The idea that Trump or MAGA is in any sense “anti-war” is something between an absurdity and a misunderstanding. Kate and I had a good discussion of it in this week’s podcast. At one level it’s a simple fraud. Trump claimed he’d always been against the Iraq War at a time when the U.S. had been bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan for years. It was a helpful attack line and it was completely false. Trump wasn’t in politics in 2002 or 2003 and to the extent he said anything, like a lot of people, he was for it when it was popular and against it when it wasn’t.

During his presidency he signed off on the assassination/targeted attack that killed Qasem Soleimani; he heavily involved the U.S. in the Saudi war in Yemen; he maintained or expanded the U.S. fight against ISIS in Iraq/Syria. Those are at least a continuity with the Obama years and in key respects an expansion of it. The one arguable exception is the deal Trump made with the Taliban to leave Afghanistan — a bad deal which Joe Biden was saddled with and followed through on and was endlessly criticized for, by Trump more than anyone else. Afghanistan captures Trump perfectly — his one notionally “anti-war” position was continuity by definition. And he turned against it as soon as he was unpopular. Trump has gotten “anti-war” mileage out of his opposition to Ukraine aid. But that’s pro-Russia rather than anti-war.

The Reality TV reveal version of war-planning and everything that is going on right now in the White House is so crazy I don’t know what to say about it. I’m reduced to trying to piece together what the various parties to the conflict and those adjacent to it may want or be trying to accomplish. I think TPM Reader JS is on to something in the email I just published a few moments ago. To the extent Trump may look to the Saudis and Emiratis as to what to do they may want him to finish this. When I responded to JS I told him that I agreed but with a major caveat. Even in the Move Fast and Break Things MBS era I think being a Gulf royal means being scared. Luck and geology made them fabulously wealthy and in part because of that wealth able to sustain deeply archaic political systems in which they have close to absolute power. That status is precarious. It’s one thing to build an anti-Iran coalition or an anti-Iran alliance with Israel. Blowing up the Iranian state is a very different and profoundly dangerous and unpredictable proposition.

From TPM Reader JS …

I agree with your reader that MBS and the Emiratis will be an important influence in Trump. And of course they are saying in public what they’re saying, but the entire basis of the normalization with the UAE and the aborted one with Saudi was this. They wanted a bloc against Iran and its nuclear program. 

TPM Reader MO shares his thoughts after PT’s …

I want to present a third view on the question of what will determine Trump’s decision on Iran. I suggest that the key factor will be what MbS and the other Middle Eastern leaders tell him they want. Ultimately Trump’s interest is in what will enrich him most and here Saudi Arabia and the others have by far the most to offer. For Trump, there is no money to be made in Israel or in regime change in Iran. Corruption overrides everything for him.

TPM Reader PT has a counterpoint to my post from last night on the offer Trump can’t resist. I’m not sure whether I agree with me or with him. If nothing else PT hits key elements of Trump’s MO …

I’m going to lay down a marker here: the US is not going to join the attacks on Iran. I say this because I think that Trump’s being driven by an entirely different dynamic than his desire to stamp his name on what looks increasingly like an “easy win.” 

Let’s consider the context: just 3 days ago, Trump’s military parade was a bust and left him a laughingstock. Meanwhile, something like 2% of the population of the US turned out to protest his policies and his Presidency. 

I’m seeing a lot of articles about Trump’s turn on Iran, how it’s in response to pressure from Israel, his evolving views. I think these are all either overblown or irrelevant. As I noted earlier, what’s driving Trump here is the hunger to get in on a “win.” It might be best to see it as a typical Trumpian branding exercise. Israel has got a product ready to go to market and they’ve offered Trump the opportunity to slap the Trump name on it. But even beyond all that there’s something more. The U.S. has wanted to get rid of the Iranian nuclear program for a very long time. We’ve used coercive sanctions. We’ve engaged in espionage and sabotage. Barack Obama spent a huge amount of time putting together a diplomatic agreement to restrict it.

I haven’t had a lot to say about Israel and Iran because I haven’t had a lot to add. But I want to suggest something about the possible entry of the United States into the war. These aren’t conclusions, more questions I’ve had and questions that help me frame how I’ve looked at what’s happening.

In the first couple days of this hot conflict, the conventional wisdom and reporting went from Israel doing this more or less entirely on its own, perhaps even interfering in U.S. diplomacy, to the idea that the apparent rush of diplomacy between the U.S. and Iran was actually a ruse concocted by Israel and United States to lull the Iranians into letting their guard down. At first this seemed to be what they call in the online world right wing “cope,” shoving Donald Trump back into the center of the story as He-Man hero when he had actually seemed marginal to the action. But then it started showing up in news reports. And from what I can tell at this point, it’s almost treated as a given, just part of the reported story.

This certainly may be accurate. But I’m not sure that it is. I think it’s also possible that the initial attack was fabulously successful in tactical terms (no one would deny that) and Trump basically wanted in on it. Because he likes success. In a normal administration, reporters might get a clearer read on what was real or what wasn’t. But this isn’t a normal administration. Much of “what the plan is” is an unknowable thing in Donald Trump’s head and a feature of the Trumpian personality cult is that once there’s an approved story, that is the story. Period. I could be right or wrong on my supposition here. But I’m not even sure if the people inside the administration actually know. In any case, I think there’s a pretty good chance the whole ‘we were secretly working together to lull Tehran into complacency’ is a complete fiction, an online MAGA speculation that the White House and Trump glommed onto and made real because it was convenient and helpful.

There’s a good piece in the Post today by Philip Bump making an important corrective point which is that, no, we shouldn’t assume that millions of people going out and protesting against Donald Trump is actually great news for Donald Trump. The issue is sort of over-learning the fairly questionable lesson of the George Floyd protests, thinking that they somehow redounded to Trump’s benefit. As Bump notes, there’s pretty little evidence that this is true. At least in the short- to medium-term most evidence suggests the opposite.

Not the biggest thing in the world. But it caught my attention. The Trump family is rolling out something called Trump Mobile, which is basically a mobile phone service for real Americans.

On Saturday, watching the President’s birthday celebration/Army parade, I commented that it seemed like it was going so poorly and Trump seemed so grumbly that I was afraid he might occupy a few more cities with the tantrum he was going to throw as a result. Of course, “going poorly” can mean a lot of different things. I didn’t watch a lot of the parade. But the moments I did catch gave me some reason for confidence in the durability of the America I know. The soldiers manning the tanks trundling down the city streets were all smiles, waving at the admittedly sparse crowd, saying “hi” to kids. I don’t think that’s the kind of parade Trump wanted. That’s not what a strongman’s military parade looks like. The soldiers are impassive. Their eyes are fixed on El Jefe. This wasn’t that.

And I wasn’t wrong about the tantrum.