U.S. Strikes Iran, Kills Khamenei; Iran Closes Strait of Hormuz

“And conservative commentator Tucker Carlson called the military campaign “absolutely disgusting and evil” and said “the idea behind it is not only contrary to America First, it may be its inverse.” The White House deliberations that followed were quintessentially Trumpian. At the start of his second term, the president had made a point of surrounding himself with advisers who would cater to his instincts rather than push back against them. After General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Trump’s first term, made a point of shooting down the president’s worst ideas, the new chairman, General Dan Caine, took a more muted approach. As the president explored an attack on Iran, Caine presented options — discussed the pros and cons — but didn’t try to steer policy. Even the one senior official who made a strong case against the war, Vice President JD Vance, pledged to back whatever decision the president made. And it seemed clear what that decision would be. Trump had viewed the regime as a menace for decades. He was famously imprinted by the culture and geopolitics of the 1970s and 1980s; the Iranian theocracy took hold in 1979. And Iranian plans to kill Trump in revenge for the assassination of a top Iranian general in 2020 no doubt played into his thinking, too. The president was surrounded by pliant advisers, reliant on his gut, and driven by personal grievance. The decision to go to war was, in many respects, Trumpism perfectly distilled. As he geared up for war, the president did not consult with Congress. He did not consult with America’s allies. And in the weeks before and after the attack, he never articulated a clear rationale — bouncing between talk of regime change and denuclearization, with ever-shifting timelines for when the conflict might end. This, too, was quintessential Trump: Go-it-alone bravado, with little in the way of strategic thinking. The result, unsurprisingly, has been failure. The Iranian regime remains in place, even if several of its top leaders — including Ayatollah Khamenei — have been killed. The Iranian nuclear program, though hobbled by earlier, limited U.S.-Israeli strikes, survives. And the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply typically flows, has sent gas prices skyrocketing. Here we might return to the argument that Carlson and other commentators made at the start of the war — that the conflict represented a fundamental break with Trumpism. The gas price hike, in particular, seems to fit the bill. It’s the ordinary Americans the president promised to help who have been most hurt. But on closer inspection, that looks less like a break with Trumpian governance than the epitome of it. The president failed to foresee what was a very obvious possibility — that the Iranians, outgunned by their adversaries, would close the strait and hit Americans in the wallet. Trump’s war with Iran has exposed how much countries depend on oil and gas imports. The battlefield extends beyond direct confrontation into shipping lanes, energy markets and regional alliances. Disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz are not incidental”