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Meanwhile in America
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June 20, 2025

 

 

 

Stephen Collinson and Caitlin Hu

Trump's historic dilemma

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The aircraft carrier USS Nimitz steams ahead of a guided-missile cruiser while participating in Malabar 2020 in the north Arabian Sea (Nov. 2020).

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A massive monument to a half century of futile US-Iran policy will soon be floating near the Middle East.

 

The USS Nimitz aircraft carrier is steaming towards the region, as Washington builds up forces prior to a possible strike against Iran’s nuclear program.

 

The hulking ship is no stranger to these waters. It was from its decks that helicopters launched towards Iran in 1980 in a disastrous failed effort to rescue American hostages held by Iranian revolutionaries at the US embassy in Tehran.

 

Operation Eagle Claw was cancelled in the Iranian desert after two of the helicopters got into mechanical difficulties. Then another helicopter collided with a US refueling aircraft on the ground and eight US servicemen were killed. The thwarted operation helped destroy Jimmy Carter’s presidency.

 

Iran has confounded every president since. Some, like President Barack Obama have tried dialogue. Others like President George W. Bush, who branded Iran part of an “axis of evil,” imposed isolation and pressure. But antagonism from a clerical regime that is at its core institutionally hostile to the US has never faded.

 

Now it’s Donald Trump’s turn.

 

After days of threatening potential US military action against Iranian nuclear facilities following Israel’s onslaught on the Islamic Republic, the White House said he’d give Tehran two weeks to see if a last-ditch deal could be found to eradicate its nuclear program.

 

Trump has been wrestling with his dilemma for days – ever since Israel started a war it can’t finish. Only the US has the capacity to potentially destroy the Iranian nuclear plant at Fordow with its bunker-busting bombs. But doing so risks igniting the kind of open-ended war in the Middle East that he always vowed to avoid. The president’s MAGA base is split on the issue, even as old school Republican hawks call for him to unleash US B-2 bombers.

 

Some conservative commentators are urging Trump to go all-in and even want him to help the Israelis to destroy the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This crowd seems to have forgotten the catastrophe sparked by their demands for regime change in Iraq two decades ago.

 

Armchair strategists in Washington look even more ridiculous against the backdrop of 70 years of American attempts to shape Iranian politics.

 

In 1953, the CIA helped British intelligence agencies stage a coup to overthrow Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. His ouster opened the way for Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi whose corrupt and repressive rule created the conditions for the Islamic revolution and Iran’s current regime.

 

In the 1980s, the US backed Iraq over Iran as the neighbors fought a horrific war.

 

But it was not long before the United States was at odds with Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein. His overthrow after the American invasion in 2003 led to an Iranian-backed insurgency that killed hundreds of US troops and handed Tehran huge influence in Iraq. The US, of course, left Iraq after winning a shock-and-awe war but losing the peace after it dismantled the Iraq state with no plan for the day after.

 

This history of US incompetence is one reason why Trump’s political supporters are getting antsy. After all, many of those who did the fighting and dying in the post-911 wars came from heartland towns where the president draws strong support.

 

Deep US disillusionment with forever wars brewed the political cocktail that led to Trump’s political ascent. He’s not forgotten. Last month in Saudi Arabia — in a regional tour which showed he was more interested in creaming off cash from the region than waging war there, he decried failed US nation builders who “wrecked far more nations than they built — and the interventionists (who) were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.”

 

Ironies are piling up.

 

Trump might not be in this spot if he’d not trashed an Obama-agreed deal to keep Iranian nuclear enrichment low. Now he’s in President George W. Bush’s shoes, mulling a potential Middle East war based on possibly questionable intelligence.

 

Trump must choose whether US and global security will be secured or undermined by a US operation to destroy Iran’s nuclear program.

 

And here comes the Nimitz, full ahead for one final war zone before decommissioning at the end of her current cruise.

 

Trump better hope she’s not a bad omen.

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'That's some beautiful equipment'

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Trump’s Washington is always surreal.

 

One moment he’s burbling about something trivial. The next’s he’s talking war.

 

And he never really locks himself into any course of action.

 

Trump explained (kind of) his thinking over Iran at an event at the White House this week, when he unveiled two massive flagpoles and Stars and Stripes flags – installed as part of a personal project to make the presidential mansion look more like Mar-a-Lago.

 

“This is pretty exciting. That's some equipment, I'll tell you what. Look at that crane. That's some beautiful equipment. There's nothing like America,” Trump said.

 

Then he rounded on a reporter who asked him if he was moving towards a military strike.

 

“You don't seriously think I'm going to answer that question,” he said. "'Will you strike the Iranian nuclear component, and what time exactly, sir? Sir, would you strike it? Would you please inform us so we can be there and watch?'"

 

“You don't know that I'm going to even do it. You don't know. I may do it, I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do.”

What to watch for as Trump mulls military action

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  • Does Trump mount a serious attempt to provide Iran’s regime with an off-ramp? His previous attempts at peacemaking – in Ukraine for instance – have yielded neither genuine process or agreements.

  • Have six days of pounding by the Israelis changed Tehran’s calculation? One way diplomacy could work is if the regime decides that it’s willing to give up its nuclear program in exchange for survival.

  • How does Israel react to Trump’s pause? Does it examine whether it can take out the nuclear part at Fordow by itself – perhaps by a high-risk commando raid? Or does it defy Trump and take aim at the Ayatollah himself in a bid for regime change?

  • Is the Trump pause even real? Or is it a ruse to give US forces in the region time to get ready for action?

  • Ultimately, does Trump do anything at the end of two weeks? He often sets himself deadlines and then blows past them while doing nothing – for instance to decide on whether to conclude trade deals or to slap new sanctions on Russia.

  • Did Trump just blink? And is it because he is loath to start a new war, or because he just doesn’t know what to do?

Thanks for reading.

 

Next week, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) meets in The Hague. The World Economic Forum meanwhile holds its annual Meeting of New Champions – aka the 'Summer Davos' – in Tianjin, China.

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