President Donald Trump once remarked that his intuition and instincts were the key factors separating him from the mere mortals trying to negotiate good deals. “I have a gut, and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me,” the president said at one point during his first term.
And in many cases, Trump’s words have proved to be prophetic—prioritizing his gut over the traditional advice of his political advisers has earned him two presidential election victories and a core base of support that sticks with him regardless of what decisions he makes.
Yet on war, peace and Iran, the insightful gut Trump claims to possess is looking more and more like a cesspool of adolescent-level judgment. The president and his allies will continue to give interviews about how wonderful the military operation against Iran is going and how Tehran, humbled and confused, is either on its last legs or desperate to make an agreement to save itself.
Yet we shouldn’t fall for public relations strategy. The United States is in the position it’s in today because Trump’s predilections on Iran have failed consistently since his first term. Every assumption he’s carried has been dead wrong on every level.
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