The American people are not prepared to shoulder major risks and sacrifices in this conflict.
My colleagues are calling it war. I’m not sure. Does one announce a war at 3 a.m. on a Saturday in a Truth Social post? Aren’t conservatives fastidious about our Constitution and our principles? I’ve heard so much in the last week about the limits of executive authority and the proper role of Congress. That talk disappeared like a fart in a hurricane last night. I’m sure we’ll get a perfunctory “Congress should vote on it within the next 60 days” lesson — but there will be no passion for follow up.
If what Donald Trump announced early this morning turns out to be a series of well-targeted and calibrated strikes that seriously diminishes or somehow collapses the Iranian regime, the strikes will be very popular. At least until we know what the aftermath costs us and our allies. (If it turns into a Libyan-style plunge into anarchy and refugee crisis but on an Iranian scale, there may be second thoughts.)
Now, I had thought the lesson neoconservatives tried to teach us after the 1990s was that Clintonite deployment of air-power alone was insufficient to manage and cajole recalcitrant foreign nations into better behavior. It simply could not manage things to their proper conclusion. They tried to teach us that setting things right required the real application of power — on the ground. Being the world leader required risks and sacrifice. On military efficacy, I always thought they were correct. I only thought their definition of our urgent national interests tested the limits set by democratic opinion.
In Washington, and in the foreign policy blob, debates about decapitation strikes and Iranian regime change are almost constant. If the president still has his Fox News habit, he’s hearing almost every night in prime time from Mark Levin that you’re either for taking out the regime in Iran or you’re an Islamo-Marxist. I worry that the decision to engage these strikes confused that atmosphere for a general one in America.
But, as far as I can tell, the American people are not prepared to shoulder major risks and sacrifices in this conflict. I woke up to a half-dozen texts from family and friends asking me “WTF is going on with Iran?” These people are well informed, but it’s been easy to miss the news about the movement of military personnel and materiel to the Middle East in the last three weeks. They would feel blindsided if this is the beginning of a serious war that involved serious risks and sacrifices on our part.
I hate to sound like a broken record, but this is the dilemma on which our foreign policy seems to crack up every single time. Our foreign policy class wants to conduct the nation’s military and diplomatic posture in a place beyond the reach of public opinion. We get all the moralistic promises from the policymakers, who then try to use local proxies and regional allies, and put the cost of the conflict on our credit card — no need to trouble the people with a sudden war tax. In the third world we deploy air power that is practically invincible, but which has limits on what it can achieve practically.
When these limited means don’t achieve our ends, the same foreign policy blob turns back on the American people and blames them for their mulishness and penny-pinching, their unwillingness to dig deep and make sacrifices. This has been a recurring theme in Russia’s war on Ukraine. When polled at the very beginning, most Americans said they supported Ukraine. This reflected their sober and correct judgement that Ukraine was transgressed by Russia. But only 26 percent of respondents said they wanted the U.S. to play a “major role” in the conflict. Does anyone doubt we’ve played one? Does anyone doubt that’s why voting for more aid became toxic?
Again, I don’t think Trump has made it entirely clear what the vision is here. He’s encouraged Iranians to rise up against their government, indicating at least an interest in tearing down the regime. Again, this has risks and potential rewards. If he is committed to keeping American troops off the ground, he risks being accused of sending Iranians to their deaths without fully supporting them. And a lot of the people cheering him on today will turn on him tomorrow.