President Donald Trump’s conduct in the first weeks of his Iran war constitute some of the “stupidest Trump mentals ever,” to use the deliberately mangled language of one of Trump’s conservative critics.
“Mining the Strait of Hormuz is the single biggest danger America faced heading into any conflict with Iran. How did our commander-in-chief plan to deal with it?” wrote conservative commentator Jonathan V. Last of The Bulwark. “Six months ago the Navy decommissioned its four Avenger-class minesweepers that had been stationed in Bahrain precisely to deal with Iranian mines.”
Last added, “It gets dumber: Those four final American minesweepers left the theater in mid-January—while war planning for the current operation must already have been underway.”
From there the pundit explained “even dumberer” Trump decisions, such as not possessing the ships necessary to perform necessary military operations and then insulting the European allies upon whom we would depend to assist with that.
“The Germans have the 3rd Minesweeping Squadron, composed of ten ships headquartered in Kiel,” Last wrote. “France has eight of the aging Tripartite-class minehunters. Poland has six modern Kormoran II-class MCM ships which would be extremely helpful should Iran deploy mines. Of course, the Poles are—more than anyone else in Europe—threatened by Trump’s abandonment of Ukraine and embrace of Russia. Oopsie.”
Last concluded that the “dumbest part” was that the “Brits had one MCM ship, HMS Middleton, stationed in Bahrain. It left on January 25. Perhaps if President Trump had consulted our closest ally before going to war, he could have asked the Brits to leave Middleton in place? Because the Brits only have three operational minehunters left and these have to be kept close to the home island to deter Russia.”
In general conservatives have been split over Trump’s invasion of Iran. While the majority of conservatives continue to back their Republican president, a growing and vocal minority object to the Iran war’s aims and execution.
“Well, it just seems so insane, based on what he ran on. I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right?” right-wing podcaster Joe Rogan said on his podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience” shortly after the invasion. “He ran on, ‘No more wars,’ ‘End these stupid, senseless wars,’ and then we have one that we can’t even really clearly define why we did it.”
Meanwhile conservative historian Robert Kagan explained on Sunday that Trump appears to be at a “fork in the road” for his entire presidency.
“The choice is this: we have now expended a tremendous amount of power to restructure the region,” Kagan explained on a podcast episode for The Bulwark with conservative commentator William Kristol. “Put simply, that's the goal — restructure the region so that there is no longer an Iranian threat. But there's going to be instability in Iran no matter what happens.”
