Why We're Really In Iran: Part 1

The Crystal Clear Objectives

Say what you want about our objectives in Iran, at least they’re clear. “Crystal clear,” according to Admiral Brad Cooper. Everybody says so, and they say it all the time. “I don’t understand what the confusion is,” Marco Rubio told the press peevishly three days into the war. “Let me explain it to you, and I’ll do it once again as clearly as possible.”

I am but a simple radical left-wing fake-news liberal commie lunatic with TDS in my DNA, and so I am struggling to wrap my pronoun-addled brain around these crystal-clear objectives. To overcome this handicap, I’ve listened to some speeches and I’ve made a little chart:

Link to chart, with embedded links to transcripts

I don’t personally think I should have to listen to 14 speeches to figure out what our objectives are, but maybe that’s the TDS talking. Either way, taken in aggregate, there actually is some clarity here.

1. Everyone pretty much agrees on two crystal-clear objectives: eliminate ballistic missile capacity and destroy Iran’s navy (though whether or not Iran’s navy has been destroyed is apparently up for debate and also it has not been destroyed).

2. Iran’s nuclear weapons come in third, though you’ll notice that General Caine avoids mentioning this objective entirely.

3. At first, Hegseth, Caine and Trump wanted to destroy Iran’s ability to field a military. Sometime in the middle of Week 2, this goal expanded to the destruction of Iran’s entire military complex—not just their armed services, but their ability to manufacture anything useful to the military.

4. No one mentioned Iran’s drone manufacturing facilities until five days in, which should disturb everyone, since Iranian drones have transformed the nature of warfare over the last few years.

5. Hegseth and Leavitt were excited about controlling Iran’s airspace, even if they couldn’t agree with each other (or themselves) on whether they’d accomplished it or not.

6. Caine, Rubio and Leavitt want to eliminate Iran’s ability to fund and arm proxy forces. Considering all the sturm und drang we’ve heard about Iran’s 47-year war on America, you’d think this would rank higher.

7. The administration barely mentioned preemptive strikes, which is fascinating, since Trump’s entire constitutional case for this “excursion” rests on that argument, but also makes complete sense, since nobody cares and they can do whatever they want. No one’s bothered to mention preemptive strikes since Day 11.

8. Regime change? Yes but no but also yes. Choose your own adventure.

9. Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio have both explicitly claimed that Iran is hell-bent on destroying the United States for religious reasons. We’ll talk more about this later.

We have three core objectives—missiles, the navy, and nukes—and a constellation of other goals that vary day-to-day. But the problem with these objectives isn’t just that they’re scattershot and shifting. It’s that objectives are supposed to be, you know, objective. Measurable. Defined. But every time some Fake News Media subversive asks the administration malicious, unpatriotic questions like “How close are we to achieving those objectives?” and “If we’ve really destroyed the Iranian navy, does that mean the troops can come home?”…well, that’s when we get our real answer:

We will finish this on America-first conditions of President Trump’s choosing, nobody else’s, as it should be.”

-Hegseth, March 2

“The President always has the options to undertake whatever operations he decides to do as the Commander-in-Chief.”

-Rubio, March 2

“When [the President], as commander in chief of the US Armed Forces, determines that Iran no longer poses a threat to the United States of America and the goals of Operation Epic Fury has been fully realized, then Iran will essentially be in a place of unconditional surrender whether they say it themselves or not.”

-Leavitt, March 6th

“[Trump] gets to control the throttle. He’s the one deciding; he’s the one elected on behalf of the American people when we’re achieving those particular objectives. And so it’s not for me to posit whether it’s the beginning, the middle, or the end; that’s his, and he’ll continue to communicate that.”

-Hegseth, March 10th

“And we’ve got internal metrics that look at that that we represent to the president, who then can decide, how long he’d like to continue in pursuit of those military objectives.”

-Hegseth, March 13th

Brian Kilmeade: When are you going to know when [the war] is over?
Trump: When I feel it-
Kilmeade: Okay.
Trump: -- I feel it in my bones.

-Fox News, March 13th

According to the administration itself, there is only one objective: attack Iran until Trump feels like the war is over. Vibes and feelings; thoughts and prayers. If Trump says Iran’s ballistic missile capacity is destroyed, it’s destroyed. If he says it isn’t, it isn’t. Facts don’t matter. Reality doesn’t matter. We are at war because Trump wants to be at war; we’ll stop being at war when he decides he wants to stop—or at least, that’s what he’d like us to think.

Certainly the media is covering this war as if Trump’s whims are the only ones that matter. When our president declared on Truth Social that he was “consider[ing] winding down our great Military efforts” on the afternoon of March 20th, outlets like Axios, The Hill, and the New York Times dutifully reported the development as if it were actual news, though they did also point out that signs were inconsistent. Hours earlier, CBS broke a story about the DOD’s detailed plans for a ground invasion. This story got a lot less coverage, despite claiming multiple internal sources that weren’t, you know, a Truth Social post from one of the world’s most manic posters.

Here’s the thing: I don’t buy it. Trump’s whims matter, sure, but is he steering the ship by himself? I don’t think so.

Donald Trump has always rambled. He’s always indulged in weird asides. But he’s never been this incoherent. He regularly repeats himself now. He’s developed a new bilateral lisp. He’s started to say things like “it can only good happen.” The man’s brain is melting before our eyes. I highly doubt he’s making decisions unabetted.

So, um…why would they lie about this? You’d expect the lie to go in the opposite direction—a comforting fiction about rationality and pluralism and democracy working as intended. The obvious explanation is that praising Trump’s unilateral and perfect decision-making is an essential job requirement for cabinet members. These clowns can do whatever they want, damn near—FBI security and private jet rides for your F-list country girlfriend? Signal chats full of sensitive information and an Atlantic journalist? Blatantly profiteer from the position?—but God help them if they don’t thank Trump every other word when they speak to the public or, heaven forbid, steal the spotlight. Trump has fired exactly one cabinet member so far, and her dealbreaking crime was a $220M ad campaign with her pornogrified face plastered all over it.

There’s a deeper reason, though. One of the only power players in this administration with any kind of coherent vision beyond self-enrichment and masturbatory cruelty is the Heritage Foundation, and one of the Heritage Foundation’s pet goals is the expansion of presidential power. You may have noticed that everything the Trump administration says and does seeks to stretch executive power a bit further, even if there are other, more subtle ways to get what they want. They flout judicial rulings and sideline Congress at every opportunity, not in secret but openly and proudly.

The Heritage goons aren’t just trying to alter the structure of our government, though they are absolutely doing that as well. They would like us, as a nation, to grow accustomed to being controlled by the whims and desires of one man, rather than by representatives we can yell at over the phone and pressure in the primaries. Easier to shove your agenda through that way, and it’s a hell of a lot easier to rig one big election than hundreds of smaller ones.

So What’s Really Going On?

It’s becoming increasingly clear that Trump’s Iranian “excursion” seems contradictory and incoherent because it is both contradictory and incoherent. Four factions want this war, with overlapping yet ultimately incompatible goals that range from merely bad to genuinely psychotic.

Tomorrow morning, we’ll explore exactly what those are.

If you’re a premium subscriber and would rather not wait until tomorrow morning, however, great news: you can access Part 2 right here, or you can listen to the audio version of this article, which contains both parts.