Will Trump fire at Iran? Probably

Exploring why Trump attacking Iran helps MAGA's agenda

[Update at Thursday June 19th at 2pm EST / 7pm London]

White House press room says:

a) Decision on attacking Iran put off by 2 weeks (so July 3rd)

b) Big Beautiful Bill deadline for Senate to deliver bill to President's desk is July 4th, but given it is a holiday, effectively July 3rd

c) TikTok Ban delayed by 90 days - this will annoy Israel, as TikTok is the number one source of information on Gaza to Americans and they pushed hard for this ban

d) Iran countered in the talks, that they would reduce enrichment, if Israel gave up nuclear weapons.

We will follow this issue and events with further notes. Below is the original article published on June 19th at 7 am EST / 12pm London time.

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Our original article

We sit on the edge. For many in West Asia the edge of life changing events - true whether you are in Iran or Israel, but also for Gaza and the Palestinians, but so too for the Arab states, and even Turkey. Eventually, the events here, under some circumstances, could lead global conflict and worse the destruction of our species, but let’s not get too morbid just yet.

As things stand, US President Donald Trump, having authorised (story here) the readiness for executing a bombing against Iran, now has his finger on the trigger - he claims that he hasn’t decided yet.

We think through whether or not he will authorise a strike.

Events to date

We now know that a year ago, Israeli intelligence agencies, likely in coordination with Western intelligence agencies implemented an audacious plan to stun Iran, with a combined strike on military leadership, their leading scientists and using drones, their air defences.

The idea was to shock Iran into capitulation. It almost worked, but as less than a week after the attack (on unlucky Friday the 13th) Donald Trump demanded Iran ‘unconditionally surrender’, a day later they got their response - ‘We won’t surrender,’ the Iranians responded.

The surprising and unconventional element of this interaction, is the demand to surrender before the US had actually declared war - a no rules based, surprise attack warfare has been initiated and, by lack of condemnation by most of the West, has essentially been condoned.

The world of realists

Welcome to our new and dangerous world of realism or prison rules, for those who understand them - anything goes, any risk can be pre-emptively neutralised, might, not right, matters.

It is unclear exactly how the decision to execute the opening strike on Iran was made. At Pearl Harbour (December 7, 1941), the event that triggered the US entry to World War II, it was less ambiguous - a Japanese military industrial complex, that had enriched itself in Manchuria, wielded considerable influence in their politics, and given their history of a successful first strike against Russia four decades earlier (Russo Japanese War 1905), were tempted to do the same again against the US.

This seems similar - a deadly surprise strike, midst negotiations (as was the Japanese strike in 1941). It murdered the negotiators, in many cases at home, with their families and often many others in the apartment blocks they resided in.

Worse, the ‘leader of the free world’ cooed about it on his social media - echoing the behaviour of a mob boss - ‘I told them to strike a deal,’ he bubbled. ‘They didn’t and now they are dead’. I am surprised he didn’t end with ‘say hello to my little friend’ (to paraphrase the cult mafia figure Tony Montana (from Scarface). Perhaps that is yet to come.

Nastier than Pearl Harbour

To start with, the Japanese didn’t kill people they were literally meeting in a room to negotiate with. This is much more Game of Thrones, Red Wedding, than Pearl Harbour (again the literary genius of George R. R. Martin, based that on the brutal tactics of feudal Britain).

More importantly Pearl Harbour occurred before we all made declarations like ‘never again’ (presumably for everyone) - the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and a plethora of conventions on warfare, refugees, and a raft of other reforms after the horrors of that conflict.

However, a new rising right-wing seems hell bent on destroying that world of International Law. Israel stood out as a state that directly didn’t benefit from the world of International Law - for under those rules it is confined to the 1967 borders - a proposition that is effectively incongruent with the near universal sentiment of Israelis today.

For the US, it likely breached International Law in a number of its dozens of conflicts in the period since their implementation, however through various forms of lawfare never truly faced any repercussions.

Until 1990 it at least had the excuse that it was fighting a Cold War against a totalitarian system. However, since then, with the absolute power of being the hegemon, it appears to have become absolutely corrupted (again to paraphrase the proverb). Since then a new politics, that requires a deeper exploration, has taken root in the West.

It is a form of anti-international law and explicitly imperialist rhetoric, predominantly on the right wing - in essence their answer to the declining economic position in the West, seems to be to blame others, from migrants domestically, particularly Muslims (but with fascism be certain that others will not be exempt), and externally the boogiemen are China, and of course Russia, and now Iran, that we are almost in open conflict with.

The predominant criticism is that they aren’t democracies or are authoritarian, but there are worse conditions than living under authoritarian regimes - that is anarchy: that is what we have reduced Iraq, Libya and Syria to. And of course policy makers understand that, which is why we tolerate many other authoritarians (authoritarians on our side). Given that Netanyahu in Israel wants the ‘Libya model’ for Iran, it is clear why Iranians have little choice but to fight - given Israel’s influence in Washington, their future will like Libya, may well entail the return of ‘slave markets’ and anarchy - something proto-fascists in the West (i.e. the rising far-right movements) may not disapprove of. Note: the right wing today are far further to the right than a decade ago - the Overton Window as moved (see example below).

