Trump’s Iran Policy: A Case of Amateurism and Strategic Blunder
The Trump administration, known for its ideological excesses, was also marked by a striking degree of amateurism. The level of unpreparedness displayed by Donald Trump and his allies regarding Iran was truly astounding. They genuinely didn’t anticipate a robust response from the Iranian military, or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, targeting nations that hadn’t directly attacked them – the Gulf states surrounding the Persian Gulf.
The administration was caught off guard by the near-complete blockage of commercial traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. Military experts have long highlighted the vulnerability of this crucial maritime route, through which immense quantities of oil, liquefied natural gas, fertilizers, and other vital components of global supply chains transit.
Predictable Consequences, Unexpected Surprise
Two consequences were highly predictable, even announced by those involved, and intuitively understood by any moderately informed observer. Yet, Washington was genuinely surprised. CNN and The Atlantic revealed the extent of the incompetence and improvisation within the administration. Aside from the technical and tactical success of the initial strike that killed Ali Khamenei – largely attributed to Israeli intelligence – there was a complete lack of strategic thinking.
The Atlantic reported that officials were “caught off guard by the effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz… even though some military planners had warned of this risk.” However, senior officials dismissed these warnings, failing to escalate them to the political level. A fierce purge within the upper echelons of the U.S. military during Trump’s tenure eliminated critical thinking, prioritizing loyalty to the regime.
Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies specializing in air power, stated in an interview with Paul Krugman’s Substack blog: “This is a situation the Trump administration helped create by stifling any independent thought within the U.S. military. That’s why they are completely at sea today” facing an Iran “waging an asymmetric war by expanding the conflict horizontally.” According to O’Brien, “They don’t know what they’re doing. I don’t think they had a plan. Trump acted as megalomaniac leaders do: underestimating the enemy and believing everything would fall quickly.” This echoes the situation with Putin in Ukraine in 2022.
A Reckless War Launched on a Whim
Therefore: gross military incompetence. A war was launched without pre-established motives or strategies, driven by the leader’s impulse, with the mere desire to eliminate a tyrant, naively believing in a repeat of a “Venezuela scenario” (itself entirely idealized). The said tyrant was replaced by someone even worse, amidst worsening social misery, with no concern (even hypocritical, like George W. Bush in Iraq) for the expansion of freedom and democracy. This carries the potential for a perverse “rally around the flag” effect that could benefit the dictatorship.
This is why not everyone automatically rejoices at the fall of a detestable tyrant like Ali Khamenei. This isn’t to be complacent towards political Islam, a lasting scourge of an era that Iran historically heralded. Nor is it to be “blinded by anti-Trumpism.” Critiquing these bombings and their adverse effects isn’t blindness or petty ideology; it’s a strategic analysis 101 imperative.
Trumpism stifled any critical voices at the Pentagon that could have applied the brakes. This incompetence, with its bloody consequences, is the worst example, but not the only one, of a regime where loyalty trumps all else. Where talent, vision, and autonomous institutions are systematically expelled or crushed. This suggests – and will be the subject of another column – that the radical right in power, in the United States but also in Latin America or Europe, proves, in practice, and even before being “fascist” or “racist”… largely incompetent. Consider Brazil with Jair Bolsonaro, the Netherlands with Geert Wilders, Poland with Karol Nawrocki, Italy with Matteo Salvini… Perhaps tomorrow with Le Pen-Bardella in France. To be continued.
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Council on Foreign Relations – Middle East and North Africa
