Consequences: Trump’s War of Choice

I’ve withheld comment as the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran has progressed. Military situations are, by their very nature, fluid and often take on a life of their own. Sometimes, it is best to wait and see.

So I waited. I waited to be proven wrong.

After all, I have been highly critical of U.S. actions against Iran, both those of last summer and the current round of devastating attacks. As I saw it — and as I argued in my March 3 article — the United States pursued a war of choice without coherent objectives and without any serious regard for consequences. Sadly, my assessment has proven accurate. Indeed, I am tempted to conclude that Trump attacked Iran in part to demonstrate American military power to the rest of the world: a warning to friends and adversaries alike, a display of supposed American omnipotence and hegemony. Trump the fearless leader. Trump the strongman.

After more than two weeks, it has become obvious that the United States unleashed a war on Iran without any meaningful strategic thought. To be sure, the U.S. military, once given the order, would have planned its part of the campaign in minute detail. The United States has an unequalled ability to deploy overwhelming air power anywhere on the planet. No nation, least of all a massively degraded Iran, has the capacity to withstand an all-out aerial assault by the U.S. armed forces. Even here, however, there is evidence that the American targeting process may have been flawed, relying on out-of-date information and, unbelievably, AI-driven analysis. Further, we have yet to see the full consequences of Pete Hegseth’s “rules of engagement are for losers” attitude; there has still been remarkably little reporting describing the real effects of the U.S. assault.

What we have seen are dramatic consequences throughout the region, most of which should have been easily anticipated by the Trump administration. After all, this region has been the subject of study, war-gaming, and contingency planning for decades. We can be fairly certain that military planners identified and warned of many of these risks as the attack on Iran was being contemplated. We can also be fairly certain that Donald Trump, a man not known for depth of thought, either ignored or dismissed any discussion of second- and third-order effects.

The United States armed forces are, by a considerable measure, the most powerful on the planet. It should come as no surprise, then, that Iranian conventional military resistance to the American-Israeli onslaught was entirely ineffective — if it was attempted at all. This has created the illusion, enthusiastically embraced by Trump, that victory was almost immediate and total.

The reality, of course, is quite different.

As decades of U.S. intelligence, country studies, and experience should have told any serious policymaker, Iran has prepared for this conflict for years. So while the Americans release dazzling video of airstrikes against forty-year-old fighter aircraft and undefended targets, Iran is displaying dozens of drones in underground facilities and continues to launch attacks with both drones and ballistic missiles across the region. There are signs that the Iranian regime has recovered from the initial shock of the decapitation strikes and that the current government, under the leadership of a younger Ayatollah Khamenei, may prove even more entrenched and radical than the one the United States believed it had shattered.

All of this should have been foreseen. The United States has more than ample intelligence resources and some of the world’s foremost experts on the region. It also has access to Iranian opposition figures and Israeli intelligence sources inside Iran itself. But none of that matters when professional information and analysis are belittled or ignored because they do not match the political leadership’s preconceived notions. Donald Trump is infamous for his inattention to briefings and his contempt for professionals. This war bears all the hallmarks of that contempt.

Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the current situation in the Strait of Hormuz, the bottleneck between the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf through which a significant share of the world’s oil traffic flows. For many years, Iran’s ability to wreak havoc in the Strait with mines, missiles, small boats, and drones has been obvious to anyone with even a passing knowledge of the region. Indeed, Western navies, including that of the United States, have kept minesweeping and other forces in the region for precisely this eventuality.

So what happened?

The Trump administration obviously ignored this threat as a likely consequence of any attack on Iran. Indeed, the U.S. Navy had pulled its only dedicated minesweeping vessels from the Gulf and, literally a week before Trump began threatening and cajoling over the Strait, withdrew them from service. The last remaining mine-countermeasures capability, in the form of Littoral Combat Ships, was reportedly in Malaysia.

The conclusion is obvious. Trump — and it is all on Trump — either ignored this threat entirely or assumed that American military prowess was so overwhelming that Iran would not dare respond in any meaningful way. But the enemy always gets a vote, and Iran has been preparing for this eventuality for decades. Moreover, it does not take much to close the Strait. A drone attack, a couple of mine strikes, or the mere presence of small fast attack craft can be enough for insurers to pull coverage and owners to deny sailing authorisation. After all, who wants to sail a 100,000-ton bomb into a war zone?

The American response has been bizarre. First, Trump offered to underwrite insurance policies. When that did not work, administration officials accused shipping owners of being “too chicken” to sail through the Strait. Finally, when that bit of diplomacy failed as well, Trump demanded that NATO and other allies — including, by name, the Chinese — help reopen the Strait by providing naval vessels and, by extension, entering the war. Many of those navies, after all, have retained mine-countermeasures capabilities greater than those possessed by the much-vaunted U.S. Navy. When this failed to attract commitments, Trump resorted to bluster and threats in an attempt to bring allies on board. At the time of writing, the answer remains a resounding no, and the Strait remains effectively closed.

