Trump is not operating a normal presidency. He believes his own judgement is sufficient, treats advice as optional, and sees any form of restraint as personal weakness.
He has been pushed into confrontation with Iran by Netanyahu, whose objective of decisive action aligns neatly with Trump’s instinct to escalate. The result is not a considered strategy but a reinforcing loop. One pushes, the other amplifies, and neither has an incentive to pause and ask where it leads.
His stated military aims are straightforward enough on paper. Degrade Iran’s capabilities. Reassert deterrence. Stop the threat. But they are not being met. Iran has not collapsed. It continues to absorb strikes and respond. Deterrence has not been restored in any meaningful sense. If anything, the exchange has broadened and hardened.
And now we have the added wrinkle of his own counterterrorism chief resigning, stating there was no imminent threat. If that reflects the internal intelligence view, then the public case for war was, at best, stretched and, at worst, something else entirely. The subsequent FBI investigation rather suggests those concerns may have touched something the administration would have preferred to keep quiet.
From that starting point, escalation is not a choice, it is the default. Each strike invites retaliation. Each retaliation justifies a larger strike. And because stepping back would look like losing, the only available move is to go further. In practical terms, he has no off-ramp, because taking one would contradict the image he is trying to maintain.
That dynamic widens the conflict. Iran absorbs the blows and responds, as states under attack tend to do. It does not collapse. The exchange spreads. Targets expand. And before long, the conflict begins to reach beyond military assets into the infrastructure that underpins the regional and global economy.
That is the point at which his actions introduce a second dimension. Not just war, but economic disruption. Energy infrastructure comes into play. Shipping lanes become uncertain. Insurance rises. Prices move. What began as a military escalation starts to spill into the systems that keep the global economy functioning.
And that part is spiralling.
The Gulf states feel it first and most directly. Energy production, ports, shipping lanes, all exposed. They did not choose the war, but they bear its consequences. Economic damage builds, and with it pressure to act, not out of ideology but necessity. The line between staying out and being drawn in begins to disappear.
Europe follows for the same reason. It does not want involvement, but it cannot absorb sustained disruption to energy flows. So it edges in, step by step, through protection of shipping, defensive support, and political alignment. Each move limited, each one justified, but together they amount to participation driven by economic survival.
At the same time, a further, rather uncomfortable truth is exposed.
There are Iranians who want regime change. That is not in dispute. The protests were real, large, and brutally suppressed.
But escalation shows no real concern for them at all. Bombing a country does not empower its civil society. It does not create safe conditions for protest. If anything, it strengthens the regime’s grip and justifies further repression.
And on the ground, the reaction is telling. Many Iranians want change, but reject war as the means of achieving it.
There is also a darker edge to this. If an uprising were triggered under these conditions, protesters could simply be slaughtered. Which suggests that, while regime change is spoken of, the human cost of how it might happen is not the limiting factor. Netanyahu’s priority is the removal of the threat, not the welfare of the people living under it. If that requires Iran to be battered into submission, that is a price he appears willing to contemplate.
So the people most likely to suffer from “liberation” are the ones it is supposedly for.
And through all of this, a very clear lesson is being learned. If you are a state in that region, conventional strength does not guarantee safety. Alliances are uncertain under pressure. States without ultimate deterrence remain vulnerable.
In that environment, Iran’s desire for nuclear weapons becomes rational. Not admirable, but logical. And once that logic takes hold, it does not remain confined to Iran. Other states will draw the same conclusion and begin moving in that direction.
That is how nuclear proliferation starts, not with a declaration, but with a series of decisions that all point the same way.
Meanwhile, the same escalation that drives the conflict outward begins to erode support at home. Strength without clear results starts to look hollow. Costs rise, outcomes remain uncertain, and even core supporters begin to question it.
Which creates a second loop. To maintain the image of strength, escalation continues. That escalation deepens the problem. The deepening problem further weakens support. And so the cycle reinforces itself.
So you end up here.
A personality-driven escalation with no usable off-ramp. A widening conflict failing on its own stated military terms. An economic dimension now spiralling beyond control. Allies being drawn in by necessity rather than choice. And a steady, rational drift towards nuclear proliferation as more states conclude that the only reliable insurance is one we spent decades trying to limit.
And the final irony is this. The more force applied to achieve the stated objectives, the further away those objectives become. Each step taken to increase security reduces it. Each escalation makes resolution harder. It is not just a war without an off-ramp. It is a war in which every turn of the wheel drives further away from the destination.
A catastrophe set in motion by Netanyahu, and enabled by Trump, who lacks the wit to see he has been played.
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