Domestic political explanations for the Trump administration’s decision to go to war with Iran risk obscuring deeper causes. In fact, the final decision appeared to be sudden only because the US, Israel, and Gulf countries’ strategic trajectories had been converging for nearly a decade.
TORONTO – As the conflict with Iran reshapes global security assumptions and energy markets, the debate in the United States has focused largely on why President Donald Trump chose war in the first place. Was it domestic politics, a desire to project strength, a miscalculation, or something else?