The Iran Catastrophe

The Iran war is the ultimate war of choice—and the United States has clearly lost. With a tenuous ceasefire that greatly favors Iran, there is no feasible outcome of the current negotiations that will leave the United States better off than before the war. The threat of force by the United States hung over the earlier negotiations. With Iran now having proved that it can withstand the bombings by both Israel and the United States, the threat has been rendered hollow. Iran also proved it was willing and able to close the Straits of Hormuz, which had previously been only a possibility.

The United States, as a result, has less leverage today than it did in January. That Iran will now concede at the bargaining table what the United States was unable to win on the battlefield is farcical.

Democracies typically win the wars they fight. Why, then, this shocking outcome? The Iran war is the great anomaly that proves the rule.

Democracies usually win wars because they formulate realistic objectives that are in the public interest. While small cabals might fight for self-interested reasons, and might be more willing to spend money, time, and lives to achieve their goals, mass publics tend to assess the costs of war more accurately and recognize that the costs outweigh the benefits. Having chosen to go to war, publics will support the effort and soldiers are willing to fight harder and better for their country. For both these reasons, democracies select their wars carefully, choosing to fight only when they are confident they can win. This is why democracies so rarely go to war with each other—since they cannot both be sure of victory simultaneously—but it also explains why democracies, despite their sometimes messy domestic politics and disagreements, tend to win when they choose to go to war.

Without public support in the United States for the war, Iran was able to hit President Donald Trump where it hurt the most: not on the battlefield, but in the economy. A sucker punch right to gut, but one clearly predicted by numerous intelligence agencies in the past. By closing the Straits of Hormuz and disrupting the global supply of oil and other essential commodities, Iran targeted consumers in the United States and elsewhere. With the public increasingly unhappy with rising costs and higher inflation, and with midterm elections rapidly approaching in November, the president was forced to capitulate.

In accepting unfavorable terms to end the war and reopen the Straits, Trump handed victory to Iran. Indeed, the United States has now pledged to pay Iran for the damage from his mistake. Whatever Trump’s personal commitment to the war might have been, without public support the United States as a whole lacked will to fight. And the Iranians knew it. It was not a lack of military capability that led to the U.S. defeat, but a lack of resolve by the American people.

Had President Trump followed both the law and practice and gone to Congress for authorization—and in a war of choice there was certainly time to do so—congressional and public deliberation would have likely avoided the error of attacking Iran in the first place. Instead, as an imperial president unwilling to defer to Congress or the law, Trump made a unilateral decision to go to war—the unitary executive at its worst. He also did nothing to explain the war to the American people or build public support. The defeat is entirely on him. If Congress and the public had been engaged and then opted for war, on the other hand, the public would have likely been more resolved. Support for the war would have lasted at least a bit longer and negotiations would likely have produced an outcome better for the United States. Democracy would have worked.

As it is now, both President Trump and the United States are humiliated. Trump promised no more endless wars, but through executive hubris and unilateral action he lost a war that should never have happened. While it may be too late for President Trump, hopefully future presidents will recognize that public deliberation and constraints on executive action are in the executive’s interest as well as the nation’s.

David A. Lake is distinguished professor of the graduate division at the University of California, San Diego and a senior fellow at IGCC.

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