Democratic critics and others demanding to know Trump's "day after" plan for Iran are implicitly calling for the very approach that defined - and haunted - George W. Bush's presidency, a former senior Pentagon official has argued.
Douglas J. Feith, who served as Bush's undersecretary of defense for policy, made the case in The Washington Post, as reported by "Hvylya".
Feith draws a sharp contrast between the two presidents' philosophies. When U.S. troops overthrew the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Bush "believed the U.S. had a responsibility to avert chaos." He was "intent on helping those countries lay foundations for governments that would neither be repressive nor give safe harbor or support to anti-American terrorists." Bush also shared the view that "failed states are breeding grounds for anti-Americanism, terrorism and other pathologies."
Trump, by contrast, "shows no concern about chaos." He views the air campaign as giving the Iranian people "a chance to take control away from the ayatollahs" - what the president sees as a gift, not the beginning of an obligation. Trump "doesn't think the U.S. owes Iranians an on-the-ground effort to prevent chaos or to make their country stable, let alone democratic and prosperous."
The irony, Feith notes, is that critics demanding a detailed "day after" plan are "implying that Trump should adopt Bush's outlook" - the same outlook whose consequences in Iraq and Afghanistan shaped two decades of American foreign policy debate. In Feith's framing, Trump is deliberately choosing a different set of risks: not the risks of overcommitment, but the risks of disengagement.
Whether this represents strategic wisdom or dangerous negligence remains the central question. But as Feith puts it, "there are risks of inaction and risks in every possible course of action." Trump is betting that the risks he chose are the lesser ones.
Also read: Fatal Flaw: How Trump's Iran Gamble May Expose the Limits of His Military Approach