Bad Faith

When a government we cannot trust takes us to war

Iranians celebrate the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But what happens next?

It surpasses understanding that any sentient person would believe a word that comes out of Donald’s mouth. For over ten years, he has promised to replace the ACA with a superior plan; he promised to end Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine “on day one” of the transition; he promised to release the Epstein files as soon as he was back in the Oval Office in 2025; and, repeatedly, he promised his followers that he would end forever wars and put “America first.”

None of that has come to pass. There is no alternative to the ACA, superior or otherwise. In 2025, Ukraine has sustained as many as 150,000 civilians and military deaths. Donald and his DOJ have done everything in their power to obscure the truth of what’s in the Epstein files and protect whoever is in them, including himself.

As for the absurd claim that he is a peace president, in the last year alone, Donald has ordered the U.S. military to blow up 45 boats in the Caribbean Sea, murdered at least 150 people, and carry out limited strikes on seven countries, including Iran. The June strikes against Iranian nuclear sites was necessary, we were told, to stop, or at least hobble, Iran’s nuclear program. According to Donald, that mission was successful and the country’s nuclear capabilities were “obliterated.”

Now he has declared war on Iran in part, he says, because the country is developing nuclear weapons that “could soon reach the American homeland.” His concern over this possibility is belied by the fact that he unilaterally withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was designed to limit Iran’s uranium enrichment program in exchange for an easing of economic sanctions. As part of the deal, Iran also gave the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) unprecedented access to its nuclear facilities.

Donald has also floated the idea that this war is about bringing about regime change in Iran. The Iranian people have suffered long and horribly under the cruel and repressive authoritarian theocracy. They deserve to be free and they deserve to determine their own system of governance. But the man who is bombing their country has no interest in them and has no plan to create the conditions in which they can become free or support the efforts to create an alternative to the current regime.

The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several other senior leaders of the Iranian government have been killed, but in a statement to the Iranian people, Donald said, “Let’s see how you respond. America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force.” But how? And, just as importantly, as Anne Applebaum writes in The Atlantic:

But who is “you”? The civil-society and women’s-rights activists who want to build a rule-of-law society, with transparency, accountability, and independent courts? The ethnic minorities—Kurdish, Baluchi, Azerbaijani, and others—who want a decentralized state and more autonomy? The sometimes-fanatical supporters of a new monarchy, who have tried in recent months to push others to the sidelines? Breakaway groups inside the IRGC who might be interested in creating a military dictatorship?

Donald doesn’t know, and he cares less. There is no plan, because there is never a plan. He wreaks havoc and expects other people to pick up the rubble of his destruction. To date, this has worked for him because he never suffers the consequences of his reckless and ill-considered actions. It’s always, always somebody else. And that suits him just fine.

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In the lead up to the 2020 presidential election, I said, as often as I could, it would be dangerous beyond my ability to express it, to put Donald back in power because, if he believed he was going down, he would take the rest of us with him. That statement was universally met with incredulity. “You’re not serious?” I was asked. But I was.

And here we are in a war of choice—of Donald’s choice—with Iran without the consent of the American people or Congressional authorization. He made no efforts to convince us this was necessary—he didn’t even bother to lie to us. He just announced that he had started a war after the fact.

There are many reasons this unconstitutional war has been launched in contravention of international law. There are many actors who have spent decades and untold billions of dollars to get somebody like Donald in a position to do their bidding—people in the upper echelons of the governments of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Russia. For Donald there is one reason and one reason alone—he’s in trouble, and he knows it.

This isn’t simply about changing the subject—that would be bad enough; this is to keep himself and the world from knowing what an inept, depraved, compromised fraud he is. This is about his unfathomable desperation to avoid being humiliated.

Donald Trump has taken us to war at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Israel. But that wouldn’t have been enough of a reason if doing so didn’t also coincide with his own self-interest.

In less than 24 hours, approximately 200 Iranians are dead, including dozens of children killed in a strike on an elementary school, nine Israelis were killed in an Iranian strike on Beit Shemesh, and three American service members are dead—al because Donald is a desperately weak man who needs to distract people from that fact, just as he needs something to shore up his failing ability to feel powerful. That’s a difficult tightrope for the weakest man I’ve ever known to be walking, and yet he’s been walking it his whole life.