In Focus delivers deeper coverage of the political, cultural, and ideological issues shaping America. Published daily by senior writers and experts, these in-depth pieces go beyond the headlines to give readers the full picture. You can find our full list of In Focus pieces here.
Since the bombs started falling over Tehran about two weeks ago, one question has consumed establishment Washington: “Where’s the plan?”
It’s understandable: The Trump administration’s communications have been a study in contradiction.
How long will this take?
War Secretary Pete Hegseth said Sunday that “we haven’t even really begun” the more intense phase of bombing. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump said the war was over and “we won,” and then moments later, that we still have to “finish the job.”
Is this a ‘regime change’ war?
Try to make sense of this statement from Hegseth: “This is not a so-called regime change war. But the regime sure did change, and the world is better off for it.”
Why now?
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States acted to get ahead of an anticipated Israeli strike — then Trump said the opposite, that Iran was about to attack first and that he may have forced Israel’s hand.
What’s most intolerable to the expert class is the absence of a clear, digestible plan to win the war — or even a definition of what winning looks like. It may also be the point.
The great Peggy Noonan, the rare insider with the capacity to see things from the outside, fretted in her latest column that “detailed explanations of official thinking are needed in situations like this” — before admitting that they “aren’t magic,” and that “George W. Bush’s addresses on the decision to go into Iraq were regular and substantive, but they couldn’t make that war succeed.”
I’m surprised Noonan didn’t stop herself mid-sentence and recalibrate — am I really suggesting Trump should mimic former President George W. Bush’s prosecutions of Middle East wars?
But I get it. I, too, am troubled by the war and eager to know “the plan.” But I’m glad that I don’t know it. Because if I knew precisely what our leadership intended to do and what their aims were, so would our enemies.
Indeed, presidential overexplanation has handed our enemies an advantage repeatedly in recent decades. The U.S. has acted as though it were not at war but involved in a gentlemanly contest that punishes subterfuge and rewards transparency.
The Iraq War, especially during the counterinsurgency phase, was nothing if not an exercise in oversharing. Public debate over troop levels, surge timelines, and withdrawal benchmarks provided insurgents a literal itinerary of our moves. Not even Muhammad Ali could win a boxing match against an opponent who could anticipate his every duck and punch.
Former President Barack Obama’s 2011 withdrawal deadline was the ultimate parting gift to al Qaeda in Iraq and the Islamic State, which turned out not to be the “JV team” after all. It was all very orderly and transparent — and very stupid.
Obama’s public announcement of a “red line” in Syria was another costly act of strategic transparency. Our enemies learned of the limits of American resolve, emboldening them to act — which they did in Eastern Europe and the Middle East in the years that followed.
Former President Joe Biden’s pullout of Afghanistan was strategic transparency at its most catastrophic. The Taliban, knowing our withdrawal deadline, simply waited us out and then pounced. The result was the fall of Kabul in two short weeks — and 13 American service members killed in the chaos of our departure.
Establishment Washington insists that failing to divulge war plans is irresponsible — but this history suggests the opposite.
They’d also insist Trump needed congressional approval before a single bomb fell. He didn’t. As my colleague Conn Carroll pointed out, presidents have launched military operations on their own authority since George Washington — the War Powers Resolution of 1973 didn’t change that, it just put a 60-day clock on it. Congress gets its say eventually — just not yet.
Of course, Trump may take a short-term political hit for failing to persuade the public or win congressional approval. But when weighed against the value of keeping an enemy off balance, it’s a smart gamble.
Americans like to know what their leaders are up to. But even more, they like winning wars instead of losing them. A favorable outcome in Iran will more than compensate for whatever political damage his silence costs him now.
And there’s good reason to think Trump’s use of strategic ambiguity is producing results. From the Iran and Yemen strikes last year to the capture of former dictator Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, all of which were swift and caught the enemy off guard, Trump’s military actions have been devastatingly effective. Compare that record to the transparently choreographed and failed military commitments of previous presidents this century.
By most accounts, this operation, like the others in Trump’s second term, is being executed masterfully. U.S. forces established total air dominance over Iran almost immediately, enabling aircraft to operate deep inside the country to hunt Iranian missile launchers and drone sites before they could fire. Ballistic missile attacks against U.S. and allied targets have since fallen by 90%.
The method, however maddening to the expert class, appears to be working here.
This week at the House Republican issues conference, Trump told a story about a conversation he had with a military official about sinking Iran’s ships.
“I said, ‘Why don’t we just capture the ship? We could use it. Why did we sink them?’ He said, ‘It’s more fun to sink them.’ They like sinking them better.”
And then he laughed into the microphone. At that moment, it was impossible to tell whether he was actually crazy or not, or whether he just wanted to make the Iranians think he was crazy. And if we can’t tell, they can’t either.
If all of this makes you uncomfortable — and I don’t blame you if it does — it’s another reason to demand that foreign policy play a greater role during our national elections. We tend to choose our presidents based on who we think can best manage the economy. But on economic matters, presidents need Congress — and therefore need popular approval. On war, they don’t. Perhaps the best time to hear about the foreign policy “plan” is during the campaign, not after the bombs are already falling.
TRUMP’S EVOLVING STANCE ON IRAN ‘UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER’
Do you remember Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris’s Iran plans being scrutinized and contrasted at length during the campaign? I don’t, either. I remember plenty about Haitians eating pets and pop star Taylor Swift’s endorsement. But about keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of the mullahs? It’s a little hazy.
For now, we can only hope that the man laughing into the microphone about sinking ships knows what he’s doing. The alternative is too alarming to consider. But then, that’s probably what he wants us to think.
