This Is Donald Trump’s War, and It’s Only the Beginning

President Donald Trump has just committed the most basic of strategic blunders: the fallacy of the last move. This is the mistaken belief that a powerful or bold action will decisively settle a dispute in your favor.

The enemy, however, always gets a vote. Just ask Vladimir Putin. Or Adolph Hitler. Or see any of the wars the United States launched in this century. Or, for that matter, most of the wars started in the last century. Only the 1991 Iraq War ending in a quick, clear American victory (after Saddam Hussein succumbed to this same fallacy with his invasion of Kuwait), though Hussein’s reign lasted another dozen years.

Trump’s bluster may thrill Fox News viewers, but the adrenaline rush he and they are enjoying will not last. “After you’ve dropped those bombs on those hardened facilities, what happens next?” former Central Command chief Anthony Zinni asked in 2009. We are about to find out.

It is highly unlikely Iran will unconditionally surrender, as Trump demands. They have a dozen or more ways of counter-attacking American interests. Since the U.S. bombings of three nuclear facilities on Saturday, Iran has already launched new missile attacks on Israel. We will know shortly whether they will close the Straits of Hormuz, choking off one-fifth of the world’s oil supplies and crashing global stock markets. Or attack U.S. forces in the region. Or launch terror attacks against American businesses around the world.

Only a fool would try to forecast what comes next. Three unstable, unpopular, autocratic rulers are now locked in battle: Trump, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It is a nightmare three-body problem, impossible to predict. But we can say this: Trump’s war is just beginning.