How about China? We just have to go on past behavior.
Did they threaten us over Panama and say, “You leave the Panamanians alone. We cut a deal with them. We have a right to station Chinese Communist-controlled companies at the entry and exit of the canal.” No, they did not.
How about with Venezuela, Mr. Maduro. They said, “How dare you? This was one of our clients. We had inroads into Latin America. Our Silk Road, our Belt and Road project was good for Latin America, and we have a unique relationship.”
No, they didn’t. They didn’t. They’re not going to do anything.
Getting back to our Trump way of war, there was a strategic subtext to all of these incidents that I’m enunciated. And it’s to isolate and weaken China’s influence, especially in the Western Hemisphere, especially in the Middle East, and snap the Europeans back into action.
Finally, what will be the
domestic reaction to this war? That will depend again on whether it’s successful.
I don’t want to be too cynical, but as I think I’ve told you once, during the April 2003 invasion of Iraq under George W. Bush, when the statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled, and people were screaming and yelling in jubilation, Iraqis among them, 90% of the American people polled that they supported George Bush’s demolishment of the Hussein government and the liberation of Iraq.
Fast forward to the 2006 midterms, where the Republicans took a shellacking, and support for the war was below 50%. And when George W. Bush left office, he had only about 30% support, and there were only 20% supporting the war.
Did the aims of the war change? No. Maybe a little bit more on nation, but what changed was the cost: 4,000-plus dead, many more wounded, trillion dollars. And for what? An ungrateful Iraqi people, it seemed to us, who now were hand-in-glove working with our arch enemies, the Iranians.
So, you have to be very careful about the polls.
Americans will, by a small majority, want the liberation of Iran if it’s quick, if it doesn’t cost Americans a lot of blood and treasure, and if people around the world pat us on the back for liberating Iran.
If we get stuck in a quagmire where we have to have ground troops, and we get into the hundreds of American dead, it’ll be a disaster for the Republican Party in the midterms.
And finally, what happens with a MAGA base?
And I’m talking about the people who identify with the former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former Fox anchor Tucker Carlson, some of the more fringe people like Nick Fuentes or Candace Owens or Steve Bannon—the MAGA people, America First, they have been loudly critical of this war in every aspect.
The problem is that part of that criticism has been gloom and doom, and they have predicted it’s not going come out well, or they have predicted that it’s really not in our interest, or that President Donald Trump is a captive of Jewish influences.
All of that does not resonate with a majority of Republicans that support Trump. It doesn’t resonate with the independents.
The Left finds that as sort of a useful idiocy that they can glom onto internal criticism of Trump, but otherwise they have nothing in common with the extreme MAGA base.
So, I don’t think that that will be a hindrance or a brake on operations, except as I just said, if the casualties climb, if we have to put in ground troops, if there is a falling out between us and some of our allies, if the anti-war movement ramps up and takes its fumes, takes an accelerant, I should say, from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement demonstration, the “No Kings” demonstration, the Tesla demonstration and really gets going as it did during the Second Gulf War. Then we could have some problems with the Trump administration’s conduct of war.
I don’t see that yet, and I think there’s a good chance that we can still see a vastly weakened Iran within a month, a triumphant United States.
And the $64,000 question will be, who will be in charge of Iran? And that is very important because you do not—we went twice into Iraq. This is the second time we’ve gone into Iran. You don’t want to go in a third time.
So, it would behoove Donald Trump to find a magical solution of removing the theocratic government, putting a benevolent government in its place without a lot of American blood and treasure, and that’s a hard thing to do.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.Related posts:
- Victor Davis Hanson: The Real Reason Iran Won’t Negotiate
- Victor Davis Hanson: Trump’s Jacksonian Foreign Policy (With a Twist)
- Hegseth Responds to Reports War With Iran Is Imminent