Trump Unhinged

As the war goes from bad to worse

A woman walks among buildings destroyed by Israel and the U.S. in Tehran, Iran (credit: Getty Images).

Wars are chaotic. They’re unpredictable — hence the phrase “the fog of war.” That fog has descended on the war in the Middle East. There are some people who believe Trump’s war is going well. But the consensus of opinion right now is that the battle is going poorly for the United States and Israel.

You have to wonder if anyone is telling the president the truth. Because his version of what will happen if the war continues much longer differs wildly from that of experts in the region. If we think gas prices are high now, just wait.

It boils down to this: Donald Trump is trapped. As of this writing, there is no good option to end this conflict.

• The U.S. walks away — as Trump has threatened — and the Strait of Hormuz remains under Iranian control. No one in the region likes that scenario.

• The U.S. bombs Iranian infrastructure, including power plants, which is a war crime. Iran retaliates, likely targeting energy resources around the Middle East, while retaining a sizable portion of its missile stockpile.

• Trump launches a ground war, which could be long, bloody, and expensive.

Any of the above scenarios could lead to a worldwide recession, or worse.

By the tone of his tweets, Trump’s frustration with the options is boiling over.

The president’s Easter Sunday social media rant was, even by Trump standards, revolting. He checked multiple unseemly boxes. Threatening, check. Criminal, check. Immoral, check, Profanity-laden, check. Racist, check. As much as I don’t want to repeat what he wrote, it is vital to see it, and continue to see it, as we try to deal with this man’s increasingly unhinged state of mind.

Direct quote from the president of the United States: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F**kin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH. Praise be to Allah.”

Response to the post was swift. While the financial markets did not immediately balk, already high oil and gas prices shot up.

Once one of Thump’s most loyal defenders, former congressperson and MAGA cheerleader Marjorie Taylor Greene minced no words. “Everyone in his administration that claims to be a Christian needs to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God and stop worshipping the President and intervene in Trump’s madness… I know all of you and him and he has gone insane, and all of you are complicit.”

Meanwhile the Iranians wasted no time taking advantage. A government official promised the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed until Iran is “fully compensated” for the damage inflicted by the Americans and Israelis. He dismissed Trump’s threats as a sign that the president has “resorted to obscenities and nonsense out of sheer desperation and anger.”

Unfortunately, the Iranian official appears to be correct. Trump gives every indication of being desperate and angry.

If things were going well and/or he had good options to end the war, he wouldn’t resort to such an expletive-filled tantrum. And he wouldn’t be reiterating the threats and ultimatums at a White House press conference on Monday afternoon. “The entire country (Iran) could be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night.”

If things were going well, he wouldn’t keep moving the aforementioned deadline for his demanded reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and a peace deal. Initially, it was March 23. He has pushed it back six times since. It currently stands at Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. EST.

If things were going well, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wouldn’t have fired three high-level generals in the middle of the war, including the Army chief of staff. A U.S. military official questioned the firings to Axios. “Here is a four-star general who is actively working to get equipment and people into theater — to protect U.S. forces — and you fire him? In the middle of a war?”

If things were going well, Trump wouldn’t be floating the idea of cutting Medicare and Medicaid to pay for this billion-dollars-a-day war in an election year. He has given up any pretense of a domestic agenda. In a video of a private event that the White House accidentally posted online, Trump said, “The United States can’t take care of day care … we’re fighting wars … We have to take care of one thing: military protection.”

If things were going well, actual peace talks would be happening rather than back-channel note-passing with little to no progress. The administration is reportedly working toward a 45-day ceasefire agreement. The Iranians deny it.

If things were going well, regional powerhouses like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar — all financial partners of the Trump family — wouldn’t be raising concerns “about being left with a wounded, embittered and emboldened Iran on their doorstep,” according to Suzanne Maloney, director of the Brookings Institution’s foreign policy program.

Things aren’t going well for a host of reasons. Trump believes what he wants to believe and jettisons anyone who tells him hard truths. So, when he launched this war, no one warned him Iran might not fold quickly, without much of a fight. When it didn’t, he had no Plan B.

Trump doesn’t like consequences. Since they tend to be inconvenient and obstructive to his amorphous goals, he basically ignores them when making decisions. Sometimes that works out for him; more often it doesn’t.

It is no surprise that Trump’s decision to attack Iran has unleashed what may be the largest oil crisis in history. The global oil market will be hampered for the foreseeable future. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, doesn’t think we will return to pre-war oil and gas prices anytime soon. “Certainly won’t be this year, won’t even be next year. Might not be ever,” he told Politico.

So far the price hikes are the markets hedging against what they think will happen: an oil shortage. It hasn’t actually happened yet. If and when it does, items on the grocery store shelves, along with just about everything else, may get much, much more expensive.

Because of the war, Iran now controls the Strait of Hormuz, the most strategically important waterway to the global oil industry. Everyone — at least everyone outside of Trump’s inner circle — knew this was likely to happen. Iran controls it and is using it as a tollway, raking in millions to rebuild a decimated economy and buy more weapons.

Because the Iranians are in the midst of an existential crisis of Trump’s making, they believe that their best strategy is to be patient and hang tough. They are playing a high-stakes game of chicken, and if not winning, they hold some strong cards. Who will blink first? You get one guess.

“It now appears as though [Iran] may, in fact, achieve those aims of being stronger at the end of this war — even if the economy has been battered, even if they’ve lost thousands of their own people. That they believe that their ability to endure the worst that two technologically superior, economically superior adversaries have given them and come out on top, I think, will be tremendously emboldening for a regime that has been very dangerous, even at its weaker moment,” Maloney told Ezra Klein of The New York Times.

Trump has boxed himself — and us, our country — into a corner, and his response is to kick and scream and threaten. It is precisely who he is, but it’s not who we are. It matters for the country not to lose sight of that distinction.

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Stay Steady,
Dan