Trump, Iran and the known unknown

Politico

3 hours ago

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With help from Eli Okun, Bethany Irvine and Ali Bianco
Good afternoon. This is Zack Stanton. Let's get straight to the news.
DRIVING THE DAY
OPERATION MIDNIGHT HAMMER: In the run-up to the war in Iraq, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was asked in 2002 whether there was any evidence that Saddam Hussein's government was actually attempting to supply terrorists with weapons of mass destruction. His response was evasive but memorable.
'[T]here are known knowns; there are things we know we know,' Rumsfeld said. 'We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.'
Now, one generation later, the U.S. is again in an undeclared war in the Middle East. Much about it is very different — more on that in a moment. But right now, the known unknowns vastly outnumber the known knowns, while the unknown unknowns lurk around the corner.
First, the known knowns …
The attack itself: Last night, U.S. forces bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities in what the Pentagon termed 'Operation Midnight Hammer.' At President Donald Trump's order, a team of B-2 bombers flew from Missouri to Iran while accompanied by fighter jets, and dropped more than a dozen 30,000-pound bunker-busting bombs on two nuclear facilities. A third site was targeted with Tomahawk missiles fired from American submarines hundreds of miles away.
Trump's timeline: 'Plans for the attack … were already in the works when the president said he'd decide 'within two weeks' whether to join Israel in its efforts to destroy the Islamist regime's nuclear sites,' POLITICO's Dasha Burns and colleagues report. Trump had 'privately communicated his decision' Wednesday, The Atlantic's Michael Scherer and colleagues report, and his 'within two weeks' statement was 'a feint meant to keep the Iranians off guard,' four people familiar with the planning told the outlet.
The stated goal: In this, U.S. involvement in Iran is markedly different than it was in Iraq. Where the George W. Bush administration's stated goal in Iraq was not just neutralizing WMDs, but regime change, the Trump administration's stated goal in Iran is more circumspect. 'This mission was not, has not been about regime change,' Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a news conference this morning. 'We're not at war with Iran,' VP JD Vance added on NBC's 'Meet the Press.' 'We're at war with Iran's nuclear program.' (One tends to doubt that Iran will see the distinction as Vance does.)
The political posturing: It is quite clear that the administration wants to avoid any sort of comparison to Iraq, a conflict that grew to be overwhelmingly unpopular with the American people and contributed to the MAGA movement's overthrow of the Republican establishment.
Consider this striking pushback from Vance on 'Meet the Press': 'I certainly empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East,' Vance said. 'I understand the concern. But the difference is that back then, we had dumb presidents, and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America's national security objectives. So this is not going to be some long, drawn-out thing.' (The thing with war, of course, is that the other party usually also has a say in that.)
Now, the known unknowns — the things we know we do not know …
Just how successful the strikes were: Last night, Trump said that Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities had been 'completely and totally obliterated.' This morning, there's some haziness about that. NYT's Eric Schmitt cites a 'senior U.S. official' in reporting that 'the B-2 attack on the Fordo site did not destroy the heavily fortified facility but severely damaged it.' Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan 'Razin' Caine said this morning that 'the three nuclear sites sustained 'severe damage,' but that it was too soon to assess whether Iran still possessed nuclear capabilities,' as POLITICO's Amy Mackinnon and colleagues report.
Whether Iran will just become a new North Korea: One possibility, as NYT's David Sanger writes, is that 'Iran could slowly recover, its surviving nuclear scientists could take their skills underground and the country could follow the pathway lit by North Korea, with a race to build a bomb. Today, North Korea has 60 or more nuclear weapons by some intelligence estimates, an arsenal that likely makes it too powerful to attack. That, Iran may conclude, is the only pathway to keep larger, hostile powers at bay, and to prevent the United States and Israel from carrying out an operation like the one that lit up the Iranian skies on Sunday morning.'
Whether Iran has any interest in diplomacy: Is there still room for negotiating after the strikes? 'Not right now,' Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said this morning at a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Istanbul, per The Times of London. Araghchi 'will travel to Moscow in the coming hours for urgent talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin,' POLITICO's Jacob Parry reports.
What retaliation U.S. troops will face: 'The Iranian Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday that the large number of U.S. military bases in the region will make it hard for the American forces to entirely evade Iran's expected retaliatory strike. 'Washington has positioned itself directly on the frontlines,' the Guards said in their statement,' per Haaretz.
