President Trump Will Not Attack Iran

It seems pretty obvious by now that US President Trump will not attack Iran militarily, something I have been saying ever since his Department of Defense directed a naval strike force to assemble in waters close to Iran and positioned a US destroyer in the Gulf of Eilat as well.

The destroyer departed here at 9:10 PM last night, after floating idly there for three days. As for the “naval armada” as the President called it off of Iran’s coast, when questioned yesterday as to what the fleet is doing there at this time, his response was ,“Well, they have to float somewhere, so they may as well float there.”  Doesn’t sound like much of an attack plan at all, does it?

The reason he will not attack Iran is that if he were to do so, he would be putting the lives of US armed forces personnel at risk. While he has renamed the Department of Defense the Department of War, he really does not want to go to war.

The simple fact is that Trump knows he can pretty much get away with anything he chooses, given the absence of significant guardrails to keep him in check.  Yet, he also knows that his MAGA base, which is already shaky after the unprofessional way in which the ICE agents in the US have been acting, will totally disintegrate if American troops begin to return home in body bags. After all, he ran on a platform that posited no involvement in foreign wars, so the last thing he wants to do is cause the deaths of American citizens in a foreign theater of operations.

As we have seen over the past few weeks in Minneapolis, the death of American citizens in the streets of that city at the hands of federally empowered ICE agents does not really seem to bother him. However, certain elements of his base don’t seem to like that either, but bringing casualties back to the US from foreign wars is a totally different story, and has the potential to cause the base to implode.

For those who will cite the fact that his authorization of the B2 bombing runs against Iran in June of last year is a sign that he is willing to attack another nation, that action hardly proves the point.  Yes, America attacked Iran with 2,000-pound bunker buster bombs, which caused serious damage to Iran’s nuclear program (but did not obliterate it as Trump likes to brag).  However, Trump and his Department of Defense knew before dispatching those bombs that there was virtually no risk of suffering personnel casualties.

In that situation, Israel had done a superb job of defanging Iran’s anti-aircraft defense capabilities, making it possible for both Israel and the US to attack Iran without having to worry about battle casualties.  Frankly, there was more risk of one of the planes, ours or those of the US, running into a problem with the mid-air refueling process than there was of getting shot down.  As a reminder, every member of the attack group of both countries returned to their bases unscathed, something that has probably never happened before in modern military history.

Of course, others may ask, what about Venezuela and the kidnapping of the president and his wife on January 3^rd of this year? There too the operation was so well prepared in advance, and the forces that backed up the US troops who entered the presidential compound and snatched the couple so well covered, that while a limited number of US troops suffered some minor injuries, there were no casualties.  Trump and his people knew well in advance of the operation that their personnel were statistically safe from fatal injury and there was never any intention to do more than kidnap the president and his wife.  As we know now, the issue was never the drugs or regime change, but rather the desire to control the country’s oil reserves.

Iran is a different situation. There is probably no way that America could engage in a military attack against Iran without sustaining casualties of its own. The US aircraft carriers sitting off the coast of Iran are sitting ducks for Iran’s missiles and it would only take one hit to cause a mass casualty event and embarrass the wealthiest country in the world that regularly boasts about its vaunted military prowess. Trump will not take that chance, not now, not ever.

And don’t even get me started on Greenland.

The sad part of this analysis is, of course, the fact that the over 30,000 Iranians who have been killed there this month by the regime, as well as the more than 200,000 injured (those numbers are estimates; they could be even higher), will have achieved nothing. The regime will remain in power; some meaningless agreement will be initialed and another opportunity for change will be wasted.

For Israel, we know that Iran will continue to rebuild its military arsenal, will continue to work on re-establishing its proxies on our borders who remain committed to our disappearance and we will, once again, live under the threat of a potential attack by the largest sponsor of state terrorism in the world.

33 years ago, I heard a speech by former Knesset member, Elyakim Ha’etzni of blessed memory. He was a rare secular person living in the religious enclave of Kiryat Arba next to Hebron who lived there to demonstrate that Jews had a right to live anywhere in the land of Israel. During the speech, he said that we here were destined to live in a constant state of war, or be just before war or just after war.  In the post presentation Q&A, I asked him if he thought Israel could survive long-term under those conditions.  He answered, “Yes, because there will be no other choice.”  In 2026, one can only assume that, sad to say, he was probably correct regarding the constant state of war. As we approach 78 years of independence, his prediction may have been spot on.