Trump’s Iran quagmire looks disturbingly familiar | Opinion

Donald Trump sold himself as a strongman who would keep America out of weakness, humiliation and drift. He promised one win after another. He promised no foreign wars. Instead, he has led the United States into a dangerous confrontation with Iran that bears an unsettling resemblance to the catastrophe Vladimir Putin led Russia into in Ukraine: a conflict entered with bravado, justified with bluster, and sustained at growing cost to ordinary people.

The parallels are not exact. History rarely repeats so neatly. But the governing delusion is painfully similar. Putin believed force would quickly impose his will on Ukraine and confirm his image as a decisive nationalist leader. Four years later, Russia remains trapped in a grinding asymmetric war marked by territorial struggle, casualties, economic strain, and a society warped by militarized politics. Reuters reported last month that Russian forces are still fighting for incremental gains and that the war remains far from settled.

Trump’s approach to Iran reflects the same strongman fantasy: escalation presented as clarity, risk framed as toughness, and consequences treated as somebody else’s burden. Reuters reports that the conflict with Iran, launched on Feb. 28, has already killed more than 2,000 people, pushed the Strait of Hormuz toward closure, and triggered threats against energy, power and water infrastructure across the region. That is not strategic mastery. It is the logic of brinkmanship devouring its author. And it risks starting World War III.

And, as always, the pain does not land first on the political class. It lands on households. Roughly one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas normally moves through the Strait of Hormuz, and Reuters has reported that the disruption there has fueled a sharp energy shock, rising oil prices, and renewed inflation fears. American drivers are already being warned of sustained pain at the pump.

The fiscal cost is mounting, too. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently said that the U.S. military is seeking $200 billion in additional funding for the Iran war, even as the administration insists it has the resources to continue. (Remember that the GOP rejected an extension of Obamacare subsidies because they were too expensive at $60 billion. Health care for citizens is too expensive, but another war in a foreign land can be justified?) Reuters also reported that the administration loosened some oil sanctions on Iran and Russia in an effort to stabilize prices after the conflict intensified. That is not a picture of control. It is a picture of a government improvising around damage it helped create.

This is what authoritarian-style politics so often produces: the theatrical promise of strength followed by a messy, expensive reality. First comes the swagger. Then the overreach. Then the demand that the public treat sacrifice as proof of patriotism. Putin did it in Russia. Trump is doing his own version here.

So when will Trump supporters admit their mistake?

Perhaps when “strength” keeps translating into higher prices, wider instability, higher unemployment, and a war with no obvious off-ramp. Perhaps when they see that admiration for strongmen is a habit of mind that invites disaster. Or some never will. That, too, is part of the tragedy.

But the rest of the country should not pretend this pattern is mysterious. It is visible, familiar and ruinously costly. Recklessness is not courage. Escalation is not strategy. And a leader who mistakes domination for wisdom can drag a nation into the very suffering he promised to end.

William J. Rothwell is a distinguished professor emeritus and academy professor at Penn State. Owner of four small businesses, he has been a State College resident for 33 years. His views are his own and do not reflect those of the university.