Bernard Rowan is an associate provost for contract administration and professor of political science at Chicago State University.
Away with the Cheshire Cat
By Bernard Rowan
I hesitate to say that U.S. President Donald Trump has been channeling a version of the Cheshire Cat in “Alice in Wonderland.” It might give the Cat a bad name. Trump has more accurately served the Cheshire designs of Israel, whose “grand strategy” is to push back the threat from Iran’s proxies, eliminate border threats and endeavor to end the regime governing their main enemy. Trump seems happy to follow Israel’s lead, whatever else he might say. Some commentators see realism in Trump’s actions, arguing that degrading Iran’s military and regional power projection is long overdue. I’m not confident.
South Korea, along with countries like Japan and Egypt, depends heavily on energy and other resources flowing through the Straits of Hormuz. Iran threatened to close the Strait, and has effectively done it. I’ve read that any 90-day complete closure of the Strait would cost between 2 and 3 percentage points of gross domestic product and send annual inflation up by over 15 percent in these countries, while incurring high costs for a whole host of countries, including the United States and Israel. SolAbility’s Gulf Crisis 2026 report makes interesting reading in this regard.
Certainly, Trump didn’t invent the idea of regime change in Iran. Past American efforts to accomplish it without the direct use of force didn’t work. The killing of much of the Iranian leadership and covert encouragement of regime opposition and protests haven’t worked this time. At present, Trump seems to be flirting with the idea of a “Venezuela-type” operation to free up the Strait, or other similar tactics. I can’t imagine that the Iranian regime and military haven’t considered the idea.
Of course, Trump has already stated that the war in Iran will cost American lives. His actions also seem to betray the awareness that Americans are strongly opposed to anything like a full-scale military engagement with Iran involving the Army or significant U.S. military personnel. It’s not possible to change the Iranian regime indirectly or by covert action. The military’s control of the country is well-developed, and its means of repression are resilient and awful to the domestic population. Freeing up the Strait will require international cooperation, which isn’t Trump’s strong suit.
Leaving aside the betrayal of his promises not to involve America in foreign wars and boggy conflicts, Trump’s undeclared war really betrays the problem of leadership by chimaera. Even allowing for the fact that Israel has done much of the heavy lifting and also suffered a lot of the damage, there is little reason to bet that this conflict will change the power structure of the Middle East without further escalation and loss of life and economic production. The on-again, off-again military interventions may buy time or even get lucky, but the odds truly are long, and the trend isn’t promising.
American foreign policy should no longer pretend to take hegemonic action alone. Even Trump, despite his Cheshire moments, knows this. The Autocratic Alliance — Russia, Iran, China and North Korea — is working well together. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un recently set off some of his fireworks in support of Iran, just as they’ve aided North Korea in so many ways. Are NATO countries, Japan, Australia and South Korea really wanting to — and willing to — join this fool’s errand of a campaign?
It’s a shame to say that the competitors and enemies of global freedom and democracy are showing better coalition tactics and alignment than the United States, Europe, NATO and Israel. Trump wants to win a Nobel Prize, but that shouldn’t and doesn’t go to the co-architect of Middle East chaos. Who can really fail to see that this conflict is sowing the seeds of the next century of terrorism and bloodshed? Iran’s government is a pariah, but one that will require an open and declared conflict with armies to change from without, and it’s unclear whether that is advisable.
Trump is reduced to floating his own unnegotiated U.S.-Iranian peace plan that has already been panned. This presentation of “peace” belies a poor effort to gain time, steady markets and allow for the repositioning of forces and other machinations. Certainly, Iran has seen its military and other infrastructure degraded, but the regime appears to have planned systematically for asymmetric warfare for some time. All of those missiles, cluster bombs and loitering munitions seem to be having an effect. The costs to tourism and trade in the Emirates and other Strait-dependent countries are growing by the day.
The singular failure of the United States of America, I am sorry to say, has been its inability and unwillingness to capitalize on the end of the Soviet Union and to reinvest in its global footprint, while China has leaped forward — and past the U.S. — over the last 50 years. President Trump is only the latest, most farcical expression of a decline in American power. Foreign policy by the grin of a Cheshire Cat will otherwise continue to cause a dearth of freedom and prosperity worldwide — and far worse over time.
Bernard Rowan is Associate Provost, Chicago State University, and professor of political science. He is a past fellow of the Korea Foundation and past visiting professor at the Hanyang University Graduate School of Public Administration.