.social. That could mean a future of conflicts where the public has no say.
More in @theguardian.com: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
"The Iran war won't keep the United States from remaining the most powerful country in the world. But it could prove to be a turning point by laying bare the poor quality of American governance and the overstretched condition of America's military."
I told @newyorker.com: "What is the point of the entire U.S. military role in the Middle East? If it has any point, it should be to prevent something like the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Yet U.S. military action has only brought about the very problem it's supposed to prevent."
Then, the harder part: the country will have to stop tying itself to the Middle East in hopes of peace, the illusion that ensures the next war. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
So another failed war, an unpopular war, won't be enough to prevent future ones. If Americans want next time to be different, they will have to act, in large numbers, to make the warmakers pay a steep political price.
They should run the other way. If the United States binds itself closer to its Middle East allies, then today's violence may become the wave of the future. The United States will keep chasing enemies old and new, taking on a troubled region’s problems as its own, and contributing plenty more.
Weary Americans will be told that promising to wage war will be the best way to prevent war. That offering more on paper will allow the United States to do less in practice. That peace will finally come through ever more professions of strength, because only U.S. military power can bring stability.
Moreover, U.S. partners in the Gulf may soon push for stronger defense commitments from an all-too-willing Washington, seeking formal U.S. guarantees to fight for them should they be attacked again.
Once the fighting stops, the United States might well plunge further into Middle East conflicts. Any ceasefire is likely to remain tenuous. Having attacked Iran to crush its military capabilities and prevent progress toward a nuclear weapon, the U.S. and Israel may strike again for the same reasons.
Trump's "Boomer war" is deeply unpopular among anyone under 60. Is it the last squawk of the Middle East hawks?
Not unless the United States stops tying itself to the Middle East in hopes of peace, the illusion that ensures the next war, I write:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Talks are very advanced and yet to begin to end a war that isn't a war that America has already won but is continuing to fight until more war solves the problems created by the war.
