At a rally on Wednesday in Marietta, GA. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“Remember when they said Trump would get us into a full-blown war with Iran? Times like these should make us all realize how lucky we were to have Trump, his strength and his resolve,” - Donald Trump Jr, April 2024.
What is the goal of the current war with Iran?
Precisely.
The talking point provided by the Trump administration is that it’s supposed to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. But, of course, the JCPOA already did that, successfully, until Trump tore it up with no clear alternative. Or assume the JCPOA was a dud; Trump’s own Operation Midnight Hammer “obliterated” the nuke program in June 2025, according to the president. So the goal has long been met. What “nuclear dust” left buried under a mountain is of no imminent national security threat to the US, and certainly not sufficient to justify a full-scale war.
The real reason we went to war, of course, was not Iran’s nuclear ambition. It was Netanyahu’s strategic ambition. Bibi talked Trump into it, hoping to get from a US president what he’d long wanted and relentlessly lobbied every other president for: regime change in Tehran via the US military. Based on Mossad intelligence, the idea was to decapitate the regime by mass assassination, and then foment a mass uprising, with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (!) as a potential puppet. The word “farcical” was the CIA’s assessment of the Israeli case — which strikes me as a rare understatement. But Trump was dumb enough and, after Venezuela, pumped up enough, to fall for it. And here we bloody well are.
Regime change failed, of course. Worse: the mullahs’ regime hardened and gained confidence from successfully resisting the might of America’s war machine. The US watched helplessly as Iran instantly blockaded the Strait of Hormuz, and couldn’t prevent them from hitting the Gulf states, Israel, and Jordan with what seems like a robust supply of missiles. So we were almost instantly exposed, humiliated, checkmated. The MOU was a recognition of this, but it postponed all the hard stuff and was so vaguely drafted that it soon fell apart. The only clear result of the war is therefore Iran’s control of the strait and enhanced leverage over the gulf.
So what now? Escalation to get out of this? That appears to be a live possibility. The president is now in “revenge mode,” we’re told — which is, of course, an emotion, not a strategy. But escalation, it seems to me, works to Iran’s further advantage, not ours. In an existential struggle, Iran will endure a huge amount of damage — and has proven it can — but the Gulf states won’t, and the American voter won’t, as gas prices and inflation take off again. So Iran can continue to harass the region, even if the US drops a small mountain of munitions on civilian targets in Iran itself. (In which case, we’d be committing war crimes for nothing.) And if this logic doesn’t convince you, the Houthis’ decision to join the winning side should.
Only a huge ground invasion, which will not happen, can win this war. So a new “massive attack” would be a mindless act of destruction divorced from any strategic logic. Which is a pretty good definition of the Trump record in general.
Other risks obviously lurk. A capable secretary of defense would keep the entire global picture in mind, specifically with respect to missile stockpiles. But we have a drunk, fundie himbo in the job. And so our promiscuous deployment of Tomahawks and JSSMs is far outstripping their supply, and our readiness for any serious potential conflict in Asia has already been severely compromised:
In roughly five months, America has fired a third of its missile inventory, which took decades to accumulate, at an adversary with badly degraded defenses, while the wargamed requirement for a China conflict assumes the whole precision-strike family, not just the Tomahawk, flowing at rates the stockpile cannot sustain beyond days.
Days. The problem is not so much cost — this entire war is financed by borrowing — as time. We have peacetime supply and wartime use. By fighting this war for the Israeli far right, we are essentially conceding Taiwan to China in advance, and weakening our posture toward Russia.
The war is therefore almost a concentrated bouquet of the insanity of US involvement in the Middle East for the last 50 years. It’s sickening to see it take ever more lives for nothing. And more sickening still to hear Trump ventriloquize dead service-members, and have the Pentagon play word games with the fallen:
[T]he Trump administration decided to remove four service members killed this past weekend from the [Pentagon’s casualties website] — three in Jordan and one in northern Iraq — because their deaths occurred after President Trump declared a cease-fire in the war in April.
Strategy? There is no strategy. Look at the latest idiocy: Trump told the Saudis this week they can now get our help with a nuclear energy program. Think about that for a second. In the current moment, could he have done anything more likely to convince Tehran never to give an inch on nuclear issues, when Israel already has a nuke and Saudi Arabia could now start on that path? With our blessing? No one is thinking in this White House.
And then, of course, Israel has a cow — only they get to have a nuke in the region, after all — and we get yet another shambles, with Trump now saying that the deal is contingent on the Saudis joining the Abraham Accords. Which they won’t. Another clusterfuck by an administration lurching diplomatically like a doomed, distracted bull in a bullfight.
All of this is a function, let’s be real, of Trump’s clinical delusions. So: “We’ve already won militarily,” he told us on July 6, and Iran has “no missile capability.” And then this week, he attended the arrivals home of more US service-members killed by … Iranian missiles. He lives with many more of these massive contradictions every day because reality is purely plastic to him. He truly is as postmodern as the woke. When cornered, which is rare, he explodes. When ABC’s Mary Bruce bluntly asked him, “There are no signs that Iran is ready to stop fighting. So what is the plan?,” Trump blew up:
You don’t know what the dialogue is behind the scenes, that they want to meet desperately to try and end it, because they’re getting decimated. You don’t get that when you listen to your fake station.
