When President Donald Trump ordered an armada of naval vessels, fighter planes, bombers and high-tech surveillance drones to the Middle East, he thought he had the answer to decades of tension and terrorism from Iran. He may well be right.
But with that answer comes a series of supplemental questions. Some of them involve vital domestic issues. Some involve the conduct of the war itself and, critically, its aftermath. All require deeper thought than Trump — like Ronald Reagan, motivated by instinct — customarily is credited for. And all require answers in the next few days or weeks.
Here are some of them:
– The Paul Simon conundrum. In his classic “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover,” the great singer-songwriter wrote, “Make a new plan, Stan.” In this case, Trump needs to make a first plan, or, if he has one, to make it public.
There is, of course, merit in Trump having a private or secret plan. It keeps his opponents in Tehran guessing, probably to some advantage for the president and for American forces.
But the Simon line that follows the plea for a new plan goes this way: “Don’t need to be coy, Roy.” Trump can’t be coy with the American people. If he has a plan, he hasn’t made it clear. He hasn’t shared his vision for the new Iran or for the new power calculus in the Middle East. At least Richard Nixon, campaigning in 1968, said he had a secret plan. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t; in any case, it is still secret, nearly six decades later.
– The Ben E. King conundrum. He’s the singer-songwriter who wrote “Stand By Me,” and in there is a lesson for Trump: “I won’t be afraid/Just as long as you stand, stand by me.”
Right now, Americans are not standing by their president; poll results show skepticism, if not outright opposition, to this military engagement in Iran. That’s a dramatic break from American tradition, perhaps a consequence of Trump’s second term itself being a dramatic break from American tradition.
In World War II, Korea, Vietnam — even the first Gulf War, where more than four out of five Americans supported George H.W. Bush’s military response to Saddam Hussein’s seizure of Kuwait — Americans rallied behind their president at the outset of hostilities. Not this time. The reason: See above.
– The James Madison conundrum. As the principal author of the Constitution, this founding father helped shape the delicate balance of power, and the separation of powers, in the new American government. The war power was delegated in an ambiguous, confusing and often frustrating fashion.
It is true that Congress has not technically declared war, as the Constitution says it can, since 1942. (The answer to a trivia question for the ages: It was against Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania.) There since have been several military engagements involving American forces, from Panama to Somalia.
Trump didn’t go to Congress for permission to initiate hostilities against Iran, as George W. Bush did before sending U.S. troops into Iraq in 2003. Democrats and a handful of Republicans brought war powers resolution measures to the floor of both the Senate and the House earlier this month, and both failed. But those were efforts to stop U.S. military action, not to approve of it — a subtle difference, but a critical one. Every parent knows the difference between giving permission and tolerating something already underway.
Trump no doubt will point to those narrow “victories” on Capitol Hill as permission. That’s what Lyndon Johnson did with the 1964 Bay of Tonkin Resolution, which passed overwhelmingly. The 36th president said it was “like grandma’s nightshirt — it covered everything.” The defeat of war powers resolution efforts to stop the Iran war is the grandma’s nightshirt of the 21st century.
– The U.S. Grant conundrum. The Civil War general became known as “Unconditional Surrender” Grant. The current president might be regarded as Unconditional Surrender Trump.
That’s because Trump, employing a phrase without thinking of its historical meaning or its consequences, has called for the unconditional surrender of Iran. Abraham Lincoln embraced the notion with care but with enthusiasm. Franklin Roosevelt did so, at the Casablanca summit of 1943, and said that one of the goals of World War II was not to punish the citizens of the Axis nations but “the destruction of the philosophies” in those countries that “are based on conquest and the subjugation of other people.”
Trump has made that point but likely has not thought through what unconditional surrender might entail, which might require Americans on the ground in Iran. The unconditional surrender of Japan, for example, was followed by seven years of American occupation, which brings us to the next factor.
– The Arthur Vandenberg conundrum. Senator Vandenberg, who died in the middle of the Korean War that he supported, started out as one of the leading voices for American isolationism. The Michigan Republican changed his foreign-police striped pants and after World War II became a prominent spokesman for American engagement.
Let’s put aside the notion that Trump, who has sponsored military adventures in the Caribbean, Asia and Africa, might be Arthur Vandenberg 2.0. Trump is a gyroscope who can spin in any direction. But much of his MAGA movement remains on an axis that thus far hasn’t shifted its direction. It was drawn into Trump’s movement in large measure because of its isolationist tint, its skepticism of nation-building, its resistance to “forever wars.”
MAGA’s future after Trump is uncertain. But its role and profile in the remaining 2½ years of Trump’s presidency is an important element of contemporary politics and will shape the response to the vacuum Trump creates when he leaves office in January 2029.
That’s why the MAGA reaction to the Iran (and Venezuela, and perhaps to an imminent Cuba) invasion is so critical. It will shape the destiny of what is arguably the most potent and most important bloc in American politics today.
Trump’s pick-one approach to having multiple objectives in Iran makes it easier for shards of his movement to pick one element (say, nation-building) and to break away for that reason. With so many objections, there are so many ways for that to happen.
North Shore native David M. Shribman is the former executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.