This is how easily the U.S. and Iran could blunder into war
Both countries say they don’t want it. But here’s a scenario where it happens anyway.
Having invested his credibility and political future in looking tough, Trump seemed to have no choice. A president who had promised to extricate America from endless wars in the Middle East found himself sending more than 100,000 troops back into the desert. Only this time, the United States was invading a country with
- 80 million people (twice Iraq’s population),
- a territory 68 percent larger than Iraq and Afghanistan combined, and with
- hundreds of thousands of the best paramilitary troops in the world.
Asked at an impromptu news conference about the deployment, Trump simply said, “I warned Iran that if they chose to fight, we would end them.” It was a war that neither Trump nor Iranian leaders wanted — and yet, at each critical moment, escalation seemed like the only way to defend vital national interests and respond to political imperatives. Circumstances had simply become too combustible. And once the fuse was lit, no one could stop the explosion.