… And how the U.S. would respond to those attacks: One scenario is laid out in an odd-bedfellows WaPo op-ed by Matthew Duss and Sohrab Ahmari: 'Attacks on U.S. bases would require the United States to respond in kind. And there we'd have it: another big Mideast war, unfolding amid the American public's exhaustion with wars in the region. … And yet another generation of U.S. service members would devote their lives to unnecessary conflict.'
What retaliation the U.S. homeland will face: U.S. officials are concerned about cyberattacks, 'including targeting the banking system or energy grid,' report ABC's Pierre Thomas and Josh Margolin.
What retaliation the region will face: 'The former commander in chief of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, Gen. Mohsen Rezaei, who has a seat at Iran's Supreme National Security Council, warned on state television hours before the attack that if Mr. Trump entered the war, Iran would strike at American military bases, blow up naval mines in the Persian Gulf and move to close the Strait of Hormuz,' per NYT's Farnaz Fassihi. This morning, the Iranian parliament suggested choking off the Strait of Hormuz, a decision which, if followed through on, will likely send oil prices upward.
What Russia will do: Perhaps the most frightening prospect that's crossed our transom this morning comes from former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. 'The enrichment of nuclear material — and, now we can say it outright, the future production of nuclear weapons — will continue,' he posted on X. 'A number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads.'
How seriously should we take that idea? Medvedev has become something of an online troll in recent years, predicting, among other things, that the U.S. would devolve into civil war and that Elon Musk would be elected president despite being constitutionally ineligible. And it's unclear exactly how much weight to put on this idea. 'I don't know that that guy speaks for President Putin or the Russian government,' Vance said when asked about it on ABC's 'This Week,' going on to reiterate that Russia has 'been very consistent that they don't want Iran to get a nuclear weapon.'
What Congress will do: Republicans on the Hill broadly have voiced adamant support for the Iran strikes. It's not so much that they've fallen in line as that they are heartened by the action, which many Republicans have advocated for years.
But there are some Republicans voicing concerns: 'This is not Constitutional,' Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said on X shortly after Trump announced the strike. Similar remarks came from Warren Davidson (R-Ohio): 'While President Trump's decision may prove just, it's hard to conceive a rationale that's Constitutional,' he said before Trump's speech. And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), an ardent MAGA loyalist, posted that this 'is not our fight.' … Those voices, however, are the exception among Republicans. As Playbook's Adam Wren wrote on Friday: 'What 'MAGA civil war'?'
And they're joined by a number of Democrats: With the exception of heterodox Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who was supportive of the strikes, Democrats fall into a few factions on this. There are those, like Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who questioned the constitutionality of the attack and called for an immediate vote on a war powers resolution. (More from Khanna on this week's episode of 'The Conversation with Dasha Burns.') There are those, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who called the strikes 'grounds for impeachment.'
And there are the party's foreign policy and national security mandarins, like Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Intel Dems, neither of whom were reportedly told in advance about the attack despite being in the so-called Gang of Eight. Warner, speaking at a gala in Virginia last night, said it was easier to get into a war in the Middle East than to get out of one, per Virginia Public Media's Jahd Khalil.
What the American public will think: For precisely the reason Warner stated above, military action in the Middle East can prove popular in the short term but sour over time. Bush and Rumsfeld found that out in Iraq, which started with 70-plus percent approval at its outset, but whose unpopularity meant the Bush administration ended in tatters.
Who'd have guessed in 2002 or 2003 that the uber-popular war in Iraq would, a few years later, be so unpopular that it propelled a freshman senator from Illinois to defeat the Clinton machine in the 2008 Democratic primaries, and put him in the White House? Or, in time, that it would help fuel a populist uprising on the right that a billionaire TV star so effectively harnessed on his own path to 1600 Penn?
The Iran strikes may prove to be an unmitigated success. But at this early moment, we cannot know. One thing that is certain: the world that follows will be different in ways we cannot imagine. And that is the unknown unknown.
SUNDAY BEST …
— Vance on the latest communications and the possibility of negotiations, on 'Meet the Press': 'We have received some indirect messages from the Iranians. … The president has said he wants now to engage in a diplomatic process. But if the Iranians are not going to play ball here, they didn't leave as many options as it pertains to last night, and they won't leave as many options in the future.'
— Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) on Trump's decision, on 'Fox News Sunday': 'The Senate has already ruled that the 2001 AUMF does not cover action against Iran … It's clear that there is no congressional authorization for Trump's war against Iran. And I have filed a resolution that I think will get a vote later this week. … Look, America was lied into a war in 2002 against Iraq with a Republican administration giving us false information about Iraq's weapons program. I have grave concern that we're going down the same path. Donald Trump's own national security officials have stated that Iran was not close to having a nuclear weapon.'
— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Trump's authority, on NBC's 'Meet the Press': 'He was within his Article II authority. Congress can declare war or cut off funding. We can't be the commander-in-chief. You can't have 535 commander-in-chiefs. … He had all the authority he needs under the Constitution.'
— Israeli President Isaac Herzog on whether Israel has dragged the U.S. into war, on CNN's 'State of the Union': 'We are leaving it to the decision of the head of — the president of the United States and his team, because it had to do with America's national security interest, period. We are not intending and we don't ask for America now to go to war because the Iranians are threatening Israel. The decision was taken because the Iranian nuclear program was a clear and present danger to the security interests of all of the free world.'
SUNDAY AFTERNOON VIEWING: Khanna is one of the Democratic Party's key progressive voices, but he has no problem picking fights with his fellow Democrats or aligning himself with conservatives when he sees common ground. 'I'm kind of blunt-spoken. I say what's on my mind,' he tells Playbook's Dasha Burns on this week's episode of 'The Conversation,' out now on YouTube. Their wide-ranging interview is worth a watch. Here are some excerpts that jumped out to us …
On Musk: 'Elon Musk is an American tragedy. He could have been Bill Knudsen. You know, Bill Knudsen was this GM executive who comes with FDR and leads the war production board. And we go from making 1,000 planes a year to 300,000 planes. And Musk could have come into government and worked with labor and worked with the industry and government to reindustrialize parts of America. Instead, he came into government and started firing veterans.'
On Democrats' problems with young men: 'Instead of doing $20 million studies to understand how to win young men — with no substance — and hiring more consultants, what we ought to learn is that we should have substantive positions that speak to people. One of the things young men don't want is another war overseas. … One of the things we can do is to take on the foreign policy establishment in this country that got us into an Iraq War that kept us in Afghanistan for 20 years … We see this story time and again.' (Editor's note: the interview was conducted before the strike on Iran.)
On Steve Bannon's fondness for him: 'He diagnosed one thing absolutely correctly, and that was that we shafted a lot of people who built America. People in so many community towns, factory towns, where we had 90,000 factories close. You have five trillion-dollar companies in my district …. You can't have a country that has that kind of prosperity in a few places and the rest of the places [are] deindustrialized and dependent on federal resources.'
TOP-EDS: A roundup of the week's must-read opinion pieces.
9 THINGS FOR YOUR RADAR
1. KEITH KELLOGG GETS RESULTS: Belarus released and pardoned 14 prisoners, including top opposition figure Siarhei Tsikhanouski, after Trump's special envoy met with President Alexander Lukashenko, Reuters' Andrius Sytas and Mark Trevelyan report. It's 'the most significant move so far' by Lukashenko 'to try to ease his isolation from the West.' Family members of the released, along with the government in Minsk, credited the Trump administration with helping to achieve the deal. The U.S. hopes Kellogg's Lukashenko meeting could also be a step toward peace in Ukraine.
2. BANNED AID: 'Missteps, Confusion and 'Viral Waste': The 14 Days That Doomed U.S.A.I.D.,' by NYT's Christopher Flavelle and colleagues: 'A New York Times examination found that Trump administration officials came to U.S.A.I.D. with no plan to dismantle the agency, at least not so quickly. Instead, that decision emerged day by day, marked by rash demands, shock and confusion. It culminated with a tense showdown 10 days after Mr. Trump's inauguration, in which agency employees defied orders from Elon Musk … The decision to end U.S.A.I.D. brought deadly consequences. But the events leading to that moment can be traced in part to a particularly banal cause: a confusingly worded directive from Mr. Trump.'
3. RECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES: 'Byrd bath' arguments will take place today for the Senate parliamentarian to determine which pieces of the Finance Committee's crucial reconciliation bill text meet the chamber's budget rules. Breaking overnight, the parliamentarian said a surprising yes to a 10-year ban on state regulations of artificial intelligence, per POLITICO's Anthony Adragna, and no to a provision limiting judges' ability to issue preliminary injunctions against the government, per Senate Budget Dems. Meanwhile, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that if Republicans use their 'current policy baseline' gimmick, the tax legislation would cost only $441 billion, per POLITICO's Benjamin Guggenheim.
