President Donald Trump, with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at his side, speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One on a flight to Miami. Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
President Donald Trump’s war on Iran — or "little excursion," as he frequently calls it — has spread insecurity throughout the Middle East, raised prices around the world and further diminished America’s relations with allies. And former Obama official Ilan Goldenberg says Trump “should have known” how bad the situation could get. Having spent the past 15 years as a war games expert in both the Pentagon and private sector, working specifically on scenarios relating to Iran, Goldenberg says the outcomes are unsurprising.
Based on the war games he’s conducted on Iran, he said, “The lessons from these exercises were remarkably consistent and quite similar to what we’ve seen play out over the past two weeks.”
Yet when Trump was asked if anyone had briefed him about possibilities like Iran’s retaliatory attacks against Gulf countries and the consequences that would bring, the president said, “Nobody. Nobody. No no no.”
According to Goldenberg, Trump is either lying or has cut himself off from the input of experts. Those experts, Goldenberg said, would have told him there were five key lessons to be derived from war games on Iran.
1. If the regime feels existentially threatened, it will escalate.
War games indicated that if the Iranian government felt that its very existence was threatened — by a direct attack from the United States, for example — its response would be dramatic, including strikes against American bases and Gulf allies, impeding shipping and targeting oil infrastructure. Its goal? To “impose costs” and “spike oil prices.”
“This was not hard to foresee,” said Goldenberg. “It was one of the most consistent conclusions in the exercises I saw. What we are watching now was entirely predictable."
2. Closing the Strait of Hormuz is easier than reopening it.
“One of the central lessons from these scenarios,” explained Goldenberg, “was always how easy it was for Iran to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz because of its geographic proximity and how much harder it is for the United States to restore confidence and safe passage.”
3. Russia is the key benefactor of the scenario.
As Goldenberg notes, higher oil prices in the Middle East benefit Russian oil exports, and pressure to stabilize global markets prompts a need to ease sanctions on Russian energy, all while drawing American military resources away from Ukraine.
“This is exactly what is happening now,” said Goldenberg. “None of that is surprising to anyone who has spent time thinking seriously about this kind of conflict.”
4. There will be a high price to pay in the aftermath.
War games outcomes indicated that a war like the one we’re seeing today would not effectively remove the regime but would make it more aggressive, while at the same time leaving the Iranian people to suffer under a devastated infrastructure and economy.
“In that world,” said Goldenberg, “the United States then faces the prospect of containing a wounded but still dangerous Iran for years."
5. The best option was always to buy time.
“What these war games ultimately taught me,” Goldenberg explained, “was that when it comes to Iran, all the options were bad, but war was among the worst.”
Better to “contain, deter, pressure and negotiate” while waiting for the aging Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to die, hoping that more moderate leadership would take his place. Instead, he was replaced by his even harder-line son.
In the end, Goldenberg concluded that had Trump listened to experts, the situation in which we now find ourselves could have been avoided.
“People have spent decades studying it, gaming it and thinking through its consequences,” said Goldenberg. “The conclusion has been consistent: it would be enormously costly for Iran, for the United States, for the Middle East and for the global economy.”
