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.
What has always kept the U.S. at bay are the risks involved in ending the program or shattering its progress by force. Big strategic bombers are vulnerable. They have to make multiple runs to drop bombs that will tear into the side of a mountain. There was Hezbollah, the various Iranian proxies in Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, Hamas which had limited capacities but could wreak havoc in Israel. Hezbollah and Hamas have been shattered in terms of offensive capacity. The Syrian regime is gone. Now Israel appears to have complete dominance in the skies over all the militarily important parts of Iran.
What that all adds up to is that the U.S. has the capacity to destroy Iran’s critical nuclear facilities in a way that in the short run is basically risk free. They can fly bombing missions over Iran with all its air defenses down. Again, in the near term, it’s basically risk free.
Obviously wars are unpredictable. They don’t necessarily end when you want them to. Consider the fact that October 7th 2023, a shattering defeat for Israel, now from the vantage point of mid-2025 was an unmitigated catastrophe for Iran. It set in process a chain of events which shattered the “axis of resistance” which was the wellspring of its regional power, and it now stands at the mercy of the U.S. and Israel. You don’t know how wars will play out. But right now, Israel has created the circumstances which allow Donald Trump a risk-free “win” of immense magnitude. That is the issue here. Set aside whether or not doing this is wise. I’m talking about why we’re suddenly here. Why two or three days ago the White House was clear they weren’t getting involved and suddenly it all changed. The evolution here is that the Israelis have created an opportunity Trump simply cannot resist. A big, big win with very little risk in the short term. All the force is on one side of the question and nothing is pushing back in the opposite direction. It’s less an evolution of views than simple physics.
Of course, there’s more than the short term. But that’s not how Trump thinks.
