Just short of three weeks into the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, western media have started to examine the string of blunders Donald Trump has committed while launching his lunatic venture, carried out without a defined strategy, in total ignorance of his opponent and even of his own available resources, against all geopolitical sense, and from an egocentric posture built on boundless delusion.
All this has become clear from ridiculous and contradictory daily statements, a bad definition of means and ends, and an incompetent decision-making process. Taking in this entire picture, we can safely say that the president will inevitably lead us into further disaster.
It's downright jarring to see a war carried out with an obvious and profound lack of planning on the part of the most powerful military in the world, whose commander-in-chief openly admits he was surprised that Iran decided to defend itself. According to one press account, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine warned the president that Teheran would probably respond with attacks on ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz, a maritime passage between Iran and Oman, through which passes a fifth of world oil and gas exports. Trump replied that the Iranian government would collapse before the Strait could be closed, and if that wasn't the case, the United States would keep it open. When the Revolutionary Guard then closed the Strait, Trump bragged that it would be easy to open it again, then solicited help from allies he had insulted for a year, including China, against which he had launched a trade war eight years ago.
Once he saw that no one responded to his appeal for help, he went back to bragging that Washington didn't need any help. He later added that the U.S. didn't need any oil from the region either, and announced that he might leave it to those who do to fix the disastrous mess he has made (i.e., open the Strait), unless they want to do without the oil they need to survive.
For the umpteenth time we see the misinformation, irresponsibility, and downright foolishness with which Trump attempts to govern, in this case refusing responsibility for the fire that he himself ignited in the Middle East, one that has already reached disastrous dimensions.
It's a geopolitical catastrophe, in fact, one that has shown his Arab allies that Washington won't lift a finger to protect them, in spite of the fact that they've ceded the U.S. territory to build naval and air force bases on, while also abruptly threatening the supply of hydrocarbons traditional U.S. allies in Asia and Europe heavily depend on, without offering any advance warning that this was coming. This is also a military debacle because it offers no credible definition of success. It's strengthened rather than weakened the Iranian government and exposed vulnerabilities to an infinitely weaker opponent. Finally, it's an economic calamity that has produced a predictable surge of inflation, with an ever increasing likelihood of exploding into full-blown crisis with each day hostilities are prolonged.
Above all else, Trump's war on Iran is a disaster on the home front; the costs of the war will send the federal deficit soaring out of control; the American people don't support a new war on the part of a president who campaigned on ending precisely this kind of military idiocy; then also Trump has gifted his political adversaries - as much in the Democratic Party as in Republican ranks - a winning issue for the mid-term elections in November (assuming there are such), and, to top it off, he's betrayed the yearning of his base for smaller government.
In a nutshell, aside from being a flagrant violation of international law, the invasion of Trump and Netanyahu against Iran could be the political tomb for the reality T.V. star this November, and pave the way for a bitter second half of Trump's term without Congressional complicity. If it turns out that way Trump will have nothing to blame but his own arrogance in hurling himself into a venture as horrible as it was unnecessary.
Source: "Iran and the Self-Destruction of Trump," La Jornada, March 18, 2026
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