Monday, March 9, 2026

Anadolu Ajansı -- 09.03.2026 - Güncelleme : 09.03.2026 - Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan, ABD ve İsrail'in İran'a yönelik saldırısına ilişkin, "Savaşın bölgemizde daha fazla yayılmadan bir an evvel sona erdirilmesi gerektiğinin altını tekrar çiziyorum." dedi. Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan, ABD ve İsrail'in İran'a yönelik saldırısına ilişkin, "Savaşın bölgemizde daha fazla yayılmadan bir an evvel sona erdirilmesi gerektiğinin altını tekrar çiziyorum." dedi.

Anadolu Ajansı

Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan, ABD ve İsrail'in İran'a yönelik saldırısına ilişkin, "Savaşın bölgemizde daha fazla yayılmadan bir an evvel sona erdirilmesi gerektiğinin altını tekrar çiziyorum." dedi.

Özcan Yıldırım, Merve Yıldızalp Yormaz |

09.03.2026 - Güncelleme : 09.03.2026

Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan: Savaşın bölgemizde daha fazla yayılmadan sona erdirilmesi gerektiğinin altını tekrar çiziyorumFotoğraf: Mustafa Kamacı/TCCB

Ankara

Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan, 17. Geleneksel Büyükelçiler İftar Programı'na katıldı.

Cumhurbaşkanı ve AK Parti Genel Başkanı Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, AK Parti Kongre Merkezi'nde düzenlenen 17. Geleneksel Büyükelçiler İftar Programı'na katıldı.

11 ayın sultanı ramazanın Müslümanlarla birlikte tüm insanlığa barış, huzur ve esenlik getirmesini dileyen Erdoğan, "Bu mübarek günlerin Filistinli kardeşlerimiz başta olmak üzere huzura hasret tüm coğrafyalarda barışa vesile olmasını, çölleşmiş ve çoraklaşmış gönülleri rahmet bulutlarıyla yeşertmesini canıgönülden temenni ediyorum." diye konuştu.

Ramazanın derin mesajlarına daha çok ihtiyaç duyulan, barış ve dayanışma çağrılarına en fazla kulak verilmesi gereken bir dönemde olunduğunu vurgulayan Erdoğan, sözlerini şöyle sürdürdü:

"Bizler bu dostluk ve kardeşlik sofrasında iftarımızı ederken, bölgemizde ve dünyada son derece vahim hadiseler vuku buluyor. Gazze'de 10 Ekim'de imzalanan mutabakata rağmen sahadaki insani trajedi halen devam ediyor. İnsani yardım girişlerinde sıkıntılar yaşanırken, İsrail sistematik saldırılarıyla Gazze halkını terörize etmeyi sürdürüyor. Sadece son 5 ayda 640'ın üzerinde Gazzeli, İsrail saldırılarında şehit oldu. 2 bine yakın masum insan yaralandı. Geçen ayki arazi tesciline dair kararda olduğu gibi İsrail hükümetinin işgal ve istila politikasından Batı Şeria da payını alıyor. 7 Ekim 2023'ten bu yana Batı Şeria ve Doğu Kudüs'te 1120'den fazla Filistinli katledilmiş, 12 bine yakın Filistinli ise yaralanmıştır. Ağır baskı altında tutulan Batı Şeria'da yargısız infazlar, işgaller, yıkımlar ve zorla yerinden edilmeler artarak devam ediyor. İsrail uluslararası toplumun dikkatinin Gazze'den başka yerlere kaymasını fırsat bilerek iki devletli çözüm yolunu tamamen dinamitleme peşindedir. Netanyahu yönetimi 10 Ekim'de imzalanan deklarasyondan bugüne kadar yürüttüğü hukuk dışı ve yayılmacı politikalarla barış istemediğini, çözümden yana olmadığını bir kez daha göstermiştir."

Erdoğan, Türkiye'nin dün olduğu gibi bugün de kardeş Filistin halkının yanında olduğunu dile getirerek, Türkiye'nin Gazzeli mazlumlara maddi manevi tüm desteğini vermeye devam edeceğini vurguladı.