Trump or Netanyahu?

We are not conspiracists here - the way we think of politics, is more like the physics of Brownian Motion - molecules, or political interests, colliding, bouncing off each other and a new direction being determined.

So our thesis is that whilst the plans to strike Iran were in the works for a year - that was must have been initiated under the Biden Administration, as opposed to some Trump-Netanyahu conspiracy. That bolsters the position that these are simply part of an array of projects that the security services are implementing at any stage.

The question is whose finger was on the trigger. It is our view, that given the military assets were in Iran, that would have been Mossad’s backyard, actually putting Netanyahu’s finger on the trigger.

We seem to have contrasting powers in terms of communication. If China and its decision making is almost opaque to the West, having a near strong man with twitchy fingers on social media, makes Trump the most transparent president in history - he isn’t a stable genius, he is a strong man with an ego to match. The good news about a tweeting Trump, is that we have a lot of material to go on.

He initially leaked that he had warned Netanyahu against it. We suspect Netanyahu had decided after his second meeting with Trump to pull the trigger. By April 11th, the world was turning against Netanyahu - key media figures, traditionally loyal, had changed tune, the BBC published a long piece, France was organising a conference in New York and Netanyahu’s government on the 11th, narrowly survived - the next opportunity to bring him down would be in 6 months. Sarah Netanyahu had long been complaining of a ‘deep state’ plot against him (story here), and we know Israeli sources claim Biden had tried to bring him down (story here).

To fully understand the political molecules that are bouncing around, you have to understand the interest at work.

Israel the bipartisan project

Israel is a US national project. It stems back to the 1973 oil crisis, when Arab states put in an embargo on oil. Given that the US dollar had just come of the peg to gold, and it was in a Cold War, the US had to get its economics right to win.

Ultimately it was economics that defeated the Soviet Union. At its peak the USSR’s GDP was under 50% of the US, but it was a commodity rich power. The US needed a system of capital that could efficiently coordinate resources - with a reserve currency to match.

The Petro-Dollar was the answer, and so the Arab revolution against Israel was a shock to the system. At the time, Iran was still a puppet regime, after the CIA coup in 1954 to replace its democratically elected government (who like Egypt in the Suez Crisis, Iran had wanted to nationalise - entirely legally - Western companies).

Israel shouldered much of the military weight in the 1973 wars, and so an alliance was born - Israel would become the ‘unsinkable carrier’ in the Middle East. For energy was central both to the broader International Order (the coalition against the USSR), but also to the idea of the Petro Dollar.

That is why the US supports Israel regardless of which party is in power. The only solution the West has is if the Netanyahu government falls (and is replaced by one that will cooperate with Western interests), but it has to be far more careful in interfering with the politics of an ally.

Iran - the battle the US can’t lose

However, there is a second challenge. Zbigniew Brzezinski’s book The Grand Chessboard sets out the importance of controlling Central Asia, in order to retain the Wolfowitz Doctrine - aka retaining US hegemony in the world. And so there is a bipolar approach between the right and the left wing in US politics.

The International Law, liberals, like Obama, attempted to bring Iran in from the cold, and implement Brzezinski’s strategy of controlling Central Asia and of disuniting Russia, Iran and China, and bringing Iran onside - hence the cooperative JCPOA deal that Netanyahu opposed, and influenced Trump to scupper.

The right wing, have leaned into the Clash of Civilizations narrative based on Samuel Huntingdon’s eponymous book, and in the first term Trump, more hostage to the Israel Lobby (most clearly set out by John Mearsheimer - AIPAC, the Military Industrial Complex (companies that profit from war) and the Christian Evangelicals (extreme Christians who believe in a world ending Middle East war - read John Hagee’s Jerusalem Countdown to get the gist of that wing’s worryingly apocalyptic leanings).

Netanyahu’s gamble

Netanyahu has gambled; likely fully cognisant of the US view on Iran - i.e. that the new Cold War will be lost, if Iran is lost.

Playing the role of the little psycho in your gang (think Joe Pesci in Goodfellas), he has decided to launch the opening blow, confident that the interests the group will force others to follow.

We can see why Netanyahu would want to do this - interest in Gaza is over and out of the headlines, the conference on it is cancelled, and he stays out of jail.

If it works out the US comes in now and he can deliver a heady victory perhaps making him a historic, sacrosanct figure in Israeli history.

However, as you will see from our conclusion, he is taking a mighty gamble with Israel’s future.

Trump’s conundrum

On the one hand, American military adventures haven’t gone well recently. Beyond, Iraq and Afghanistan, little Yemen recently successfully retained its policy of attacking Israel, despite the US ‘giving out heavy punishment’.

