Treating Allies Like Enemies

Does Donald even know the difference anymore?

What did he say? [Photo credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images]

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi visited the White House yesterday to reaffirm the U.S.–Japan alliance. The meeting unfolded exactly as one might expect when one of the leaders involved has no clear grasp of how to manage the crisis he created. That crisis, of course, is Donald’s war of choice in Iran.

Takaichi, Japan’s first female prime minister, is a hard line conservative and she arrived in Washington D.C. with a gesture of goodwill—250 cherry trees to mark America’s upcoming 250th anniversary. She also found herself navigating an Oval Office meeting dominated by the fallout of Donald’s rapidly escalating conflict. What should have been a ceremonial reaffirmation of diplomatic ties became, for Takaichi, an exercise in damage control.

There were visible signs of discomfort throughout the meeting, particularly when reporters pressed the prime minister about Japan’s refusal to help secure the Strait of Hormuz. She reiterated Japan’s opposition to Iran’s nuclear program and appealed directly to Donald’s ego, telling him,

I firmly believe it is only you, Donald, who can achieve peace across the world.

Yes, the man waging an illegal, unconstitutional war of choice that has already killed more than 2,300 people across the region including hundreds of children, and at least 13 U.S. service members is going to bring about global peace. Whether Takaichi was being sincere or strategic is unclear but given that roughly 82 percent of the Japanese public opposes the war, the latter seems far more likely.

Donald, for his part, continued to describe the war not as a conflict or an incursion, but as an excursion, as if the mobilization of our military were little more than a casual outing.

This is how he framed it:

Everything was going great. The economy was great. Oil prices were very low. Gasoline was dropping to — I mean, we had a $1.99, $1.85. . . . And I saw what was happening in Iran and I said, ‘I hate to make this excursion, but we’re going to have to do it.”’ And I actually thought the numbers would be worse. [B]ut we’re doing this excursion and when it’s completed, we’re going to have a much safer world. And the Prime Minister agrees with me on this. She considers it to be terrible what Iran did. I think every country does, just about every country does. Iran is a serious threat to the world, to the Middle East and to the world. And everybody agrees with me. I think virtually every country agrees with me on that. I wanted to put out that fire. And I said, ‘You don’t do that, oil prices will go up, the economy will go down a little bit.’ I thought it would be worse, much worse actually. It’s not bad, and it’s going to be over with pretty soon.”

None of that is true. The last time gasoline prices in the United States were below $2 a gallon was in early 2020 when the COVID pandemic brought the world to a halt and demand for gas collapsed. The last time before then that prices dropped below $2 a gallon was in early 2016, during the Obama administration.

Donald’s broader claims are also lies. He did not anticipate Iran’s response—specifically it’s immediate move to close the Strait of Hormuz; there was no meaningful coordination with any of our allies other than Israel; and there is no evidence “everybody agrees” with him. In fact, our allies have little incentive to support a war initiated by an American president who has spent years publicly belittling them and threatening NATO.

Meanwhile, the conflict continues to spin further out of control. Israel struck Iran’s South Pars natural gas field, and Tehran retaliated across the region, targeting energy infrastructure, including major facilities in Qatar. Donald initially claimed he had no knowledge of the Israeli strike and later insisted he had advised against it.

Here is how he described the exchange between him and Netanyahu:

I told him don’t do that. And he will not do that. We did not discuss. We are independent. We get along great. It is coordinated, but on occasion he will do something and if I do not like it and, so we are not doing that anymore.

Let me paraphrase: “I told Netanyahu not to do it. He didn’t do the thing that he actually has done and of which I am denying any knowledge of. We’re independent, but we coordinate on everything except those things on which we do not coordinate.” These glaring logical inconsistencies leave us with two possibilities: either Donald is lying about this, or the commander-in-chief of the United States military was clueless about a strike our only ally in this war carried out. Those are both bad options.

Donald then turned to berating NATO:

We are defending the Strait for everybody else. And then, in the case of NATO, they do not want to help us defend the Strait. And they are the ones that need it, but now they are getting much nicer because they are seeing my attitude. They are getting much nicer, but as far as I am concerned it is too late. UK wants to send aircraft carriers now, and I said, ‘I want the aircraft carriers before the war. I do not want them after the war’s won.’

It’s worth pointing out that our NATO allies didn’t ask for this war and bear no responsibility for the Strait’s being closed. And Donald continues to claim that we’ve won the war, while complaining that our allies aren’t helping us fight the war. We won it, but now we haven’t won it. We were winning. Now we’re not. We don’t need NATO’s help anymore, except of course, we desperately do. And if they don’t give us the help we do not need, unless we do need it, Donald will continue to insult and threaten them.

A Japanese reporter asked Donald directly why the United States hadn’t notified its allies before launching strikes in Iran. I think that’s a simple and entirely reasonable question under the circumstances, and here’s Donald’s response:

One thing, you do not want to signal too much when we go in. We went in very hard and we did not tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan, okay? Why did not you tell me about Pearl Harbor, okay? Right, he is asking me, “Do you believe in surprise?”

Yes, that flaccid little man wants us to believe that because he went in so hard, we didn’t need to tell our allies. And he’s essentially saying we can’t trust our allies any more than we can trust our enemies. Obviously, Japan was our enemy when they attacked Pearl Harbor. It would’ve been strategically inadvisable for them to alert the United States in advance of the attack. As for why they didn’t tell Donald—he hadn’t even been born yet.

That is the level of unseriousness and incompetence of the man who got us into this war and who controls the most powerful military in the world, including our vast nuclear arsenal.

This is also the same person who once promised us this:

We’re going to win so much. You may even get tired of winning, and you’ll say, “Please, please, it’s too much winning. We can’t take it anymore, Donald. It’s too much.” And I’ll say, “No, it isn’t. We have to keep winning. We have to win more.”

Unlike Donald, I’ve actually had experience with winning and, as someone who has won things, I understand how it works and it is not something I’ve ever gotten tired of.

I am, on the other hand, sick to death of losing—lives, opportunities, security, institutional knowledge, the country’s reputation—because the most incompetent, reckless, and dangerous loser ever to disgrace this planet has unchecked power.