"Orta Doğu'nun ameliyat masasına tekrar yatırılmasını kabul etmiyoruz"

Bölgede yaşanan gelişmelere 28 Şubat itibarıyla İran'a yönelik saldırıların da eklendiğini anımsatan Erdoğan, "10 günü geride kalan saldırılarda şimdiye kadar içinde 300'ü aşkın masum çocuğun da olduğu 1500'e yakın İranlı hayatını kaybetti. İran kaynaklı füze ve dron saldırılarına paralel olarak gerilim tırmandı ve kısa sürede tüm bölgenin istikrarını tehdit eder boyutlara ulaştı." dedi.

Erdoğan, karşılıklı misillemelerle hem can kayıplarının hem yıkımın hem de krizin ekonomik maliyetinin asimetrik şekilde arttığına dikkati çekerek, şunları kaydetti:

"Şu bir gerçek ki savaş uzadıkça maalesef tablo daha da kötüleşecektir. Bilhassa yeni maceralara girişmenin faturasını sadece çatışan taraflar değil, tüm bölgemiz hatta Avrupa ve Asya dahil tüm dünya ödeyecektir. Son yarım asırda Orta Doğu'da dış müdahalelerin ve jeopolitik mühendislik girişimlerinin nelere yol açtığına, geride nasıl büyük bir siyasi, sosyal ve ekonomik enkaz bıraktığına defalarca şahit olduk. Türkiye olarak biz bölgemizin aynı acıları tekrar yaşamasını istemiyoruz. Orta Doğu coğrafyasının tıpkı bir asır evvel olduğu gibi yeniden ameliyata alınmasını, ameliyat masasına tekrar yatırılmasını kabul etmiyoruz. Şunun da altını burada önemle çizmek istiyorum. Türkiye'nin dış politikası salt çıkar odaklı değil, aynı zamanda değer odaklıdır. Nerede olursa olsun adil bir barışın kaybedeninin olmayacağına inanıyoruz."

"Gerekli uyarılar İran tarafına çok net olarak iletilmiştir"

Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan, 5. yılına giren Rusya-Ukrayna Savaşı'nın adil ve sürdürülebilir bir barış anlaşmasıyla sona erdirilmesini savunduklarını anımsatarak, şu ifadeleri kullandı:

"Bugün de aynı anlayışla ilk günden itibaren tavrımızı açıkça ortaya koyduk. Hava saldırılarının İran'ın egemenliğini ihlal ettiğini, uluslararası hukuka aykırı olduğunu ve tarafımızca esefle karşılandığını belirttik. Aynı zamanda İran'ın başta can Azerbaycan ve Körfez ülkeleri olmak üzere kardeş ülkeleri hedef alan saldırılarını asla tasvip etmediğimizi, bunun yanlış olduğunu, ortak acıları büyütmekten, kardeşler arasına husumet tohumları ekmekten başka hiçbir işe yaramayacağını da açık açık ifade ettik."

Geçen hafta ve bugün Türkiye'ye doğru gelen balistik unsurların vakitlice etkisiz hale getirildiğini, İran tarafına gerekli uyarıların çok net şekilde iletildiğini belirten Erdoğan, şöyle devam etti:

"Yine bu süreçte tansiyonun düşürülmesi, akan kanın durdurulması, diyalog kapısının açılması için yoğun gayret gösterdik. İlkeli ve diplomasiyi önceleyen tutumumuzu halen koruyoruz. Karşımızdaki manzara ne kadar ümit kırıcı olursa olsun, biz umutsuz değiliz. Bölgesel istikrarı tehdit eden, geleceğimizi ve gelecek nesilleri tehdit eden her soruna onurlu bir çözüm yolunun bulunabileceğine inanıyoruz. Yeni bir müzakere süreci mümkündür. Hatta olmalıdır.

Sizleri de vesile kılarak bugün bir kez daha savaşın bölgemizde daha fazla yayılmadan bir an evvel sona erdirilmesi gerektiğinin altını tekrar çiziyorum. Çatışma, kaos, kriz ve istikrarsızlık ihraç etmeyi dış politikalarının merkezine yerleştirenlere inat, bizler bu coğrafyada barış ve refah iklimini tesis etmekte, bunun için mücadele etmekte, bu yolda sonuna kadar yürümekte kararlıyız. Değerli dostlar, elbette bu mücadelede başta bölge ülkeleri olmak üzere herkesin katkısına, desteğine ve yapıcı rolüne ihtiyacımız var. Sorunların çözümünde bölgesel sahiplenme kavramını işte bundan dolayı büyük bir hassasiyetle öne çıkarıyoruz."

