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Your "prediction" has no circumstances in which we could say it was wrong. I suppose if Iran literally conducts an atomic test, you might concede you were wrong about that (though I am not even confident of that: it seems you would spin it as "We did not allow them to do this until we did/until they snuck it past us, and obviously we will punish them for it and not let them actually use their nukes"). But otherwise, if we are in exactly the same place we are now a few years from now, you will say that's fine because we made our point and can always bomb them again. That, to me, is not a "victory." If you were actually willing to define victory and own that that's what you're saying-yes, we may be perpetually at war with Iran and we will have to keep doing this- then I would disagree with you that that is a favorable outcome but at least we'd have something to disagree about. Instead, you are just saying "We won, we will win, because winning is whatever Trump says it is."
The difference is my predictions have conditions under which I will have to say "I was wrong." I don't TDS out, however loosely you define TDS, and say "Everything Trump does is bad and nothing he accomplishes could possibly count as a victory." I am not saying "The US lost the war." I know some other people are saying we did, by virtue of not having accomplished our goals. I am also of the opinion that we have not accomplished our goals (though it's also not clear to me what our goals are), but there is a difference between "losing" and "failing to achieve victory." Militarily, we won. How many times do I have to no-duh that? But winning anything worth calling a victory requires more than just inflicting a higher body count. We could say we're going to put an end to lawlessness in Haiti and drop bombs on them and say we won. Yeah, and?
"What are we doing here and is it worth it?" is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask.
Look this discussion is probably too degenerated now for either of us to understand each other but in the spirit of dialogue I’ll try again like this:
The Iran War is part of a larger vision of rearranging the global order in America’s terms. In this context destroying Iran’s military is a major goal in and of itself.
The Middle East has been a sinkhole of American blood and treasure for almost 70 years.
In consequence, Trump and Kushner renegotiated a new framework for the region now called the Abraham Accords. Israel become a country with normal political status. The Saudis stop funding militias and promoting proxy wars. America comes to control the global energy supply. (Indeed fracking + Venezuela + Canada already makes America more dominant of an oil player than OPEC.)
The major obstacle to peace in the Middle East right now is Iran. The Abraham Accords can not be made to last if Iran continues to fight the Israelis and the Saudis. Therefore there are two options: they can be enticed to negotiate, or they can be bombed I until they are irrelevant.
In this context destroying Iran’s military is a primary goal. It isn’t just an instrumental goal. This isn’t Vietnam or Afghanistan where our political goals are separate from the major question of military success. Military success is our political goal, because an Iran that cannot project force in the Middle East is an Iran that is essentially already bound to the Abraham Accords.
I imagine right now all this is being explained to the Iranians and concessions are being negotiated to entice them to come to and stay at the table. Removal of sanctions is one reward that can be applied. If Iran integrates normally into the region it doesn’t matter if they have an Islamic theocratic government or not. Technically, Britain is a monarchy and has a state church.
I am not just wishcasting competence on an incompetent Trump administration. This is all obviously the plan and has been signaled as such. There is a clear throughline articulated in moves such as deposing Maduro and tariffs. There is a clear vision for the Middle East centered around the Abraham Accords. It’s articulated by Trump in speeches. It guides the actions of his diplomats. It’s advanced in white papers and November’s White House National Security Strategy. These are not random moves. Trump has a vision and he is using it.
So then, war with Iran breaks out and we destroy the vast majority of their military capacity. Now I’m supposed to believe that the war is an incompetent mess because, even though we destroyed their military, the Iranians responded by threatening the straits, a move every analyst going back to Carter has predicted they would do. Which is more likely: Trump doesn’t read plans and is an idiot and nobody can speak honestly to his face and Hegseth is a drunkard and the Israelis and Saudis sat back and watched it all happen without any of pointing out the obvious? — or that the war has only lasted for a few weeks so far and America is working through its list of options while the 24-second news cycle obsessively decries every predicted setback at the ultimate embarrassment?
Because, ultimately, if Iran refuses to cooperate over the straits, we can keep escalating. We can destroy basic power plants and electrical infrastructure and knock Iran back to the Stone Age. Then we can clear the straits by force, and Iran will protest and they will have no more power to stop us than they would have power to stop us from paving over the moon. But we would rather not do that when we can negotiate and find a deal that works for everyone. Because, yes, Trump prefers to cut deals and make his enemies into friends, like Naruto. Because although we have the power to act unilaterally it’s much more stable when we act in concert with partners and allies.
My theory entails specific predictions, which I have made many times now, about what the structure of the peace will look like. I feel confident it will come to pass exactly as I’ve described. Iran will not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, will not toll the strait, etc. etc. Of course I remain open to the possibility of the details coming out all wrong because they don’t matter all that much. Ie Trump (probably jokingly) said that he could charge a joint strait toll with Iran. I don’t think that’s the likeliest outcome, but if it did happen I’m not going to believe that it’s because Iran defeated the American military with plucky courage when they have no navy or missiles left.
Likewise another of your objections has been that Iran could always rebuild and we’d have to fight another war. My reaction is: so what? Maybe we will. I don’t see how it’s a failure of this war if it doesn’t prevent all future wars. I imagine after they were defeated so handily the Iranians are reconsidering their strategies and aims vis-a-vis America. But maybe they’re irrational. The Europeans certainly are. Well, in that case, we just bought a few years in which Iran has no ability to project force in the Middle East, and five or ten years from now if they re-arm we’ll be even stronger and can do it all over again.
Finally, I would like to discuss the mythic component, which is maybe the part of my theory most prone to caricature and misunderstanding and yet also to me the most important. They say that history is written by the victors but that doesn’t seem meaningful to me. It seems that history is governed by the worship of heroes. We relate within history most to the lives of individuals. Those individuals shape how we think about the whole and the designation of who is a hero shapes our perception of the entire history. Washington was a man but he becomes a hero so it doesn’t matter if he sins or makes a mistake. He comes to be identified with the founding of the nation and even his flaws acquire a holy taint.
Trump is obviously the hero of the moment. Sure there are systemic forces at play and lots of other people involved and Trump can even be a little ridiculous. But it doesn’t really matter in this sense. The entire global order is being rewritten right now and the man leading the charge is President Trump. Politics for generations now will be bad imitations of his tweets like Newsom trying a parody. Exaggerated “dealmaking” or land development will take on new important as imitators cargo cult every aspect of Trump’s personality. Even those who despise Trump will feed this hero worship as they react against him desperately and attempt to find their polar opposite anti-Trump. In the long run Trump’s image becomes more powerful. He reshaped New York, he met Elvis and Nixon and Michael Jackson and Muhammad Ali, he invented a new style of War, he vanquished the Clintons, etc. etc. You can respond with, well, he wasn’t such a hotshot his businesses failed nine times, but in heroic logic that his failures were so great only makes him more powerful. He did casinos before online gambling got big! He sold name-branded steaks and wine before social media invented grifters! Etc. etc.
Napoleon gambled on Russia and failed and was destroyed and his whole legacy ended and, basically, he was already so monumentally important that it was impossible to wash away his legacy and we now name a whole era of history after him.
I believe that Trump is such a figure. And the historic logic dictates that even if Trump “loses” on these terms it’s a kind of success on a higher meta-logic. Because nobody else could fail as spectularly as Trump, you see. And that’s also a kind of mythic power. Although I remain confident given the above that what we’re seeing in Iran is basically a huge success.
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