ANALYSIS || The military siege of Iran begins to show signs of what happened 23 years ago, in a decision that may have helped Trump, but which was a mistake that the now president could also make
Donald Trump might never have become president of the United States if it weren’t for the negative reaction to the Iraq war, which shook confidence in establishment leaders.
So it is ironic that he may be emulating some of the rhetorical positions and strategic miscalculations that led President George W. Bush to disaster in the Middle East after 2003.
According to reports, Trump has not yet made any decision on attacking Iran. But his massive naval and air buildup in the region is the largest since the invasion of Iraq that toppled President Saddam Hussein.
That could give him negotiating power to force an Iranian retraction in crisis talks that resumed in Geneva on Thursday. But in the absence of a major diplomatic breakthrough, ordering the withdrawal of such a force without firing a single shot would undermine Trump’s prestige.
The Trump administration was founded on the MAGA movement’s aversion to foreign conflict. This may explain why he presented few coherent arguments for a war he threatens to wage.
But the downside to this approach is that while the American military may be prepared for war, the public is not.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, left, watches as President Bush speaks about the devastation at the Pentagon in Washington on September 12, 2001 (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
Before invading Iraq, Bush spent months advocating war – albeit based on faulty intelligence and false premises. The Trump administration has offered only obscure and confusing justifications.
Trump offered a little more clarity in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, although it may have cost him an even more delicate situation.
He repeated standard presidential warnings that Iran should never be allowed to possess a nuclear bomb. In his case, however, it raised doubts about his motives and honesty, as he claimed to have “annihilated” Tehran’s nuclear program last year. Trump also highlighted hundreds of deaths of US soldiers in combat in Iraq caused by groups supported by Iran. He lamented the recent brutal repression against Iranian protesters, which may have killed thousands of civilians.
The missile dilemma
But the historical echoes were strongest when he turned to Iran’s ballistic missiles. “They have already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases abroad, and they are working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America,” Trump said.
He may be exaggerating Iran’s capabilities. But, by invoking threats to the homeland, he followed a controversial path taken by the Bush administration and the government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair to justify the Iraq war.
State Secretary Marco Rubio issued a similar warning this Wednesday.
“You have seen the increase in the range of the missiles that they now have, and they are clearly moving towards one day being able to develop weapons that can reach the continental United States,” Rubio stressed. “They already have weapons that could reach much of Europe right now. And the ranges continue to grow exponentially every year, which impresses me.”
This all sounds familiar.
In Cincinnati in 2002, Bush said that American civilians in Saudi Arabia, Israel, Türkiye and other nations were at risk from Iraqi missiles. He even stated that Iraq was exploring ways to use drones to disperse chemical and biological agents in “missions directed at the United States”. That same year, Vice President Dick Cheney warned in Nashville that Iraq was threatening US allies in the Middle East with missiles and seeking “the full range” of delivery systems that could eventually “subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail.”
Missile alarmism is not the only reason for Iraq war nostalgia. One of the Bush administration’s biggest failures was its blasé negligence in planning for the postwar period, which led to sectarian fragmentation and an insurgency.
Iran is, arguably, a more robust state than Iraq. But Trump has not yet been candid with Americans about what might happen if U.S. military action topples the Iranian clerical regime.
Missiles produced by the Iranian Armed Forces are displayed during celebrations of the anniversary of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, on February 11, 2026, in Tehran (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images/File)
In a new profile published this Wednesday, General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is unable to predict the outcome of a regime change in Tehran. And sources told CNN earlier this month that the US intelligence community believes the most likely candidate to fill a leadership void would be the hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Therefore, the deposition of theocrats in Tehran could lead to an equally radical and anti-US replacement that would not significantly improve US or regional security.
The Trump administration has a history of regime change after ousting Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro earlier this year. But the odds seem remote that he will be able to find an Iranian counterpart to Venezuelan interim President Delcy Rodríguez to coerce into acting in Washington’s interests.
US foreign policy often fails due to faulty calculations about how adversaries will behave. Washington’s logic often breaks down when it comes into contact with the hot, dusty air of the Middle East.
The current administration appears beset by similar misunderstandings, despite Trump’s warning in Saudi Arabia last year that Iraq war-era interventionists were intervening in complex societies that even they themselves did not understand.
This month, US envoy Steve Witkoff said the president could not understand why Iran did not simply give in to his pressure. “He’s curious to know why they didn’t… I don’t want to use the word ‘capitulate’, but why they didn’t capitulate,” Witkoff told Fox News.
Witkoff continued: “Why, under this pressure, with the amount of naval and sea power that they have, why didn’t they come to us and say, ‘We’ve stated that we don’t want weapons, so here’s what we’re willing to do’?”
Here’s a possible reason. Iran has seen the brutal fall of dictators who did not possess weapons of mass destruction, such as Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that they would like to keep weapons to guarantee the regime’s survival.
Arrogance is a danger now, just as it was in 2003.
The Iraq war was expected to be an easy victory, with the promise of “shock and awe”, and that American troops would be welcomed as liberators. More than 20 years later, Trump showed he expects a smooth victory in Iran, after denying reports that Caine was emphasizing the complexity of any war. “If the decision to attack Iran militarily is made, he believes it will be an easy win,” Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier this week.
These words are perhaps worth remembering.
What kind of deal can Trump accept?
Diplomacy is not dead yet, however. Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law and independent advisor, Jared Kushner, led proximity negotiations with Iranian authorities this Thursday, mediated by Oman.
The outcome of the diplomacy may depend on whether Iran is willing to offer Trump concessions that he can present as a meaningful capitulation.
Tehran has shown some signs that it may relent on uranium enrichment or stockpiles of material for nuclear weapons. But missiles can be an insurmountable obstacle.
And Trump faces domestic political constraints. It can hardly accept a nuclear pact that resembles the limits imposed by the Obama administration on the Iranian nuclear program, which it ruled out. That said, he is a master at turning a defeat into a victory, as when Europe resisted his demands to cede Greenland in January. But Iran is not fooled. After all, any outcome of the current confrontation that keeps the regime in power is a victory for Tehran.
This is why military action may be so tempting for Trump, despite the potential loss of US military personnel in combat and the possibility of high civilian casualties.
If the US intends to attack its sworn enemy, now may be the time, with the regime’s regional terrorist networks dismantled in wars with Israel and with economic and political instability spreading within Iran.
Eradicating Iran’s nuclear and missile programs would not only spare Israel the threats of extinction from the Islamic Republic, it could also reshape the Middle East and boost economic development in Iran, the Persian Gulf and other regions.
This is a central objective of Trump’s foreign policy. “After so many decades of conflict, it is finally within our reach to achieve the future that previous generations could only dream of: a land of peace, security, harmony, opportunity, innovation and achievement right here in the Middle East,” he said in Saudi Arabia last year.
Destroying the Iranian regime would fulfill Trump’s promise to protesters, after asserting that the US was “combat ready” to protect them. And it would deprive China of yet another member of its axis of influence, after the co-option of Venezuela by the USA.
So while the US military disasters of the early 2000s offer grim omens, the president can still seize his opportunity.
He could become the president who deposed the ayatollahs, a feat that eluded presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
This would be quite a legacy for a commander in chief desperate for a place in history.