Güney Kafkasya'dan Ege'ye, Doğu Akdeniz'den Balkanlara, Afrika'dan Latin Amerika'ya uzanan karşılıklı saygı, eşitlik ve kazan-kazan anlayışıyla pozitif gündemi büyütmek arzusunda olduklarını belirten Erdoğan, altyapıya yaptıkları dev yatırımlar sayesinde Marmaray'dan Avrasya Tüneli'ne, Bakü-Tiflis-Kars'tan Mersin limanına kadar Avrupa ile Asya arasında çok modlu koridorlar inşa ettiklerini söyledi.

Osmangazi Köprüsü, İstanbul Havalimanı, Yavuz Sultan Selim Köprüsü ve 1915 Çanakkale Köprüsü gibi mega projeleri hayata geçirdiklerini anımsatan Erdoğan, Asya ve Avrupa bağlantılarıyla modern İpek Yolu'nu canlandırdıklarını dile getirdi.

Türkiye'den geçerek önce Kafkaslara, oradan da Hazar Denizi'ni aşarak Türkmenistan ve Kazakistan'ı takiben Pekin'e ulaşan Hazar geçişli Doğu-Batı orta koridorunun İpek Yolu'nun ana omurgası olduğuna işaret eden Erdoğan, stratejik önemi bugünlerde daha iyi anlaşılan Kalkınma Yolu Projesi'nin ise bu girişimlerin tamamlayıcısı olduğunu vurguladı.

Erdoğan, bölgedeki diğer ülkelerin de desteğiyle hayata geçirilecek Kalkınma Yolu Projesi sayesinde gelecek dönemde daha geniş bir coğrafyayı birbirine bağlama imkanı bulacaklarının altını çizdi.

Geride bırakılan çeyrek asırda Türkiye'nin nice badireyi başarıyla atlattığını anımsatan Erdoğan, şunları kaydetti:

"6 Şubat asrın felaketinden kanlı terör eylemlerine, darbe teşebbüslerinden sokak olayları marifetiyle hükümeti devirme girişimlerine kadar nice imtihanı alnımızın akıyla verdik. Son olarak 27 Aralık'ta deprem bölgemizde inşa ettiğimiz 455 binden fazla afet konutunu, iş yerini ve köy evini vatandaşlarımıza teslim etmeyi başardık. Ekonomiden ticarete, turizmden savunma sanayine geniş bir yelpazede aynı başarı hikayelerine rastlamak mümkündür. Çok zorluk çektik, çok ter döktük. Hiç ummadığımız yerlerden, hiç beklenmedik engellerle karşılaştık ama hedeflerimizden hiçbir zaman kopmadık. Şüphesiz bunda son 23 yıldır bizden desteğini esirgemeyen, girdiğimiz her seçimde yanımızda duran, hükümetimize güvenerek emaneti bize tevdi eden aziz milletimizin yıkılmaz iradesi belirleyici olmuştur. Milletimizden aldığımız güçle yolumuza devam ediyoruz."

"Müstesna zirvelere ev sahipliği yapacağız"

Türkiye'nin bölgesinde adeta bir istikrar adası, mücavir coğrafyasında ise bir çekim merkezi olarak konumunu her geçen gün tahkim ettiğini belirten Erdoğan, savunma sanayinde son 23 yılda inşa ettikleri güçlü kapasite, sadece milli güvenlik açısından değil, aynı zamanda Avrupa'nın ve kardeş ülkelerin güvenliğini de teminat altına alan, sarsılmaz bir sütun işlevi gördüğünü vurguladı.

Böylesine kritik bir dönemde Türkiye'nin temmuz ayında ev sahipliği yapacağı NATO Zirvesi'nin barış ve istikrarın güçlenmesine vesile olacağına inandığını dile getiren Erdoğan, "NATO Zirvesi'nin yanı sıra 2026 senesi Türk diplomasisi açısından müstesna zirvelere ev sahipliği yapacağımız bir yıl olacaktır. Türk Devletleri Teşkilatımızın Zirvesini ülkemizde gerçekleştireceğiz. Ayrıca iklim krizi ile mücadelede hayati kararların alınacağı COP31 Zirvesi'ni Türkiye'de düzenleyeceğiz." diye konuştu.

Bugün insanlığın sürdürülemez üretim ve tüketim alışkanlıklarının dünyayı çevresel felakete sürüklediğini açıkça gözlemlediklerini kaydeden Erdoğan, eşi Emine Erdoğan'ın öncülüğünde başlattıkları "Sıfır Atık" hareketinin küresel ölçekte benimsenen bir dönüşüm sürecine ilham verdiğini söyledi.

Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan, bu yaklaşımın bir diğer ayağını ise çağın en ağır küresel sınamalarından biri olan gıda güvenliğinin oluşturduğunu ifade ederek, sözlerini şöyle sürdürdü:

"Yıllardır pek çok defa dile getirdiğim üzere biz, 'komşusu açken tok yatan bizden değildir' inancıyla yoğrulmuş bir kültüre sahibiz. Gıda ve Tarım Örgütü başta olmak üzere Birleşmiş Milletler kuruluşlarıyla yakın eşgüdüm içinde bu sorunun çözümü için aktif bir politika yürütüyoruz. Küresel gıda güvenliğine yönelik güçlü taahhüdümüzün bir neticesi olarak Sayın Mehdi Eker'i Gıda ve Tarım Teşkilatı Genel Direktörlüğü pozisyonu için aday gösterme kararı aldık. Temmuz 2027'de gerçekleştirilecek seçimlerde sizlerin temsil ettiği dost ve müttefik ülkelerin kıymetli desteklerini bekliyoruz."

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Anadolu Ajansı

Özcan Yıldırım, Merve Yıldızalp Yormaz |

09.03.2026 - Güncelleme : 09.03.2026

Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan: Savaşın bölgemizde daha fazla yayılmadan sona erdirilmesi gerektiğinin altını tekrar çiziyorumFotoğraf: Mustafa Kamacı/TCCB

Ankara

Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan, 17. Geleneksel Büyükelçiler İftar Programı'na katıldı.

Cumhurbaşkanı ve AK Parti Genel Başkanı Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, AK Parti Kongre Merkezi'nde düzenlenen 17. Geleneksel Büyükelçiler İftar Programı'na katıldı.

"Orta Doğu'nun ameliyat masasına tekrar yatırılmasını kabul etmiyoruz"

Erdoğan, karşılıklı misillemelerle hem can kayıplarının hem yıkımın hem de krizin ekonomik maliyetinin asimetrik şekilde arttığına dikkati çekerek, şunları kaydetti:

"Gerekli uyarılar İran tarafına çok net olarak iletilmiştir"

Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan, 5. yılına giren Rusya-Ukrayna Savaşı'nın adil ve sürdürülebilir bir barış anlaşmasıyla sona erdirilmesini savunduklarını anımsatarak, şu ifadeleri kullandı:

Geride bırakılan çeyrek asırda Türkiye'nin nice badireyi başarıyla atlattığını anımsatan Erdoğan, şunları kaydetti:

"Müstesna zirvelere ev sahipliği yapacağız"

Foreign Affairs - Why Escalation Favors Iran America and Israel May Have Bitten Off More Than They Can Chew - Robert A. Pape March 9, 2026

Foreign Affairs

Why Escalation Favors Iran

America and Israel May Have Bitten Off More Than They Can Chew

Robert A. Pape

March 9, 2026

A fire caused by debris after a drone interception, Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, March 2026

Amr Alfiky / Reuters

ROBERT A. PAPE is Professor of Political Science and Director of the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats. He is the author of Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War.

The first hours of Operation Epic Fury—the joint U.S.-Israeli military offensive against Iran, launched on February 28—demonstrated the extraordinary reach of modern precision warfare. U.S. and Israeli strikes killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and key intelligence officials, in what Washington and Jerusalem described as a decisive blow intended to cripple Tehran’s command structure and destabilize the regime.

Yet within hours, any hope that the precise decapitation strikes would limit the scope of the war was dashed. Iran launched hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones not only at Israel but also across the Gulf. Air raid sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and Haifa. Missiles slammed into interceptors over Doha and Abu Dhabi. At Al Udeid Air Base, in Qatar—the forward headquarters of U.S. Central Command—personnel took shelter as interceptors streaked overhead. Air defenses flashed into action at U.S. bases at Al Dhafra in the United Arab Emirates and Ali Al Salem in Kuwait. Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia reported incoming drones. Near the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, naval forces were placed on heightened alert.

