This Iran situation is basically Zelensky and Putin’s fault. In the Ukraine negotiations, first Zelensky dicked Trump around for a while. Then after Zelensky was browbeaten into submission and after some conciliatory remarks toward Russia, Putin started getting yippy seeing that he had the upper hand. Then things escalated because each side wanted to extract the maximum when they had the cards in diplomacy, each in turn. So from a game theoretic standpoint, Trump now has to be more firm to prove his threats are credible. Had the Ukraine situation come to a more amicable resolution earlier through diplomacy, I imagine an Iranian diplomatic settlement would have been easier before all of this. The world is always watching and geopolitical rivals are constantly putting themselves in a bad situation by forcing Trump’s hand by thinking only one or two levels deep. They believe that because he set precedent by being “nice” before that he must not be capable of being “mean”. But of course, smart leaders are adaptable and are very capable of playing a dynamic game.

The goal of the US is to extricate itself from all of the entanglements of the periphery satellite states on the edges of the extended empire. But we want to withdraw in an orderly way and without causing a descent into chaos everywhere while we do it. If all of our rivals are making a mad dash at a land grab while we pull back, then we can’t really pull back can we. Everyone needs to just chill.

Really the issue is that the past decades of US foreign policy expanded the empire way too far. This was severe miscalculation by previous administrations. Now we are in this unfortunate situation and it is proving very difficult to pull back without everything collapsing. We should have never gotten ourselves into this situation but here we are so we have to make the best of it. We have to straddle the line between honoring the security guarantees we made to our allies while simultaneously trying to pull back so we don’t burn through our resources, lives and capital.

Take Iran as an example. If we let them have nukes, pretty soon Saudi will want a nuke. And once Saudi pursues a nuke, every country in the Middle East will want one. Also, everyone is watching Iran. If they can build nukes with no consequences, then other countries will be emboldened. They will think, well if we can endure some sanctions and end up with a nuke, then maybe it will be worth it in the long run. All of these secondary considerations are as important as primary ones when deciding policy. At the end of the day, Russia and China might be ok with Iran having nukes in isolation but they must certainly be in agreement with the US that a fully nuclearized ME down the line is bad for everyone.

Look to Taiwan as another example. If the US lets China take Taiwan, very soon Japan will get nervous. They will think that maybe the Chinese will come for them next to square the accounts from WW2. South Korea will look north and see nukes and look west and see a potentially imperialist power. They will be worried as well. Everything is deeply entangled into a massive clusterfuck.

The game is to disentangle ourselves from these situations without causing seriously negative ramifications in the future. This requires very wise strategy and very sharp tactics. Fortunately, Trump and his people are very intelligent so I’m confident they can figure it out if they haven’t already.