Peter Harris
As of Saturday evening, June 21, Donald Trump is now a wartime president. This is a far cry from how Trump began his presidency five months ago, with promises to wind down existing conflicts and refrain from starting new ones. But despite his fondness for calling himself a peacemaker, Trump can no longer persist with this charade. For better or worse, he has taken the United States to war with Iran.
To be sure, Trump has expressed hope that Iran will be restrained in its response to US airstrikes against three key nuclear sites. Perhaps he will get his way. After all, the president ordered the assassination of the top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in January 2020 without provoking a massive retaliation.
The case for Iran exercising restraint is simple. America has what scholars of International Relations call “escalation dominance.” This means that Iran stands to lose more than it can gain by climbing rungs on the escalation ladder. Consequently, Iran would be irrational to launch a significant counterattack against US forces in the Persian Gulf. Fighting back would only make things worse.
Will this be enough to keep a lid on Trump’s war of choice with Iran? Maybe. However, there are at least three conflicting reasons to expect that Iran will not allow these airstrikes to pass off without serious repercussions.
First, Iran has powerful incentives to retaliate against the United States because passivity would risk giving a green light to more US attacks on Iranian soil. What message would Tehran be sending if it allowed nuclear sites to be bombed with impunity? To discourage leaders in Washington from attacking Iran again, the regime might conclude that a large-scale military response is essential, no matter the short-term costs to Iranians.
Second, Iran’s top brass have reasonable fears that their enemies abroad want to bring about regime change. Trump denies that this is a war aim, but the president has a “credible commitment problem” to overcome—that is, he probably cannot convince Iran that he means what he says.
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