Flailing Trump is addicted to this never-ending war

Once again, Donald Trump has ordered the US military back into action in the skies over Iran, and once again he has surrendered to the baser instincts of his nature. On Wednesday night, southern Iran was pummelled with fresh air strikes, hours after the US President told a Fox News correspondent that he had decided to “beat the f**king shit” out of the country. His decision to resume a conflict that had been paused only for five nights came after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired ballistic missiles at a US base in Jordan 24 hours earlier. That attack led to no reported injuries and the US claims the missiles were all successfully intercepted. Shorts Earlier on Wednesday, when White House reporters pressed Trump to explain his strategy, and the reasons for abandoning a brief military hiatus that was designed to give diplomacy more time to take effect, he said he was going back to war “because it’s our turn”. That phrase suggests that once again the Iranians have learned exactly how to influence Trump’s actions, as they demonstrate an ongoing degree of military capability that the President and his “Secretary of War”, Pete Hegseth, have publicly insisted America has already destroyed. US Central Command described the overnight action as “a heavy wave of strikes” that “struck dozens of IRGC targets in Iran, including military command centers, missile and drone facilities, coastal surveillance and defence sites, and maritime capabilities”. A statement it issued argued the action was designed “to further diminish threats posed by Iran and its proxies to American forces, commercial shipping, and neighboring Gulf countries”. What was meant by “maritime capabilities” is unclear, given that Trump has repeatedly claimed that Iran “no longer has a Navy” and that its fleet of 159 naval vessels lies “at the bottom of the sea”. However, Trump has similarly claimed that the United States has “obliterated” Iran’s air defence systems, and yet US forces were still said over the last month repeatedly to be targeting them. Trump is now stuck in a forever war of his own creation, flailing around with absolutely no strategy for wrapping the conflict up, reopening the Strait of Hormuz or securing the always-elusive agreement to terminate Iran’s nuclear ambitions. A plume of smoke rises after reported strikes from Qeshm, Iran, on Wednesday morning (Screengrab: Social Media/via Reuters) In any given week, Trump’s rhetoric veers from insisting that the Iranian regime is “begging for a deal”, to threats to blow up the country’s bridges and power plants and expanding the conflict in ways that could see the United States accused of war crimes against civilian infrastructure. Last week, Iran’s bridges and power plants may have been spared from destruction only by the growing acceptance in the White House that US weapon stockpiles are now running dangerously low. That situation further revealed Trump’s weakness and challenges, coming months after he claimed on Truth Social that the American military’s stockpile was effectively limitless. As early as 2 March, just 48 hours after the war began, Trump told his social media followers that the availability of US munitions “at the medium and upper medium grade” had “never been higher”. The US, he said, had “a virtually unlimited supply of these weapons … Wars can be fought ‘forever’ and very successfully, using just these supplies”. Trump also called early reports suggesting defence chiefs were worried – on only the third day of the conflict – about dwindling stocks of Tomahawk cruise missiles “wrong and a disgrace”. But now, stuck in a “forever” war, Trump is backpedalling. On Air Force One on Monday, he conceded that the US needs to replenish what he called “the more sophisticated stuff”. Meanwhile, his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, has told Congress that without additional funding the Pentagon will “not get the munitions” that it needs. Trump’s biggest problem remains his own impatience. The Iranians know that he is simultaneously desperate to conclude the war ahead of November’s US midterm elections, and to get the Strait of Hormuz reopened in order to reduce prices at America’s pumps where motorists are paying, on average, $4.09 a gallon. They also know he is unable to recognise the complexities involved in negotiating with a regime richly experienced in obfuscation, diversion and kicking the nuclear ball into the long grass. But now, they can see that any time they want to goad Trump away from the negotiating table, they just need to lob a few missiles at US or allied targets across the region. Even if the Americans successfully shoot all those missiles down, Trump – like a five-year-old in the playground – will conclude that next, “it’s our turn”.