The Iranian response has had enormous ramifications for the Gulf, killing civilians, shuttering airports, threatening shipping and oil exports, and tarnishing the region’s image of stability and safety. An iconic hotel on the waterfront in Dubai caught fire after debris from an intercepted drone fell into its upper floors. Kuwaiti authorities reported damage near civilian airport facilities. According to news reports, several tankers have been struck near the Strait of Hormuz, prompting a spike in insurance premiums for shipping through the Gulf. Soon after the conflict erupted, oil futures jumped sharply as traders priced in the risk of sustained disruption to one of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints.

Iran’s strikes cannot be dismissed as acts of scattered retaliation, the flailing lashing out of a dying regime. Rather, they represent a strategy of horizontal escalation, a bid to transform the stakes of a conflict by widening its scope and extending its duration. Such a strategy allows a weaker combatant to alter the calculus of a more powerful foe. And it has worked in the past, to the detriment of the United States. In Vietnam and Serbia, U.S. adversaries responded to overwhelming displays of American airpower with horizontal escalation, eventually leading to American defeat, in the former case, and, in the latter, frustrating U.S. war aims and spurring the worst episode of ethnic cleansing in Europe since World War II. Decapitation strikes, in particular, create powerful incentives for horizontal escalation: when a regime survives the loss of its leader, it must demonstrate resilience quickly by widening the conflict. Although the United States has hugely battered Iran, it must reckon with the implications of Iran’s response. Otherwise, it will find itself losing control of the war it started.

FAR HORIZONS

Horizontal escalation occurs when a state widens the geographic and political scope of a conflict rather than intensifying it vertically in a single theater. It is especially appealing as a strategy for the weaker parties in a military contest. Instead of trying to defeat a stronger adversary head-on, the weaker side multiplies arenas of risk—drawing additional states, economic sectors, and domestic publics into the remit of the conflict. Iran cannot defeat the United States or Israel in a conventional military contest. It does not need to. Its objective is to gain greater political leverage.

The strategy of horizontal escalation follows a recognizable pattern. First, Iran has demonstrated resilience. U.S. decapitation strikes intended to paralyze the Iranian military. By launching large-scale retaliation within hours of losing the supreme leader and many senior commanders, Tehran signaled continuity of command and operational capacity.

Second, Iran has widened the conflict well beyond Iranian territory, effecting what scholars call “multiplication of exposure.” Rather than confining retaliation to just Israel, Iran struck or aimed at targets in at least nine countries, most hosting U.S. forces: Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Greece, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The message was unmistakable: those countries that host American forces would face severe consequences and the war that Israel and the United States started will spread.

Decapitation strikes create powerful incentives for horizontal escalation.

Third, Iran has politicized the conflict through its strikes. Iran’s retaliation has resulted in the closure of airports, the burning of commercial property, the killing of foreign workers, and the disruption of energy and insurance markets. Gulf leaders have been forced to reassure foreign investors and tourists. The war has migrated into boardrooms and parliamentary chambers. In the United States, the widening scope of the war has alarmed members of Congress. Numerous actors have now entered the conflict, each pursuing distinct interests, none fully coordinated, and all capable of altering the trajectory of escalation beyond Washington’s control.

The final dimension of Iran’s strategy is time. The longer multiple states feel pressure, the more that politics both within and among regional states can intensify the conflict. Without a version of NATO in the Middle East or a single American general effectively running the military operation for all the countries targeted by Iran, there is a high risk of wires getting crossed. U.S. officials have, for instance, floated the idea of stoking an ethnic rebellion in Kurdish parts of Iran to help target the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. But that might provoke responses from Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, countries that would not welcome a powerful Kurdish insurgency in the region. The recent downing of three U.S. jets in a friendly-fire incident over Kuwait also illustrates the logistical and coordination problems that bedevil any attempt to fend off Iran’s escalation in the Gulf.

Iran’s foreign ministry reinforced this logic publicly, framing the missile barrages as legitimate responses against all “hostile forces” in the region. The phrasing has widened responsibility for the attack on Iran beyond Israel and the United States to encompass the broader U.S.-aligned order in the Gulf. Although Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has apologized to Gulf neighbors for the attacks, the installation of a new supreme leader aligned closely with the Revolutionary Guard suggests that such gestures are tactical rather than a signal that Tehran intends to abandon its strategy of horizontal escalation. Fundamentally, Iran’s horizontal escalation is a political strategy. It plays directly to the audience that Iran seeks to persuade: the Muslim populations across the region that may not be ideologically aligned with Iran but are generally poorly disposed toward Israel.

