The fallout from Trump’s Iran strikes is political, too

THE MOST important military decision undertaken by President Donald Trump was, fittingly, one of opportunity and instinct. During his first term in office, hawkish advisers like John Bolton counselled the president to bomb Iran’s nuclear-enrichment facilities. But Mr Trump did so only after a successful Israeli campaign left Iran severely weakened, with few air defences and diminished proxy forces. It was an operational success, executed faultlessly. Stealth bombers flew undetected into Iran and dropped “massive ordnance penetrators” on three nuclear facilities. Not a shot was fired against them. The diplomatic coup came not long after. After a face-saving salvo against an American base in Qatar—telegraphed in advance and easily intercepted—Iran agreed to an American-brokered ceasefire with Israel.

Whether the biggest foreign-policy gamble of Mr Trump’s presidency has paid off will remain unclear. If Mr Trump has really managed, as he claimed, the “obliteration” of the Iranian nuclear programme and secured peace in the Middle East, it would be a legacy-defining success. But the Islamic Republic has vexed American presidents ever since the revolution of 1979. It may continue to do so.

Multiple American outlets have reported, based on intelligence sources, that the bombs dropped on Iran’s buried nuclear sites destroyed the entrances but not the enrichment facilities themselves. Other reports suggest the damage was more extensive. Both Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, and Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary said that the targets were destroyed. Asked about it himself at the NATO conference taking place at The Hague in the Netherlands, Mr Trump seemed to admit some doubts before reassuring himself: “The intelligence says, ‘we don’t know, it could have been very severe’…But I think we can take the ‘we don’t know.’ It was very severe. It was obliteration.”

The other looming problem is the whereabouts of Iran’s 400kg stockpile of highly enriched uranium. This had been under inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); its director now says that they have no information about its location. America may have to intervene again if Iran’s nuclear ambitions remain; Israel may also act on its own to stop a re-established enrichment programme, breaking the fragile ceasefire. Having followed the country’s lead once, Mr Trump may elect to do so again.

How much political capital he has gained at home is also uncertain. In the past, presidents have seen swells in approval after successful military actions abroad. Barack Obama enjoyed a burst of popularity after special forces tracked down and killed Osama bin Laden in 2011. But Mr Trump did not garner such appreciation after the operation that killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State leader, or the drone strike that killed Qassem Suleimani, a top Iranian general, in 2020. The inescapable reality of American politics is polarisation. Because YouGov, the pollster for The Economist, happened to be polling Americans just as news of the Iranian strike was emerging, we witnessed this in action. Just before the strike, roughly 40% of Republicans said they supported bombing Iran; just after the strike, this support leapt to 70% (see chart). Similarly, 25% of Democrats supported the strike before it happened; afterwards, this dropped close to 5%.

Among Republican elites, the president’s actions settle a dispute that had been emerging. Mr Trump had struck Syria in retaliation for Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons in 2018; assassinated Mr Suleimani in 2020; and recently approved bombing Houthi missile sites in Yemen. But in the build-up to the Iranian strikes, some of the most influential voices in the MAGA coalition, such as Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, lobbied against them. There also seemed to be objections from administration officials like Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, and Vice-President J.D. Vance. The isolationist wing of the party had been emboldened by the president’s hard-nosed attitude towards Ukraine, but its attempt to influence the president on the Middle East failed spectacularly. Mr Trump even publicly mused about “regime change”.

Elected Democrats are, for their part, grudgingly giving credit to the president for degrading Iran’s capacity to develop a nuclear weapon. But they simultaneously complain that Mr Trump took action without notifying Congress. They are right that the constitution spells out that it is Congress’s power “to declare war” and the War Powers Act of 1973 is supposed to limit the president from conducting military engagements without clear congressional authorisation. Unfortunately, precedent is against them. Presidents of both parties have routinely made military deployments without congressional consent (such as Mr Obama striking Libya in 2011 or Bill Clinton intervening in Kosovo in 1999). The political reality is that the public will not turn against Mr Trump on grounds of legal procedure or constitutional fealty.

Many have attempted to sketch out a “Trump doctrine” in foreign policy, mostly unsuccessfully. Sometimes, “America First” means that the country is so emaciated that it cannot afford its traditional alliances or past military adventurism. The defence of Ukraine is a burden, one that expends munitions that America needs to preserve, risks World War III, and cannot continue unless America reaps a reward in the form of mineral sales. And yet “America First” sometimes means that the country should be able to project military force around the world at will.

Mr Trump operates stochastically, flitting between world views. One moment, America is world hegemon, to the delight of the neoconservatives; the next it is one of a few great powers entitled to spheres of influence, to the delight of the isolationists. There are through-lines, especially a preference to declare immediate victory, but these are psychological and gestural. The diplomatic corps in Washington is constantly engaged in collaborative psychoanalysis of a single man. One liberating mantra that they have alighted on is that Mr Trump’s thinking “is a mystery, not a secret”. It cannot be carefully extracted by rational inquiry; it can only be revealed.  ■