“I have to do what’s right. You know, political, I’m sure, everybody has concern. I have to do what’s right. I can’t say that, you know, gee, I don’t want to have any impact on oil prices for three or four weeks or two months and we’re going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon and blow up the entire Middle East and beyond, right?”
That was President Donald Trump aboard Air Force One on March 15 responding to a reporter’s question “Do you have any concerns about the political impacts of this?” referring to high oil prices, which clocked in at $95 a barrel of this writing with the Strait of Hormuz still effectively closed.
And polls that show the American people on the margins opposed to military intervention in Iran. For example, a recent Quinnipiac poll taken March 6 to March 8, that found voters opposed the war 53 percent to 40 percent.
The gap in support, much like the President’s overall approval, is pretty much a gender gap. 52 percent of men support the action, versus 43 percent opposed, and 63 percent of women oppose the action, versus 30 percent supporting it. That’s a 9-point gap in favor by men and a 33-point gap in opposition by women.
Say what you will, but the President cannot be accused of fighting a war for political gain. In this case, there are lots of economic and political costs.
To be fair, a Washington Post poll taken from March 6 to March 9 found more support than another Post poll taken a week earlier, this time with 42 percent in favor of the military action and 40 percent opposed. There, the gender gap is far more muted, with 44 percent of men in favor, and 42 percent opposed, and 41 percent of women in favor, and 38 percent opposed. Still, the result could be showing the President’s support has improved somewhat after the conflict began, normal for the usually short-lived “rally around the flag” effect.
But neither the prices nor the polls matter, says Trump.
That is, the President is not going to let the high oil prices or low poll numbers deter him from defending the United States, its interests and its national security from an existential nuclear threat from Iran — or anywhere else.
Now in his second term, thanks to the 22nd Amendment, Trump can no longer face voters. But his party, the Republicans, will face voters in November in the Congressional midterms, and so they cannot like what they’re seeing either from oil prices, which will fuel further inflation, or from approval polls, especially with respect to the war.
The only thing that matters now, Trump argues, is to win the war, saying he’s happy with the progress but there’s more to be done: “I just say they’re decimated, but I would do that. I think that we’ve done damage to them right now. If we left right now, it would take them 10 years and more to rebuild. But I’m still not declaring it over. military is incredible. The job they’ve done is just incredible.”
Outlining the dilemma specifically in the Strait of Hormuz, which leads from the Persian Gulf along the coast of Iran to the Gulf of Oman, in a post on Truth Social on March 14, Trump wrote, “In the meantime, the United States will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline, and continually shooting Iranian Boats and Ships out of the water. One way or the other, we will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE!”
The President also called for other countries to join in the effort to neutralize the threat posed by Iran to the Strait, stating, “Many Countries, especially those who are affected by Iran’s attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe… Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send Ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat…”
The current trouble, Trump says, are continued asymmetric threats: “We have already destroyed 100% of Iran’s Military capability, but it’s easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close range missile somewhere along, or in, this Waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are.”
In other words, all it takes is one drone, one mine or one missile to sink an oil tanker, which would cause even more panic.
But, speaking on Air Force One, the only thing worse would have been doing nothing and letting Iran go nuclear, saying, “[B]ecause you know… they were going to blow up the Middle East. If I didn’t terminate the Obama horrible deal, the Iran nuclear deal it’s called. If I didn’t terminate that in my first term, they would have already had a nuclear weapon and they would have used it immediately upon getting it. And if I didn’t send in the B2 bombers to bomb the hell out of it and obliterate, and that’s what it was. We obliterated that site and stopped all their potential nuclear. If I didn’t do that, you would have had Israel and the Middle East hit by nuclear weapons and you we wouldn’t be talking about this right now.”
In that context, what might matter the most would be a quick victory. But those are by no means guaranteed.
It could be one of those things where Trump is damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t. Politically, his approval was already low headed into the war, whether last June or again on Feb. 28. In fact, it’s about the same as it was before the new offensive began, or might even be up slightly. But it doesn’t matter, the President says, he’s doing what he thinks is right. The history books can figure out if it worked later.
Robert Romano is the Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