He is stuck in a war he was tricked into starting, does not understand, and can never win.
And so we must relieve him of the burden. Defund the war. It was launched against the will of the American people with no Congressional authorization; and the House just voted against it for a second time. Polls show 2:1 opposition — and growing. Trump himself has already said he won’t fight a war that would kill the stock market and lose him the midterms. So it is lost, by his own admission, and the only sane option now is to negotiate with the Iranian regime to set new tolls and processes for the Strait of Hormuz, and reboot the global economy before it’s too late.
But is Trump even competent enough to surrender? I doubt it. Maybe this will be the mad king’s true legacy: a mad war, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing but the incompetence and cowardice of a fantasist. The only consolation is that it is destroying the Trump presidency. But it is wrecking this country’s global standing and future security as well.
(Note to readers: This is an excerpt of The Weekly Dish. If you’re already a paid subscriber, click here to read the full version. This week’s issue also includes: a friendly debate with Robby George on natural law and gay marriage; reader dissents over Lindsey Graham and other topics; nine notable quotes from the week in news, including Yglesias Awards from the left and right; 20 pieces on Substack we recommend on a variety of subjects; a Mental Health Break of a psychedelic disco song; a lovely window from mountainous Peru; and, of course, the results of the View From Your Window contest — with a new challenge. Subscribe for the full Dish experience!)
From a subscriber who just renewed for the year:
I’ve been reading your stuff since 2001 and paying for your stuff since you started charging. Yours is the sanity (and occasional excitability) that I rely on during these increasingly insane times. Carry on, Andrew.
New On The Dishcast: Robert P. George
Robby is a legal scholar and political philosopher. At Princetown, he’s the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and the director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. He’s also a senior fellow at both the American Enterprise Institute and the Witherspoon Institute, which he co-founded. His many books include Making Men Moral and In Defense of Natural Law. We spent many years sparring in print over marriage, gays, and Catholicism.
Listen to the episode here. There you can find two clips of our convo — on disobeying unjust laws, and the supposed harms of gay marriage. That link also takes you to commentary on last week’s cinema pod with David Thomson, and readers discuss my column on Lindsey Graham, Keir Starmer, Dem dysfunction, and more. I also go another round with a trans dissenter.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy. Coming up: Ross Barkan on the DSA and Mamdani, John O’Sullivan on conservatism, Azam Ahmed on terrifying new drugs, and Megan McArdle on pretty much anything. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.
You don’t care whether Lindsey Graham was gay? In his personal life, perhaps, but what about the glaring hypocrisy? Graham had a consistent record of opposing LGBTQ+ civil rights throughout his long political career. He co-sponsored the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, voted against repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and opposed the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022. He also voted against federal workplace protections for LGBTQ+ people.
No, I don’t care. I’ve long taken the view that we should respect how people choose to disclose themselves. It’s about human dignity, and I found some of the cheap attacks on Graham resonant of classic homophobia.
I cannot know who Graham really was deep down, and I believe in respecting people’s choices and privacy, including the closet, if that is what it was. Yes, criticize him for his positions on some gay questions — but on the merits, not personally. No one’s identity defines their politics, in my view, and “hypocrisy” is a slippery charge. If I were a congressman, I’d vote against the Equality Act, for example. Would that be hypocrisy? Or principle? And would it be any different if I were out or closeted?
More dissents are over on the pod page, and please keep ‘em coming: dish@andrewsullivan.com. And follow more Dish debate in my Notes feed.
This is a feature in the paid version of the Dish spotlighting about 20 of our favorite pieces from other Substackers every week. This week’s selection covers subjects such as conflict with Canada, Dem infighting, and The Odyssey. Examples:
Mad About Churchill is a new ‘stack of Winston’s papers.
Sean Illing, friend of the Dish, grapples with asking for help online — for a flood that wrecked his house. His old colleague launched a GoFundMe, so chip in if you can.
Here’s a list of the substacks we recommend in general — call it a blogroll. If you have any suggestions for “In the ‘Stacks,” especially ones from emerging writers, please let us know: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
The View From Your Window Contest
Where do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The deadline for entries is Wednesday at 11.59 pm (PST). The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that in your entry and we will give you a free month subscription. Contest archive is here. Happy sleuthing!
The results for this week’s window are coming in a separate email to paid subscribers later today. A sleuth wrote last week:
Before signing off, I wanted to post a tribute to our dear family member, Miss Bigglesworth:
Miss Bigglesworth, 2019-2026
Miss B was a rescue Sphinx cat that was abandoned with her mom and littermates in a Manhattan apartment just before the pandemic. My wife, a veterinary surgeon, was offered a chance to adopt her, which we somewhat reluctantly did.
The reluctance was short-lived, as Miss B turned out to be the most social, affectionate pet we have ever owned. She adored people, and if you came to our house, she was immediately on your lap, purring with a motor that you could hear across the room. Perhaps a bit of a floozy, for sure, but she had so much love to give she had to share it whenever the opportunity arose.
She died at far too young an age, and we are all quite devastated by her passing. I know the Dish is largely a dog community, but I don’t know anyone that was not charmed by her.
