Donald Trump faced a high bar Wednesday night in his national address on Iran.
He appeared before a country that has not only lost confidence in his presidency, according to the latest polls, but that has soured on his new war and is profoundly worried about its impact on the economy.
Millions of people in the Middle East and across the world want to know when the war will end and how — or even if — he’ll fix its tumultuous aftermath, including Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which threatens a global recession.
In the 20-minute speech from the Cross Hall of the White House, Trump presented his most coherent and temperate explanation of why he went to war, arguing that he could not allow the “terrorists” in the Iranian regime to have a nuclear weapon after 47 years of threatening the United States. He explained the failure of diplomacy and the vicious crackdown by the regime against its own people, leaning into his best political asset: projecting strength.
Such arguments may have been more persuasive over a month ago, when Trump launched the onslaught. Weeks of subsequent whiplash filled by his contradictory and shifting war aims may blunt the impact of his more clearly articulated justifications for the war.
Some of the president’s claims — that Iran was “right at the doorstep” of a nuclear weapon and that it might soon have had a missile that could hit the US mainland — conflicted with US and Western intelligence assessments. And he did not offer any detailed evidence that might allow Americans to make up their own minds.
Still, he made a credible case that Iran’s military assets; its capacity to wreak havoc in the region; and its threat to the US and its allies had been devastated by a fearsome US and Israeli air campaign. No outsiders can yet know the scale of that damage and whether it will set off political cracks that could weaken or even topple the repressive Iranian revolutionary regime over time.
But many observers expected the president to use the address to point to a clear endgame for the war. Not only did he fail to do so, but he also raised the potential of a massive military escalation. “Over the next two to three weeks, we’re going to bring them back to the stone ages, where they belong,” he said. He also threatened to hit every Iranian electrical plant and to target its oil facilities if Tehran didn’t submit to his demands for a peace deal.
It’s therefore hard to conclude that his address will reassure Americans worried about where the war is going or global investors unsettled by the energy crisis the war has triggered.
At no point did the president lay out a clear exit strategy from the conflict — barring the unlikely prospect of complete Iranian capitulation.
In an attempt to downplay the current US commitment, he argued that the 32 days of combat so far paled in comparison with years invested by the United States in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq. But the comparisons may not have set minds at rest, since it implied this war may go on longer than has so far been acknowledged.
And his warning that it would be up to America’s European allies — who rely on oil from the Persian Gulf to a greater extent than the US — will cause alarm, as will his insistence that the strait will “open up naturally” because Iran will want to sell its oil. The president claimed it would be easy for foreign nations to dislodge Iran’s effective blockade. But the mighty US Navy is yet to sail through the critical oil choke point because of Iran’s missiles and drones.
The big questions Trump failed to answer
Trump did not answer the most pressing questions undermining his victory lap.
► He claimed he’d already effected regime change with the killing of top Iranian leaders, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But Iran is still in the hands of regime remnants that may be even more radicalized than before the war.
► Trump seemed to imply that he would not seek to extract the stocks of highly enriched uranium that might allow Tehran to restart its nuclear program. He claimed that US satellite surveillance would mean this material would lie untouched in the wreckage of Iranian nuclear facilities that he bombed last year. This would obviate a high-risk mission for US troops. But it leaves his assurances that he ended the nuclear threat open to doubt.
► His reluctance to open the Strait of Hormuz means that the world economy could remain hostage to Iran’s leverage. And it will mean Trump can’t outrun the consequences of his war. While the US has its own vast oil reserves, it’s still subject to fluctuations in global energy markets. Americans don’t need reminding that average gasoline prices top $4 a gallon.
Trump’s political plight is worsening
The president went into Wednesday evening in a political and strategic corner of his own making.
His haphazard messaging and habit of providing war updates via social media and erratic, angry rhetoric have helped drive public confidence in his presidency near historic lows over his two terms. A new CNN/SSRS poll on Wednesday before the address showed his approval rating at 35%. Just 34% of Americans approve of the decision to take military action in Iran. Some 68% oppose sending ground troops into Iran — a step Trump is yet to take but did not rule out on Wednesday.
The war has also caused an immediate and painful economic impact that is reflected in plummeting public confidence. Trump’s approval rating on the economy in the new poll is just 31%. And roughly two-thirds of Americans say his policies are contributing to worsening conditions.
These are daunting numbers for a president and a Republican Party already facing a tough midterm election in just seven months. Second-term presidents who see such slumps in their popularity and confidence in their leadership rarely recover. Trump must now contemplate the possibility that a war he did little to explain could consume his presidency and stain his legacy.
The public’s skepticism of Trump’s economic record is also a liability for the president. Even before the fighting started, a majority of voters had rejected his lauding of a new golden age as they battled high housing and food prices.
His blithe assurances Wednesday night that gasoline prices would soon fall and that stocks would soon spike back up seemed more like wishful thinking than the product of a clear strategy to end the war.
It was hard to conclude that the president knows when the war will end or what the world will look like when it does. He may therefore have done little to ease global anxiety over the conflict or his own political plight.
Source: CNN
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