The trouble with strongmen is that they can easily change their minds.
In his inaugural address last year, President Donald Trump promised to be a “peacemaker” who ended wars of choice. He is now embroiled against Iran in the mother of all regime changes. Perhaps ground realities will force him to drop that goal. Even his cabinet, not to mention Congress and US allies, however, are in the dark about what his exit plan looks like. As Trump told The New York Times in January, his sole restraint is “my own morality . . . It’s the only thing that can stop me.” America’s constitutional system has so far given no reason to doubt him. What happens in the widening theatre of war is another matter.
Leaving aside Israel’s opening strike, Trump’s moment of peak potency was choosing to go to war with Iran. From then on, Trump lost his monopoly on how the war unfolds. Many others — not just Iranians — now have a say over its direction.