The Psychologically Fascinating Limits of the "Trump Miscalculated" Message

A bunch of fairly credible reporting suggests that Donald Trump incorrectly believed the Iranian regime would collapse quickly if bombs started falling on Iran, and I make no argument against the view that Trump miscalculated in significant ways when he decided to go to war. But here’s what I find remarkable about the way this claim is made, turning a colorable argument into idiocy:

Here’s a slightly dumber version, with different shading, from a congressman:

There are several pieces to deal with, here.

I don’t doubt that Trump miscalculated, but I also don’t doubt that war always begins with miscalculations. Count the cliches that we have to express this: The enemy gets a vote, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. No kidding Trump miscalculated. Everyone miscalculates. Before the shooting starts, you can’t know what will happen after the shooting starts, because war is chaos as the thing itself, not accidentally or surprisingly. Yes, this is an argument against starting a war too casually, and I’m happy to consider the argument that Trump did that here.

There were anonymously sourced reports in the early days of the war that General Caine had warned Trump about the possibility that a war with Iran would carry some degree of risk, and I laughed out loud. Ya think?

But the “Trump screwed up” focus — and notice that this isn’t an argument that Trump didn’t screw anything up — makes Americans the only people in the war who act. Iran just sits there, winning the war because it got bombed but it still exists, which proves that Trump is running scared. We blew up their entire navy and air force, but they shot down two of our planes, BOOM BITCH IRAN IS WINNING. Not really. The war can be going poorly for both sides, in different ways. I wish I could set that sentence off with flashing lights:

The war can be going poorly for both sides, in different ways.

And it probably is. Iran has been massively overpowered, tactically, but is managing to hang on and keep fighting, inflicting at least some damage here and there. Don’t overread that development, and don’t underread that development. It doesn’t mean that anyone has won or lost.

It’s increasingly clear that Iran’s response to the war is remarkably irrational and scattered, and a rotating cast of Iranian leaders keeps making insane choices. Headline this morning: “Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain report attacks after Iran-US truce.” Dragging the neighbors into a war that didn’t involve them, the Iranians have given the Arab nations substantial incentive to push for the destruction of the Iranian regime, and possibly to join the war. The weaker party escalated. The weaker party got the bombs to stop falling, then decided that it would be smart to push for a return to the fighting. If you think that Trump miscalculated, do you think that Iran isn’t miscalculating?

The sarcasm here isn’t wrong:

So Trump hoped for a three-week war with a magic end, which is a significant mistake, but the Iranians keep skipping past the offramp, which will probably turn out to be a fatal mistake at some ugly point in the future. I suspect we just finished the first act of the war, which will enter a new phase when the ceasefire fails. In a war between X and Y, between any two sides, any analysis that only focuses on the errors of X is going to miss the point.

Be comfortable with ambiguity, and see that events continue. “We’ll see” is still a better outlook than any form of certainty.