Trump justified the action as necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons or developing missiles capable of reaching the US, less than a year after he said airstrikes “obliterated” their capability. US intelligence has also said Iran’s weapons capability was substantially degraded.
For Trump, memories of the false pretenses underlying the Iraq War could lead to pressure to prove his assertion that Iran’s weapons production posed an imminent threat to Americans. And for Republicans already facing a challenging election year weighed down by economic anxiety, the shift could force a reassessment of how the attacks fit into the “America First,” isolationist-leaning movement the party has embraced during the Trump era.
While Trump might benefit from an early rally-around-the-flag effect, that could be hard to sustain for weeks and months, if not longer, a far different scenario from the swift effort to remove Nicolás Maduro from power earlier this year in Venezuela.
Success on day one is one thing. The days after are inherently unpredictable.
“The question is whether Iran’s goal is simply to outlast America and whether Trump has strategic attention deficit disorder, which will allow the Iranians to rise from the ashes and claim victory,” said Michael Rubin, a historian at the American Enterprise Institute who worked as a staff adviser on Iran and Iraq at the Pentagon from 2002 to 2004.
“Hopefully lives will not be lost needlessly, but this always entails risk,” Cornyn said Saturday at a campaign stop near Houston. “But we know that Iran will not stop unless the United States and our allies stop them.”
“It’s always a lie and it’s always America Last,” she wrote online. “But it feels like the worst betrayal this time because it comes from the very man and the admin who we all believed was different.”
The administration did little in advance to prepare Americans for such a dramatic action.
That stands in stark contrast to the lengthy runup to the Iraq War.
“We just have to be honest that there is a sense that this was not sold to the American public sufficiently,” Andrew Kolvet said Saturday on “The Charlie Kirk Show,” an online program founded by the late conservative activist who was close to Trump. “Perhaps there will be an opportunity on the backend of this.”
Kolvet was willing, however, to give Trump leeway, noting these are the types of challenging decisions presidents are entrusted with.
“President Trump has earned a big, long leash,” he said. “Not an unlimited one. But a very long one to make tough decisions.”
Democrats sense a political opening on the issue. In Maine, Gov. Janet Mills and Graham Platner are competing for the Democratic nomination to challenge incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in the fall. They both issued statements on Saturday pressing Collins, the only Republican on the ballot this year in a state won by Harris, to step up her oversight of the administration.
“If we’ve started a war where we begin to lose American lives, that starts changing the political calculus,” said Republican strategist Ron Bonjean.
But he noted that Democrats have vulnerabilities of their own, particularly if there’s a domestic terror attack while the Department of Homeland Security is closed as they demand changes to how immigration operations are conducted.
For now, Trump isn’t offering much of a detailed strategy on what comes next. In a social media post Saturday evening, he said bombings could continue “as long as necessary.”
___
Associated Press writer Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.
