Trump’s Iran goals fell apart — and he 'had no plan B': Navy expert

President Donald Trump's end-goal for the war in Iran has been consistently vague and uncertain, but according to a new analysis from ex-Republican and Navy expert Tom Nichols, while there was a goal in mind when the conflict started, Trump "had no plan B" after it fell apart.

Writing for The Atlantic on Friday, Nichols observed that Trump "has still refused to define victory other than to say the war will soon be over," even as the conflict nears the end of its third week.

"From the moment he launched hostilities, he offered many rationales for the war, choosing among them like he’s picking hors d’oeuvres from a buffet at one of his golf resorts: It’s about nuclear weapons, it’s about terrorism, it’s about ballistic missiles," Nichols wrote.

Despite these shifting plans from the administration, Nichols argued that Trump did, in fact, have a goal when he agreed to join Israel in a campaign against Iran: regime change. Following the death of the previous supreme leader, however, Iran moved swiftly to replace him with his son, who experts have described as even more hardline than his father. Nichols observed that the Iranian government "seems to be recovering and, even worse, consolidating power," citing experts in the U.S. intelligence community who said the regime "will remain intact and possibly even emboldened, believing it stood up to Trump and survived."

"Trump now appears lost, unable to comprehend how a blockbuster movie that he scripted out, one in which he cast himself as the Liberator of Iran, has turned into a poorly received miniseries that might yet be renewed for another dreary season," Nichols wrote.

Nichols noted further that Trump was indeed advised that the Iranian regime would not be toppled easily, but he went ahead with the operation anyway, believing that overwhelming force would best the government in swift fashion. He also reportedly ignored warnings about Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz in response to military aggression, creating the current global oil supply crisis. Trump's present dilemma, with him unable to define a clear endgame for the war, stems from this misplaced confidence in his first plan.

"Trump’s Plan A was to hit Iran hard, watch the theocrats flee, and then hand power to a government of his own choosing," Nichols explained. "Should such things not come to pass, Plan B was … well, apparently, there was no Plan B."

He added later: "Trump has said that the war will not last long. The Iranians have been severely weakened, and their nuclear program is, for the time being, almost nonexistent. For the president, that may be enough to declare a win and let the world’s markets (and nerves) settle back down. But if the regime survives, and Tehran keeps its fist around the throat of the global economy, Trump’s Plan A will have failed. And without a Plan B, the temptation to escalate will grow as Trump tries to spackle over the gap left by his own unwillingness to engage in judicious strategic thinking when it counted most: before the war."

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