And ICYMI, that all follows the parliamentarian's major decision to jettison a plan to foist some SNAP costs onto states, which left the GOP scrambling yesterday to fill the budgetary hole from losing those cuts, per AP's Lisa Mascaro. More notable reads diving into the bill:
4. TRADING PLACES: 'EU Frets Over US Demands in Trade Talks It Sees as Unbalanced,' by Bloomberg's Alberto Nardelli and Jorge Valero: 'Among Washington's requests are measures relating to quotas for fish exports that EU officials say may be incompatible with World Trade Organization rules; tariff-related moves that aren't mutual; and a series of demands on economic security described by the officials from the bloc as far-fetched, said the people … Many of US President Donald Trump's tariffs would stay even in the event of a deal.'
5. TOO MANY COOKS: Countries trying to negotiate trade deals with the U.S. have struggled to balance Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and USTR Jamieson Greer, who are often perceived as 'working at cross purposes,' POLITICO's Daniel Desrochers and colleagues report. Greer knows more technical details but is less close to Trump. Bessent leads Asian discussions, but Lutnick oversees auto tariffs that are crucial to, say, Japan. It has all left foreign negotiators confused. But the administration insists the officials are all on the same page.
6. THE BUZZ: 'Bees are in trouble – and the federal lab researching them could close,' by WaPo's Ruby Mellen and Salwan Georges in Laurel, Maryland: 'The Trump administration's 2026 budget proposal calls for the defunding of the bee lab and other federally funded wildlife research efforts. Bracing for these cuts, priorities have shifted for … the lab, which has collected and identified more than 1 million specimens of pollinators, hundreds of thousands of which are slotted away in its modest walls. Active field work is on pause. No new research projects have begun.'
7. TWO DAYS TO GO: Frontrunner Andrew Cuomo picked up another big endorsement ahead of Tuesday's NYC Democratic mayoral primary: Bill Clinton, NYT's Emma Fitzsimmons reports. Clinton's robocall for Cuomo, who served as his HUD secretary, could give Cuomo a boost with older Dems, as much — but certainly not all — of the Democratic establishment gets behind the disgraced former governor's comeback.
Related read: POLITICO's Jonathan Martin dives into the national implications of what looks to be a race between Cuomo and progressive Zohran Mamdani, in which both ends of the Democratic spectrum see a path for the party out of the wilderness.
8. RACE TO NOVEMBER: Virginia's top Democratic statewide nominees kicked off a joint bus tour yesterday as the sprint to the general election begins, emphasizing pocketbook issues and protections for federal workers, WaPo's Laura Vozzella and Gregory Schneider report. Abigail Spanberger will campaign in largely blue spots for the next week. Republicans kept things quieter: Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears hasn't made public any campaign events, though her team says she'll visit several areas this week. Chris LaCivita led a fundraiser for AG Jason Miyares on Friday night.
9. THE END OF THE POST-NIXON ERA: 'Trump undermines Watergate laws in massive shift of ethics system,' by WaPo's Naftali Bendavid: 'Trump [is taking] aim at post-Watergate reforms on transparency, spending, conflicts of interest and more. By challenging and disregarding, in letter or in spirit, this slew of 1970s laws, Trump is essentially closing the 50-year post-Watergate chapter of American history — and ushering in a new era of shaky guardrails and blurred separation of powers.'
TALK OF THE TOWN
IN MEMORIAM — 'Former U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold of Corpus Christi dies at 63,' by The Texas Tribune's Kayla Guo: 'A software policy expert, lawyer and quieter member of the Texas delegation, Farenthold … served on the Oversight, Judiciary and Transportation committees. … His efforts included a $625 million channel deepening project for the Port of Corpus Christi. … Farenthold's time in Washington came to a fraught end in April 2018, when he resigned from Congress amid allegations of sexual harassment, an ethics investigation and pressure from the Republican leadership to step down.'
TRANSITION — Dipka Bhambhani is now a senior adviser at the EPA. She is an ExxonMobil and U.S. Energy Association alum and a longtime senior energy contributor to Forbes.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) … Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) … Sam Cornale … AP's Jill Colvin … Carson Daly … Uber's Michael Falconel … Pia Carusone … ICANN's Carlos Reyes … Nate Sizemore … Alisha Sud … Lauren Weiner of the ACLU … Brit Hume … Herald Group's Steven Smith … Dana Harris … Brian Doherty … Adam Sabes … McLean Piner of Rep. Greg Murphy's (R-N.C.) office … Brian Rel
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