Another reaction that certainly should have been anticipated — and that has made the war significantly more dangerous — was that of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah, a staunch Iranian ally and client and a rabid foe of Israel, has launched retaliatory attacks on Israel before. It was entirely foreseeable that it would do so now.

After all, the United States launched its attack openly in conjunction with Israel as an ally and partner. In other words, Israel participated in this war as a full operational partner of the United States, sharing planning and intelligence, airspace deconfliction, mutual support, and targeting. That immediately drew Hezbollah into the conflict, with its usual response of rocket and mortar attacks on Israel proper.

Israel responded with attacks on Hezbollah and, it appears, preparations for a major ground incursion into Lebanon. As recently as two days ago, five full Israeli divisions were reportedly earmarked for an invasion, which would make it the largest Israeli action in the country since 1982. Israel certainly anticipated this, and one is left with the strong suspicion that the Netanyahu government may seek to leverage this moment to “deal with” Hezbollah once and for all. If so, it is an extraordinarily dangerous strategy, one that risks drawing Israel into a protracted quagmire in southern Lebanon, with catastrophic consequences for the civilian population.

I cannot help but think that Trump is disappointed by the reaction of the Gulf states to his war. None has offered to participate, despite ongoing attacks on oil infrastructure and other civilian targets. Instead, most appear to have adopted a defensive, wait-and-see posture: engaging Iranian missiles and drones when attacked, but undertaking no offensive action.

Unfortunately, several Gulf states — Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar among them — host significant American military facilities, making them targets whether their governments like it or not. Making matters worse is Iran’s announcement today, March 18, that it would target “U.S.-associated” oil infrastructure and warn workers to flee. Most will not, but some will. Again, this is the sort of consequence that could and should have been anticipated, but apparently was not.

If the Gulf states are ambivalent about American intentions and wary of participation in the conflict, the same is true of America’s traditional allies. The war began with Pete Hegseth mocking American allies for following rules of engagement, a statement quickly followed by Trump claiming that the UK wanted to participate but that it was “too late”, only to backtrack a few days later as the situation in the Strait became clear.

Trump has burned his bridges with America’s allies. Most, including Canada, regard the U.S.-Israeli attacks as unprovoked and illegal under international law, no matter how odious the Iranian regime may be. As discussed in my last piece, U.S. justifications for the attacks have been all over the map; few are supported by facts or concrete intelligence. Many analysts assess that Iran was nowhere near possessing a nuclear weapon when the United States struck. Indeed, Joe Kent, a rabid MAGA supporter and Trump appointee as head of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned in a blaze of controversy on March 17, stating bluntly that Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the United States. As a Trump true believer, he went on to suggest that the President had been manipulated by the Israelis and had fallen for a disinformation campaign. I am not certain that this latter claim is true — and it may simply reflect Kent’s far-right worldview — but it is not a point that can be casually dismissed.

As it stands, given the blinding incompetence with which this war has been conducted at the strategic level and the resulting lack of confidence in Washington’s willingness to consider second- and third-order effects, there is virtually no scenario in which America’s allies would agree to full participation in the conflict. In fact, public opinion — already vehemently opposed to Trump and his policies — would not permit participation even if governments wanted it. The United States has completely destroyed its credibility with its core allies, something that will take years, if not decades, to recover.

Another American ally has also recoiled from Trump’s efforts to involve it in the conflict: the Kurds. Somewhere in Washington, someone had the bright idea that the Kurds — a people spread across northern Iraq, Turkey, and the western border regions of Iran, and long committed to the pursuit of their own independence — might wish to invade Iran and help destabilise the regime. What the Kurds would receive in return is, to put it mildly, unclear. While the Kurds proved to be a valuable ally against the Islamic State, they quickly disavowed any intention of engaging Iran militarily. The level of stupidity here is staggering. Kurdish aspirations are viewed with deep suspicion by NATO ally Turkey, and any move to increase Kurdish military capability would be profoundly destabilising in a region already plagued by conflicting and overlapping interests.

The consequences of Trump’s Iran war for the U.S. armed forces are more difficult to quantify. As I have repeatedly stated, the U.S. military is easily the most powerful on the planet. In an air campaign against a country like Iran, it can operate virtually unopposed and with very little risk — something sure to appeal to a risk-averse Trump. But even the United States is not omnipotent.

