Opinion | Don’t Fight Iran

Sometimes it’s important to write a column about something you’re pretty sure isn’t going to happen. In this case, that thing is war with Iran, which Donald Trump clearly doesn’t want, and which he will therefore probably avoid. But since the president’s current foreign policy is making war more likely, it’s still worth saying clearly that it would be a terrible idea for the United States to enter into a serious armed conflict with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In the past I have argued that there is a certain coherence to the Trump foreign policy, even if it’s just an accidental synthesis of a chaotic White House’s competing impulses. According to that synthesis, recent American presidents have been overly optimistic about democratic transformation, embracing naïvely utopian hopes in the Islamic world and naïvely accommodating the rise of China. So what is needed instead is a retrenchment in the greater Middle East, an abandonment of occupations and nation-building efforts and a return to kill-your-enemies, back-your-friends realpolitik, which in turn will make it easier for the United States to pivot to a more confrontational approach with Beijing.