Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments -- now including a war in the Middle East.
In the two weeks since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran, President Donald Trump increasingly has been knocked on his political heels.
He’s grown more agitated with news coverage and has failed to find a way to explain why he started the war — or how he will end it — that resonates with a public concerned by American deaths in the conflict, surging oil prices and dropping financial markets. Even some of his supporters are questioning his plan and his overall poll numbers are declining.
Meanwhile, Moscow is getting a boost from the war’s early days after Trump eased sanctions on some Russian oil shipments. That, combined with rising oil prices, undercut the yearslong push to crimp President Vladimir Putin’s ability to wage war in Ukraine.
Then there are Democrats, who were left reeling after Trump won the 2024 election. With control of Congress at stake in November’s midterms, the party has come together to oppose Trump’s Iran policy and point to the economic turmoil as proof that Republicans haven’t kept their promises to bring down everyday costs.
Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen at Axios:
Trump is working to help break the Persian Gulf oil jam. But in doing so, he risks getting caught in an "escalation trap," where a stronger force is incentivized to keep attacking to demonstrate dominance amid diminishing returns.A senior Trump administration official practically admitted as much, telling Axios' Marc Caputo: "The Iranians f*cking around with the Strait makes [Trump] more dug in."
State of play: Israel wants regime change in Iran and more dramatic military destruction as it weighs an invasion of Lebanon. Bibi Netanyahu has shown several times that when it comes to Iran, he has the ability to convince Trump to take his side.Iran wants survival — and to prove it can impose pain, militarily and economically, to scare off future attacks.
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A source close to the administration said some key officials around Trump were reluctant or wanted more time. "He ended up saying, 'I just want to do it,'" the source said. "He grossly overestimated his ability to topple the regime short of sending in ground troops." The source said Trump was "high on his own supply" after last summer's quick strikes in Iran and January's abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro: "He saw multiple decisive quick victories with extraordinary military competence."
This kind of thinking is an old problem, and it has a name: “victory disease,” meaning that victory in battle encourages leaders to seek out more battles, and then to believe that winning those battles means that they are winning the larger war or achieving some grand strategic aim—right up until the moment they realize that they have overreached and find themselves facing a military disaster or even total defeat. It is a condition that has afflicted many kinds of regimes over the course of history, one so common that my colleagues and I lectured military officers about it when I was a professor at the Naval War College. The issue is especially important for Americans, because when national leaders have exceptionally capable military forces at their disposal—as the United States does—they are even more likely to be seized by victory disease.
The Persian emperor Xerxes had it; that’s how he found himself eventually suffering a historic defeat in Greece at the Battle of Salamis. Napoleon had it; that’s how he ended up freezing in the Russian snow after years of brilliant victories over other European states. The French in 1870 had it; that’s how they confidently marched to catastrophes against a superior Prussian army. The Axis had it; that’s how Germany and Japan convinced themselves that their early successes meant that they could quickly defeat the Soviet Union and the United States, respectively.