Trump has insisted on a level of bombing and missile attack that has likely not been seen since the Vietnam War. Virtually all of Iran’s military and civilian infrastructure has been targeted, the latter in violation of international law. This has required an unprecedented operational tempo and expenditure of munitions, with all that implies. For instance, the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group has been on continuous operations since last fall. It moved from NATO operations in the Mediterranean to the Caribbean for operations against Venezuela, and then back across the Atlantic to the Middle East for operations against Iran. Last week, it experienced a major and reportedly very destructive fire. Crews will be exhausted. Machinery will break down.

Beyond that, there have been reports that the United States is expending high-end munitions such as Patriot air-defence missiles and Tomahawk land-attack missiles at a far greater rate than they can be replaced. While the United States can revert to so-called dumb bombs in the relatively permissive skies over Iran, the same does not hold against a near-peer adversary such as China. In addition, the U.S. Army continues to employ high-value munitions against low-value threats. Using a $4 million Patriot missile to shoot down a drone that may cost less than $50,000 is not exactly a model of efficiency. This situation is made even more absurd by reports that the United States turned down offers by Ukraine — a country with extensive recent experience — to assist with anti-drone training and equipment last year. Hubris is not a force multiplier.

Further, reports are now emerging that even the much-vaunted American technological edge may not be as useful as advertised. There is some evidence that targeting, which resulted in the disastrous attack on an Iranian girls’ school, was carried out using old data with AI input. That is sheer laziness compounded by an unprecedented operational tempo. There is also evidence that Patriot is proving only partially effective. Yesterday, March 17, reports out of the UAE suggested that Patriot had missed four out of four incoming threats. That would represent a significant shift for a system advertised as virtually infallible. And this is before we mention the reported loss of four U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles to a single Kuwaiti fighter pilot flying a legacy F-18 Hornet.

Aside from equipment failures and losses, we have little sense of the full human cost. Casualties inside Iran have proven difficult to determine, but given the sheer scale of the U.S.-Israeli attacks and the enormous array of targets, the number is certain to be very high. The United States appears to have reduced its concern for so-called collateral damage, something that can only increase civilian casualties. There are also civilian casualties in Israel from Iranian and Hezbollah retaliation and, almost certainly, dead and injured in Lebanon from Israeli responses.

American casualties are easier to quantify, but even here transparency has been limited. We know that six U.S. service members have been killed in drone and rocket attacks on American installations and that another six were killed in an accident involving aerial refuelling tankers. Reports also suggest that more than 200 military personnel have been injured, a figure not yet confirmed by the Pentagon. American bases throughout the region remain highly vulnerable to drone and missile attack. Al Udeid in Qatar is a good example: a sprawling, high-value installation defended by expensive — and potentially ineffective — missile systems.

We have yet to see all of the consequences of Trump’s war against Iran. Despite the destabilising and odious nature of the Iranian regime, there was nothing to suggest that the geopolitical situation had changed enough, or that the threat level had increased sufficiently, to warrant a pre-emptive attack. This was, in every meaningful sense, a war of choice.

It is also a war that, as a military professional, I find jaw-droppingly stupid.

The Trump administration is consumed by hubris and exceptionalism, and this is reflected in the astonishingly poor level of strategic planning behind the war. The conflict has no obvious objectives beyond what Pete Hegseth has effectively described as “punching Iran while it’s down”, and it has no discernible end state. Objectively, while the American attack has succeeded tactically — which it was always likely to do — it has failed strategically. That failure stems from an inability, or unwillingness, to anticipate and plan for obvious consequences. Every single effect described above would have emerged in even the most elementary planning session. Yet either that planning was not done, or it was ignored.

What we are left with is Donald Trump’s intuition, vanity, and prejudice. He is notoriously unable to anticipate the consequences of his actions, and in this case that defect has produced a totally unnecessary war with hundreds, if not thousands, dead and injured. This is a war driven by Trump’s ego and planned and executed — at the strategic level, at least — by some of the worst people the U.S. political system can produce. Trump appears to view it as spectacle, a grotesque display of power. Pete Hegseth, for his part, seems almost gleeful in his embrace of violence and destruction.

And the worst part? The United States is so large and influential that it will not suffer immediate consequences for this gigantic mess. Instead, Trump will be hypnotised by the prowess of his military and may easily turn his attention to another opponent once he grows bored with Iran. He is already talking about how it would be his “honour” to take Cuba. Or will it be Greenland? Or Panama? Or Canada?

But while there may be no immediate consequences, the long-term damage is already done. Allies have been deeply alienated. U.S. policy has been exposed as irrational, incoherent, and cruel; hubris has become its animating principle, and the United States is increasingly being grouped with China and Russia as a destabilising bully. A future Democratic administration, perhaps backed by a Democratic Congress, may attempt to repair some of this damage, but I fear we are already past the point of no return. The United States may retain its power, but its moral authority and its claim to lead the free world are gone.

Thankfully, Canada and other democracies are beginning to realize it.