The Tribune

with CHARLIE HARPER

We’re about 14 months into Donald Trump’s second term as president of the United States.  How are things going for him?  Since most of the headlines nowadays concern Trump’s war against Iran, let’s focus for now on his various foreign interventions. 

The US president still faces a cascade of criticism over the lack of a coherent justification for an Iran war begun and still conducted by a grand coalition of just two nations – the US and Israel.  Rumors are flying in Washington that Trump was cajoled or simply coerced into this war by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who clearly saw a chance to take down his nation’s most steadfast foe in Iran.  Some Republicans have implied that Netanyahu basically pushed Trump into the current conflict.  So according to such an accounting, the justification for this war was Israel’s determination to pursue it, and the Americans’ reluctance to let them do it alone.

It does seem likely that Israel’s determination to bring down a Tehran regime that has long expressed its distaste for Israel’s very existence played a role in Trump’s thinking.  But quite apart from any influence from Jerusalem, Trump seems to be on a campaign to rid the world of any and all cruel (and anti-American) dictators who don’t possess nuclear weapons. 

His Venezuela gambit to capture, imprison and bring to trial former cruel dictator Nicolas Maduro has basically succeeded so far.  The current regime in Caracas is being led by Maduro’s former second-in-command Delcy Rodriguez, who seems to have absorbed the reality that neither she nor her government will survive the wrath of Trump.  Rodriguez has apparently neutralized opposition to her regime within the American administration.

As a direct result of the US success in Venezuela and its influence over policy decisions there, no more Venezuelan oil is flowing to Cuba.  That drought, combined with the Americans’ apparent ability to deter Mexico from sending any more oil shipments to support the Cuban regime, has created an existential crisis in Havana.  When Trump says it’s just a matter of time before the Cuban Communist regime falls, most observers believe him.  Adding to Cuba’s economic collapse is the clear determination of US Secretary of State and national security adviser Marco Rubio to finally dispatch the Cuban communist government. Significant change is on the way in Havana.

Pundits are fond of citing a list of seven US overseas “involvements” undertaken by the Trump administration since taking office in January 2025.  In addition to Iran, Venezuela and Cuba, the list includes Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, Syria and Iraq. 

A couple of weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal ran an opinion piece defining and praising what it called the “Trump Doctrine.”  Previously, there have been accounts of a “Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine,” but according to the Journal, the Trump Doctrine is applicable worldwide, not just in the Western Hemisphere that was the focus of US president James Monroe in the 19th Century.

According to the conservative-leaning Journal, the Trump Doctrine is defined by “the president’s willingness to use tailored, overwhelming force to maximize deterrence and achieve long-term strategic benefits.”  The opinion piece’s author is president of the Yorktown Institute, a four-year-old Washington think tank that espouses traditional activist Republican and conservative foreign policy tenets.

According to its website, the Yorktown Institute focuses on “great power competition and the US naval and military supremacy that must undergird American grand strategy.  This will require alliance-building, restoring economic and manufacturing potential, defending national institutions, and reorienting naval and military power toward the ‘supercontinent’ of Eurasia.”

Yorktown’s president offers high praise for Trump: “The president’s strategy is coherent and prudent:  By systematically pressuring exposed adversaries, the influence of strategic rivals (Russia and China) is undercut.  Trump seeks to be known as a peacemaker.  It’s hard to imagine a greater accomplishment than to achieve peace while stiffening the sinews of deterrence.  This administration has seized an opportunity that its previous policy made possible – the elimination of Iran’s theocracy.”

The US has of course not yet eliminated Iran’s theocracy.  But that welcome goal is still in the discussion of possible benefits of a war that American liberal pundits daily claim is massively unpopular and doomed to evolve into yet another protracted, ultimately losing quagmire along the lines of US involvements in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  The liberals may be right.  But it’s by no means a foregone conclusion that they are.

The two lead headlines in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal indirectly point to a potential positive outcome in Iran for not just but for the Western world.  One story asserts that “Iran’s battered security forces step up repression campaign.”  Another says “US allies rebuff Trump’s demand for help” in reopening and maintaining a safe Strait of Hormuz through which Persian Gulf oil must flow by sea. 

But at the same time, there are reports that some European leaders are quietly considering taking steps to reopen the Hormuz passage.  This is because, while the European Union is not significantly dependent on Persian Gulf (or Russian) oil, its members do rely on a stable world economic environment which is being buffeted by the current Middle East crisis. 

Overall, in 2024, the US accounted for about 16% of the EU's petroleum oil imports, followed by Norway with 13.5% and Kazakhstan with 11.5%.

Within the EU, Germany, Spain, Italy, France and the Netherlands account for roughly two-thirds of the EU's crude oil imports, even if their oil is not imported from the Gulf directly.

According to published reports, the consensus between G7 countries following an emergency meeting last week was that the current situation did not justify turning to Russian oil as a source of additional supply.

Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the country would not ease sanctions on Russia despite the potential economic pressure, citing solidarity with Ukraine.

We will see where these EU efforts lead in the effort to end the Iranian blockade of Persian Gulf energy shipments. 

While this is going on, there are numerous reports this week that repression of dissent inside Iran has actively resumed.  Reportedly, the theocratic Tehran regime murdered more than 30,000 of its own citizens in the days and weeks before the US/Israeli assault.  Now, more Iranian citizens are dying in another crackdown. 

Sooner or later, it figures that the Iranian public may discover a path to overthrow their repressive, murderous but weakened regime.  There may even be a template for such a development, to be found in the disintegration of late 20th Century Yugoslavia. 

Some 30 years ago, long-simmering ethnic tensions engulfed a Balkan region inhabited by Serbs and Kosovar Albanians.  NATO had brokered a cease-fire, but in Spring 1999 it was broken by both sides.  Ultimately, NATO leaders decided to bomb Serb military and military-related infrastructure to weaken Serbian further potential for what was then called “ethnic cleansing,” or genocide.

This air war, without infantry engagement on the ground, was very successful.  Military historians have identified four conditions that led to this outcome.  (1)  Air bombardment needs to be capable of causing destruction while minimizing casualties; (2) The government must be susceptible to pressure from within the population; (3) There must be a disparity of military capabilities such that the opponent is unable to inhibit the exercise of air superiority over its territory, and (4) The essential mass of the enemy -- its center of economic gravity -- must be destroyed.  Damage to the economy, to a point where there was little profit to be made for large business enterprises, would undermine remaining business support for the regime.

The Washington Post editorialized on Tuesday that these conditions apply in today’s Iran.  “Air campaigns do not produce regime change on their own.  But the NATO campaign in 1999 weakened Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevich enough that a year later a popular revolution drove him from power.  The same logic could hold for Iran.  A regime that has just been as humiliated as this one is a regime living on borrowed time.”

Under the heading “How to solve the Hormuz crisis,” the Post asserted that “air supremacy is not the same as sea control.  A better way bet may be to just declare victory and walk away.  Trump does not need to finish the job himself.  He just needs to stop doing things that make him look like he can’t.”