A THUNDEROUS SURPRISE

Operation Epic Fury is certainly not the first time that the United States has acted out of the belief that overwhelming airpower can compel rapid political collapse. The U.S. war in Vietnam exposed the limits of this assumption.

By 1967, the United States had dropped three times more tonnage worth of bombs on North Vietnam than it had used in World War II. Operation Rolling Thunder, launched in 1965, was designed to break Hanoi’s will and destroy its capacity to wage war. Washington possessed tremendous air superiority and apparent escalation dominance, meaning that North Vietnam could not hope to match the United States blow for blow as Washington ramped up the conflict. By the fall of 1967, U.S. airpower had devastated the crucial communication, military, and industrial centers and arteries on which North Vietnamese military power was thought to rest.

But just a few months later, in January 1968, North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces launched coordinated attacks on more than 100 cities and towns across South Vietnam. They breached the U.S. embassy compound in Saigon. They fought for weeks in Hue. They struck provincial capitals simultaneously. Although the offensive was costly for communist forces, it shattered the perception that a South Vietnamese and American victory was near.

President Lyndon Johnson soon announced that he would not seek reelection. Public confidence in the prosecution of the war eroded. The war’s political trajectory shifted, even as American firepower remained dominant.

The lesson was not that bombing failed tactically. It was that Hanoi escalated horizontally, widening the conflict beyond rural battlefields into South Vietnam’s cities and political nerve centers, transforming a military contest into nationwide political upheaval, and reshaping domestic calculations in Washington. In Vietnam, the United States never lost a battle—but it still lost a war.

WHEN PRECISION MISSES THE MARK

Three decades later, NATO relied on a different theory of airpower in the Kosovo conflict. Operation Allied Force, in 1999—originally planned as a three-day air campaign to hit 51 targets in and around the Serbian capital, Belgrade—emphasized precision strikes against Serbian military assets and leadership targets. Western leaders expected a swift, successful campaign. The regime would weaken, if not collapse. Bombs even fell on the residence of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

Instead, Belgrade ordered 30,000 Serbian troops to sweep into Kosovo, forcing more than a million Kosovar Albanian civilians, half the province’s population, from the territory. That exodus strained European governments and tested the cohesion of the NATO alliance. The United States and NATO lacked the large tactical airpower, much less the ground forces, to put a stop to the devastating ethnic cleansing. For weeks, as Serbian forces drove civilians from Kosovo, NATO debated escalation options. It ultimately mobilized nearly 40,000 ground troops for a major offensive to take Kosovo. Only at this point—and only after 78 days of sustained crisis, diplomatic pressure from Russia (a long-standing Serbian ally), and the threat of NATO invasion—did Milosevic concede.

Kosovo ended successfully for NATO—but not quickly, and not just through the use of precision strikes. Political endurance and alliance management proved decisive. Across both cases—the mass bombardment of Vietnam and the precision strikes on Serbia—airpower shocked and disrupted, but it did not automatically determine political outcomes. Adversaries widened the conflict’s scope or prolonged it by adopting horizontal escalation. Iran now appears to be applying that lesson to the Gulf.

TEHRAN’S MEANS AND ENDS

Iran’s retaliation has clear political objectives. First, Tehran wants to puncture perceptions of the Gulf’s invulnerability. Cities such as Dubai and Doha market themselves to the world as secure hubs of finance, tourism, and logistics. When missile alerts interrupt operations at Dubai International Airport—one of the busiest in the world—the reputational cost is far greater than whatever physical damage Iran inflicts. The reported deaths of foreign workers in the United Arab Emirates underscore that civilians are no longer safe in Gulf states. The spectacle of interceptors exploding in the skies above these entrepôts may make investors skittish.

Second, Iran has raised the political cost for Gulf countries of hosting U.S. forces. By striking near American bases at Al Udeid, Al Dhafra, and Prince Sultan, Tehran signaled that alignment with Washington entails exposure to attack. Gulf leaders must balance alliance commitments against domestic and economic stability.

Third, Tehran is shaping a narrative about the regional order. By portraying its actions as resistance to a U.S.-Israeli campaign aimed at regional dominance, Iran seeks to drive a wedge between the Gulf country leaders and their publics—a wedge that could grow depending on how long the conflict persists.

