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.