ICE agents are heading to airports today, with President Trump deploying them in an apparent effort to reinforce TSA agents working without pay due to the government shutdown. Trump seems dead-set on keeping those agents working without pay rather than agreeing to Democrats’ demands that he put new civil-liberties checks on ICE—obliging them to wear badges and uniforms and ditch the masks and broad enforcement sweeps. We can’t imagine how putting untrained ICE agents in a series of stressful encounters with on-edge air travelers could backfire for Trump at all. Happy Monday.

The Least Worst Option

by William Kristol

Early this morning, with about twelve hours left in his 48-hour ultimatum threatening Iran’s civilian power plants, President Trump announced:

Some may cry, “TACO!” And they’d be right. But just over three weeks into his ill-advised and incompetently managed war, Trump had reached a fork in the road from which neither path led to a happy place. He’s chosen the less bad option—for now.

The other, disastrous path would have been escalation. Trump seemed to be heading down that road Saturday afternoon, when he threatened to bomb Iran’s civilian power plants:

If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!

And he echoed this threat just yesterday, during a phone interview with Israel’s Channel 13: “You’ll find out what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna find out soon. It’s gonna be very good. Total decimation of Iran.”

Though Trump has now delayed this decision for another five days, it’s worth pondering what would have happened (and what could still happen) if he’d chosen escalation.

One assumes that the United States military would have refused to obey orders to commit a war crime like attempting the “total decimation” of a country.

But even if the military had gone ahead with some version of striking Iran’s civilian power plants, Iran would surely have responded by attacking similar targets in the Gulf, which they’ve shown they retain the capacity to do. The war would have widened and its economic effects would have worsened. And then we would have been faced with the possible introduction of ground troops to secure the Strait—which would have invited an extended conflict and an even more severe economic crisis.

But notice beneath Trump’s bluster what he was demanding: Simply reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Trump’s central war aim is now just to fix the situation that his “excursion” caused.

Presumably the end-point of the negotiations between the Trump administration and the Iranian regime will look something like this: A stop to the attacks on Iran in exchange for a return to the status quo ante bellum; i.e., how things were before Trump launched this war in the face of no imminent threat and with no authorization from Congress.

As for Trump’s other objectives, they’ve of course been kaleidoscopic. But the most recent time he’s laid them out in a semi-coherent way was in a post late Friday afternoon:

This list of objectives omits some of his previous goals, like overthrowing the Iranian regime, or at least its “unconditional surrender.” Friday’s post also watered down other stated goals, such as putting a nuclear weapon permanently out of Iran’s reach. In the negotiations before the war, the Trump administration had demanded that Iran ship all of its nuclear material out of the country. Now all Trump asks is merely “Never allowing Iran to get even close to Nuclear Capability, and always being in a position where the U.S.A. can quickly and powerfully react to such a situation.” Trump’s announcement this morning seems to confirm a contraction of his war aims.

In fact, as of now, it appears, we are left with just one real remaining goal: reopening the strait.

The question is whether the Iranian regime will do that in return for a cessation of our attacks. I suspect they might, because the pummeling has been severe, and they can’t be certain Trump’s threats to escalate are entirely empty talk. But even if Iran won’t agree to a deal now, Trump has the option of just claiming success and proclaiming a ceasefire. He can count on there being a ton of international pressure on Iran to then reopen the strait soon. It will be in their interest to do so, and Trump will claim victory whenever it happens.

Trump seems, for now at least, to have blinked. This outcome—which I hasten to add, may only be temporary—is still of course an indictment of his unjustified, reckless, and damaging war. But it’s the better path for the nation and the world. So all I have to say to the president is, “Keep on blinking.”