Is this the Epstein War, or the Netanyahu War? Dan Drezner thinks it is the Netanyahu War. Dan’s heading: Maybe, just maybe, the Trump Administration does not know what it is doing in Iran.
On the general line of spitting against the wind, or rolling the Sysiphean boulder uphill, I have found Dan Drezner to be the best despairing man yelling at clouds and keeping my head in the right place with respect to Trumpian chaos-monkey foreign and security policy.
This AM he argues the Trump administration joined Israel’s war on Iran with maximalist goals but no coherent strategy, driven by alliance entraoment and wishful thinking rather than serious planning. In Dan’s view the situation was this: Netanyahu was going to strike, and Trump decided that he would rather appear to lead the parade rather than appear weak, on the back foot, and struggling to catch up to events. Senior Trumpian officials appear to have latched onto an implausible best‑case CIA scenario of a more “pragmatic” IRGC leadership, ignoring far more likely, worse outcomes. Overall, he concludes the internal thinking is chaotic, the regime remains resilient, and the administration is essentially improvising in a high‑stakes war. Washington has no credible opposition partner or successor élite in mind, the Iranian regime’s coercive apparatus is largely intact, and hopes for popular overthrow are fanciful.
Piss‑poor crisis decision‑making.
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What do I think? Again: far outside of my wheelhouse here. But: Appearing strong and in control on social media by blowing stuff up is an ethos. The U.S. way of war since Grant has been to blow stuff up, and then see what is left.
Given the amount of stuff we have been blowing up, casualties so far have been mercifully light: only 1000 or so. This is not carpet‑bombing of entire cities, but it is not pinprick strikes either. In Iran, we have confirmed devastation of senior‑leadership compounds (including Khamenei’s), IRGC command-and-control, air bases, air-defense sites, missile and drone launch facilities, and key military airfields—plus hits on civilian infrastructure: hospitals (Gandhi Hospital), emergency-services HQ in Tehran, residential buildings in Sanandaj and other cities, the Minab school, and damage around major squares and near airports like Kermanshah. In Israel, Iranian missiles have hit populated areas (e.g., Beit Shemesh) and forced repeated use of shelters; in the Gulf, repeated Iranian salvos against airports, ports, hotels, and towers have produced a pattern of punctured cityscapes—very localized severe damage, widespread disruption, but not yet city‑levelling.
All so that Trump does not appear weak on social media where Netanyahu appears decisive. (Or possibly, possibly, to get social media talking about something other than Jeffrey Epstein.)
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Dan has put his piece <https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/on-iran-there-is-no-strategy-there#footnote-anchor-1-189723814> behind his paywall, so I will just give brief excerpts:
Over the weekend the hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World expressed just a smidgen of skepticism that there was a coherent strategy behind the Trump administration’s decision to join Israel in bombing Iran. As the scope of the conflict widens, however, it is always tempting to give the administration the benefit of the doubt. After all, deciding to launch an aerial assault on Iran is a high-stakes gamble. One would like to believe that any administration, in deciding to go to war, would think long and hard about the downside risks and prepare for such contingencies…
3 hours ago · 19 likes · Daniel W. Drezner
There Is No U.S. Plan on Iran
Maybe, just maybe, the Trump Administration does not know what it is doing in Iran.
Daniel W. Drezner :: Mar 03, 2026 :: Paid….
The more we learn about Trump’s decision-making process to bomb Iran, however, the clearer it becomes that there is no real strategy or end goal. Consider the talking points… the Trump White House provided to congressional Republicans…. “The objectives are clear: 1. Destroy their missiles, and raze their missile industry to the ground. 2. Annihilate their Navy. 3. Ensure the regime’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces, and no longer use their IEDs or roadside bombs, which have gravely wounded and killed thousands and thousands of people, including many Americans. 4. Ensure that Iran can NEVER obtain a nuclear weapon. While Operation Midnight Hammer obliterated Iran’s three major nuclear sites, the regime was committed to enriching and rebuilding their nuclear program, and they REFUSED to make a deal, despite months of extensive talks and good faith efforts by President Trump’s top negotiators.”… “Régime change” is not listed… despite Trump talking about regime change constantly….
These are pretty maximalist goals!… [of the] “nuke the sitr from orbit” kind….
Marco Rubio basically confirmed Israel’s role in forcing Trump’s hand…. The imminent threat was the Iranian response to an Israeli attack?!… [This is] the textbook definition of entrapment, in which an ally drags a great power into a conflict… [plus] obvious wishcasting on the part of Trump’s advisors….
I don’t know how this conflict plays out over the next dew weeks. The one thing I am certain about is that the Trump administration does not know either…
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