In the dead of night, dark thoughts often overwhelm the mind. In the early hours of the morning, one may revisit a lost love, contemplate deep regret, or struggle with the inevitability of death. But Donald Trump, lying awake and restless in the darkness of Florida, appears to find comfort in imagining a war of liberation in a Middle Eastern country of ninety-two million people.
At 2:58 a.m. Eastern Time, according to the timestamp on his post on the Truth Social platform, the president of the United States wrote, “If Iran fires and violently kills peaceful protesters, as it has done before, the United States of America will come to save them. We are ready and prepared to act.” He then added, inevitably, “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
A man nearing eighty, battling insomnia as elderly people often do, might occasionally send strange messages from his simple phone. He may also be forgiven for making typographical errors, as we all do. But this elderly citizen happens to be the leader of the most powerful country in the world, hinting that he may use force against a country the United States has attacked before. At the very least, Americans might expect the commander in chief of the armed forces to give his post a quick review before threatening military action. As is typical of institutional flattery, the official White House account reposted Trump’s warning, repeating the same typographical error, as if it were intentional.
For a man who champions the slogan “America First,” Trump appears to possess a broad global military agenda. In the first year of his second term, he has used force in South America, Africa, and the Middle East. Congress once debated whether to authorise such operations, but with Republican majorities in both the House and Senate transformed into what resembles satellite offices of the White House, Trump no longer needs to deal with such inconveniences. He seems hesitant to display American power only in Europe and the Pacific, where real and formidable adversaries such as China and Russia reside and clearly intimidate him. Caribbean fishing boats and small villages in Nigeria are easier targets. Now, however, he is threatening something far greater than the launch of a few cruise missiles.
So what is actually happening here? The most likely answer is not much. Perhaps Trump is contemplating another theatrical round of air strikes using B 2 bombers, which would do little for protesters in the streets of Tehran. Perhaps he has inadvertently revealed some form of intelligence operation underway in Iran. Or perhaps he simply could not sleep. Trump claims that “we” are ready and prepared to fight, but America is not prepared to wage a national liberation war in Iran.
One possibility is that Trump was replaying in his mind his meeting last Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. After that meeting, Trump said that Iran “might behave badly,” warning that if this were “confirmed,” presumably meaning evidence of rebuilding its nuclear programme, the consequences would be very severe, perhaps even more severe than before. Although Netanyahu has recently insisted that political change in Iran must come from within and that it is the business of the Iranian people, he has previously advocated regime change in Tehran. He may well have been trying to persuade Trump to be remembered as a “great liberator,” a grand historical role that would be especially tempting to a narcissistic president like Trump.
The painful irony is that Iran does indeed need regime change, and nothing would be better for that nation than its people removing the clerical establishment from power. Another irony is that the United States had been supporting Iranians through efforts such as the Persian language service of Voice of America, a low cost programme that provided genuine news and information. Yet Trump, along with Kari Lake, whom he appointed to oversee Voice of America, shut down its Persian broadcasting in March. This foolish decision forced a hurried rehiring of Persian language presenters just before US strikes on Iran in June. Subsequent mass layoffs have since effectively shut Voice of America down altogether.
Trump’s nocturnal ramblings are dangerous. While the world may have grown somewhat accustomed to his erratic threats, the president of the United States threatening another country remains an extremely serious matter. Intelligence analysts, whether allies or adversaries, cannot ignore the possibility that the American commander in chief is having a bad night. They will inevitably wonder whether something is happening behind the scenes, and whether Trump has disclosed something that ought to have remained classified.
It is unlikely that the United States and Israel are planning to launch a reckless war of liberation in Iran, even if Netanyahu and Trump make it impossible to completely rule out such an adventure. The other danger, however, is that ordinary Iranian citizens might take the president’s message seriously. Protesters seeking freedom in various parts of the world, particularly during the Cold War, have often made a fatal mistake by believing that the American cavalry was about to appear over the hill to save them. This occurred in Budapest and Prague, and later in Georgia and Ukraine. Faith in Trump’s unreliable promises could lead desperate people to make dangerous calculations.
One of the strongest statements warning against the dangers of such false promises and of military intervention came not long ago from an American leader who strongly opposed both hollow red lines and the use of force abroad. That leader was the forty-fifth president of the United States, Donald J. Trump himself. On 23 October 2019, Trump announced a ceasefire in Syria, which he said had avoided the need for broader US military involvement in the region. “We saved a lot of lives,” he declared.
He then criticised his predecessor Barack Obama for making a promise that America could not fulfil, in Trump’s view. “Most importantly, we avoided another costly military intervention that could have led to catastrophic and far-reaching consequences. It could have resulted in the deaths of thousands of people. The previous administration said, ‘Assad must go.’ They could have achieved this easily, but they did not. Instead, they drew a strong red line in the sand, you all remember that red line in the sand, when children were killed by gas, but they failed to follow through when other children died in the same horrific way.”
The use of gas against children in Syria was, in Trump’s telling, a vague red line not worth US intervention and one that could have led to a chaotic war. But the killing of peaceful protesters in Tehran? “We are ready and prepared!” The president did not display such restraint in 2020 when it came to harming peaceful protesters in America, whom he wanted shot in the legs.
Many places on this planet, those suffering from war, hunger, and life under brutal repression, could benefit from decisive intervention. Few will receive it, because Americans understand that military action, especially to overthrow a regime, is inherently risky and certainly not something to be contemplated in the middle of the night.
In a better era, leaders of Trump’s own party would have fulfilled their constitutional duty and stopped the president from speaking and acting in such a reckless manner. But the one consistent truth in Trump’s unrestrained messages, as in so many of his statements, is that the United States is now led by a man who cannot restrain his thoughts or emotions, and who continues to treat American men and women in uniform as mere pieces in his personal games.
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