Trump is having second thoughts about starting that war with Iran. Not, of course, for reasons to do with not starting wars of choice at all, but for reasons to do with Trump’s popularity and future prospects.
As the war has dragged on, Trump’s anger has risen over the conflict’s damage to Republicans’ midterm chances. A realization has set in at the White House that Trump is unlikely to pull out another remarkable political comeback in the midterms. The House appears gone, and the Senate may be too. Trump has raged in recent weeks that his messaging is not breaking through, and he now believes that the Iran war is at least in part to blame for his political predicament, the two advisers and an official told us.
There you have it. Everything is to be judged by the single criterion “Is this good for Trump or bad for Trump?”
Some in Trump’s orbit hope even the threat of strikes would nudge Iran back to negotiations, though that strategy has failed many times before.
Well, they’re just doing what their boss does. He doesn’t allow himself to be swayed by pesky realities, and the people in his orbit mimic his stubbornness.
Legislators have been briefed on parts of the plans. Some were unimpressed. Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, described what he had seen as “insane.” “It will lead to devastating escalation, and the likely destruction of our commitment to the rule of law,” Murphy said last week at the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank.
Other than that, Mrs Lincoln…
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