With Iran, risk-taker Trump places his biggest bet yet

New Straits Times

6 hours ago

Like the casino owner he once was, President Donald Trump has shown an appetite for risk during the first months of his administration.
The United States airstrike on Iran, however, may represent Trump's largest gamble yet.
For now, Trump appears to have won his bet that he could limit US involvement and force the parties to a ceasefire.
"He wagered," said Firas Maksad, managing director for the Middle East and North Africa practice at Eurasia Group. "Things went his way."
It remains to be seen whether the ceasefire will hold. Early on Tuesday, Trump expressed frustration that Israel had launched an attack on Teheran hours after the president had declared a break in the hostilities.
If the agreement doesn't stick - or if Iran ultimately retaliates militarily or economically, Trump risks fragmenting the America First coalition that helped power him back into office by rendering what his movement stands for increasingly nebulous and ill-defined.
"If six months from now, Iran continues to be a problem, it will grind down the MAGA coalition," said Chris Stirewalt, a political analyst with the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
Trump, in a sense, had already diluted the MAGA brand, Stirewalt said, by doing what he swore on the campaign trail he wouldn't: involve the US in another conflict in the Middle East.
And Trump's messaging may already show the challenges that could be faced with winning approval from his base.
Last Thursday, Trump said he would take as long as two weeks to determine whether the US would join the war on Israel's side, arguing the time was needed to lower the temperature.
Instead, two days later, he approved the bomber run, not only likely catching the Iranians off guard but many Americans as well.
His choice to hit Iran could also pose problems for whichever Republican tries to claim his mantle in the next presidential election.
"In 2028, the question of foreign intervention will be a dividing line. It will be a litmus test as people struggle to define what MAGA is," Stirewalt said.
The White House largely left it to Vice-President JD Vance, one of the most isolationist members of the administration, to defend the Iranian strike on a Sunday news programme.
Iran has not been the only example of where Trump has bet big and the payoff remains elusive.
His on-again-off-again use of tariffs has sparked uncertainty in markets and stoked inflation fears.
His efforts to slash the government bureaucracy have lost momentum with the departure of Elon Musk from his circle of advisers. His hardline immigration push sparked protests across the country.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Monday, and conducted before the ceasefire was announced, showed that only 36 per cent of those surveyed supported the strikes against Iran's nuclear programme.
Overall, Trump's approval rating fell to 41 per cent, a new low for his second term. His foreign policy received even lower marks.
Dave Hopkins, an expert on US politics at Boston College, said that Trump neglected to make a case in advance to the American people that the strike was in the country's interests.
"We have not seen discussion of Iran as a major enemy of the US or a threat to the US," said Hopkins.
Trump's boast that he had forced a ceasefire was part of a pattern, he added.
As a candidate, Trump promised he could end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, but has since discovered he cannot bend Moscow and Tel Aviv to his will. In fact, in striking Iran, Trump followed Israel's lead, not vice versa.
The strike fits with how Trump has approached his second term, with a willingness to govern in broad strokes and act boldly without widespread public backing. He does not need to worry about facing voters again and works with a largely compliant Republican-controlled Congress.
Political payback might not happen immediately, said Allison Stanger, a political scientist at Middlebury College, but could come in the form of continued civic unrest in America or Democratic gains in next year's midterm elections.
"Trump's political risk isn't immediate escalation," Stanger said. "It's the slow burn of resentment he has built across multiple fronts, both foreign and domestic."