The Yemeni missiles caused sufficient challenges to the US navy, for the USS Harry Truman to turn so sharply that it lost a couple of F-18s from the deck. And Trump decided to call it a day, in case the Yemeni’s did strike a ship and force him to escalate where he didn’t want to - ultimately the Yemeni position didn’t change - they were only targeting Israel (for the Genocide in Gaza) before US intervention, and they are now doing that afterwards - the US intervention was a policy loss.

Things aren’t going any better in Russia-Ukraine, but the US has now handed that over to Europe, which hasn’t fought a serious independent war in quite some time. The re-militarisation of Europe and its economic and social consequences is a big topic.

On the economic front, he has an embarrassing tariff exchange with China, that Trump eventually had to u-turn on.

Things aren’t going well. It explains why he was so keen to send the National Guard into California and foment the images of unrest - when economics and strategy aren’t working well, a little proto-fascism, the strong man keeping Americans safe using their police and military may work well with the base.

However, following that line of thinking, so too does a successful war.

Further some eighty odd senators (in a hundred seat senate) are linking his Big Beautiful Bill to action in the Middle East.

Mr Trump has likely also been briefed on the importance of Iran based on the theories in The Grand Chessboard. The hawks will likely point to the text that is effective State Department policy - a modern version of the domino theory (that demanded the US go to Vietnam).

The Advantages for Trump (and that is what matters)

Under the guise of war can move the country to the right and complete Project 2025. The group has ambitious plans to change America - giving the politicians and the senators the war they want, may be the key to massive legislative changes.

The changes envisaged are epochal, that covers everything from central banking and finance, states rights, to individual liberties.

Tactical - Iran is a must win region in the new Cold War. After the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin (the Israeli Prime Minister who signed the Oslo Peace Accords), Israel has been on a steady drift to the right. Its polity, in coalition with American partners, wants an imperial solution to Iran. Netanyahu calls for the Libya model (story here) - so an Iran that is neutered and dismembered.

For them Obama’s JCPOA based accommodation of Tehran was not acceptable, and they used their alliances in Washington to destroy it. Either centrist politics returns to Israel or Tehran has to fall to US-Israeli imperialism - become a new Libya, Syria, Iraq - completely subservient.

That means you either overthrow Netanyahu (and the Israeli right - as Sara Netanyahu implies) or regime change in Tehran - it is one or the other.

With victory in Iran, China suffers an enormous strategic defeat - a key jigsaw piece in the Belt and Road Initiative and the BRICS, China’s economic plans are set back, but more importantly in this new realist world, it is further encircled.

Disadvantages

Get sucked into a long war and with associated costs. Perhaps a possibility, but judging by Yemen, Trump has a plan for this too. He will throw Netanyahu and Israel under the bus, once his legislative agenda is completed, and return to the more popular Isolationist faction of MAGA politics.

If Iran can outlast America’s onslaught, which will be very bloody for Iranians, but likely short, then they prevail - if they can stay supplied, have the underground facilities from which to keep launching their missiles, then like Yemen, Trump has no appetite for a protracted war. If you look at the map, and see Iran’s location (across the Caspian from Russia) and close to China, supply is the easy bit.

That means that Iran is lost, but if you follow the theory of the Isolationist America Firsters, that doesn’t matter. It will likely complete China’s ascendancy as the new geopolitical super power, but American MAGA (including the Isolationists) are too hubristic to worry about that.

The budget gets worse, but if Project 2025 gets its way, they will blame the perfidy of Israel to cut the expensive Medicare and Medicaid programmes that they have wanted to roll back for decades.

It will end a century of American engagement in the Middle East, and with that the ‘unsinkable carrier’ may be cut adrift - for the Isolationists are certainly not big fans of Israel.

Could Israel and Netanyahu become Trump’s patsy?

However, to pivot Trump will need a patsy, and that will be Netanyahu. Trump will say that the untrustworthy Netanyahu promised there were WMDs, broke the negotiations and claimed regime change was easy.

A man he doesn’t fundamentally like, and now Trump will likely line up with the Isolationists, who argue Israel can’t be trusted, doesn’t act in US interests, manipulates US politics (which isn’t entirely right given heft of the US military industrial complex and the evangelicals).

This would also explain why some of the Isolationists in MAGA are slowly coming around - Trump may have explained this as a ‘win-win’ for Project 2025.

Netanyahu likely knows this, but like all his bets, he will roll the dice, and in the fog of war come up with his next play - that for the world is the most dangerous aspect of all of this gamblers antics.

Conclusion

Like all American politics, beyond the politicians there are forces behind the powers that matter. Project 2025 and the MAGA movement have big plans for the US. A short sharp war could give them the window they need to implement changes under the jingoism of war. And if they don’t get the regime change in Tehran that Netanyahu promised (and his promise there are WMDs, again) they have the perfect fall guy for pivoting to Isolationism - Israel will be cut loose, as the Isolationists take over.

Launching an attack shortly, seems very probable - given the options of flitting between Isolationists and Imperialists, and the prospect of getting his legislative agenda passed in the window of the war, Trump will pull the trigger.