Fourth, Iran is leveraging economic chokepoints. Roughly a fifth of global oil shipments transit the Strait of Hormuz. Early shipping data suggests traffic through the strait has fallen by about 75 percent since the war began. Even a partial form of lasting disruption—through missile strikes, naval incidents, or rising insurance costs—produces immediate global ripple effects, fueling concerns about inflation and domestic political pressure in the United States and Europe. None of these objectives require battlefield victories. They just require Iran’s endurance.

THE TOLL OF TIME

Horizontal escalation is not simply about hitting a wider array of targets. Its deeper effect is to change how a foe perceives risks. In a short war, risk is measured in sorties and intercept rates. In a prolonged conflict, risks extend to the political sphere. A protracted conflict forces difficult choices.

If this war drags on, Gulf governments that have quietly expanded security cooperation with Israel may have to make that alignment more visible. That clarity is dangerous. Arab publics remain deeply opposed to Israel’s aggressive military posture in the region. The longer the conflict continues, the harder it becomes for rulers to sustain that partnership with Israel without sacrificing legitimacy at home. Horizontal escalation presses on the soft seams between governments and their societies.

A protracted war would also reshape American politics. A sudden decapitation strike can galvanize support behind the U.S. president, at least temporarily—although polling suggests that most Americans are already opposed to the war even just one week in. A grinding regional war marked by energy price spikes, U.S. casualties, and uncertain objectives will cause disquiet at home. Sizable elements of President Donald Trump’s political coalition have been wary of Middle Eastern entanglements and have accused U.S. leaders of simply following Israel’s lead. The longer U.S. military operations continue, the more fractures could widen within Trump’s own base.

Transatlantic strains may follow. European governments are acutely exposed to energy volatility and migration pressures. If Washington escalates while European capitals want to rein in the conflict, the two sides could diverge as Europeans try to keep themselves at arm’s length from the war. As Kosovo demonstrated, alliance unity requires constant political management. The United States would find the challenges of sustained bombing immense if European states decided to constrain use of their territory for logistics and tanker refueling flights. The United Kingdom is already uncomfortable about the long-standing policy of American military aircraft conducting operations from the British possession of Diego Garcia. In exchange for European support in its campaign against Iran, Washington may have to commit more to European military objectives in Ukraine—at the risk of further irking the president’s MAGA base.

Finally, prolonging the war multiplies asymmetric threats. An extended conflict in the Gulf would likely see the involvement of nonstate actors, especially if U.S. ground forces got involved in even a limited fashion. New and existing militant groups seeking to exploit regional anger may target leaders visibly aligned with U.S. operations. What began as interstate missile exchanges could evolve into a wider tableau of violence and upheaval.

THE STRATEGIC FORK

If Iran’s strategy is to widen and politicize the conflict, the United States faces a choice. One path is doubling down: the United States could ramp up its airpower campaign by bringing additional air assets into the fight to suppress Iranian launch capabilities and create the conditions for extending aerial control over the skies and surveillance on the ground. As with the imposition of no-fly zones against Iraq in the 1990s, doubling down to reestablish escalation dominance and control can be tantamount to a strategy of permanent aggressive military containment and control over Iranian airspace, one that could last for years. The adoption of precisely this extended aerial control and surveillance approach with Iraq in the 1990s only set the stage for the 2003 U.S. ground invasion. Permanent aerial occupation does not lead to political control, and without greater political control, Iran will still continue to pose a plausible threat to U.S. interests—especially since its nuclear program persists in some form or another. In this way, an ostensibly restrained policy could actually precipitate greater commitment.

The alternative is ending the military commitment: Washington could declare that objectives have been “met” and stand down its tremendous air and naval forces assembled near Iran. In the short term, the Trump administration would face the intense political criticism that it may have left the job unfinished. This policy, however, would allow the administration to move on to other issues, such as addressing economic needs at home, and limit the political blowback of its decision to attack Iran.

Trump is thus on the horns of a dilemma, having to judge whether Washington should deal with short but limited political costs now or more protracted and more uncertain political costs later. There is no golden off-ramp, one that increases the political benefits for Washington. Every option now carries political costs and risks; the initial strike may have solved a tactical problem, but it created a strategic one. Given these realities, the wisest choice may well be for the United States to accept a limited loss now rather than risk compounding losses later.

The strikes that have killed Iran’s leadership demonstrated tactical mastery. Tactical mastery, however, is not strategy. Iran’s retaliation—geographically broad, economically disruptive, and politically calibrated—aims to reshape the conflict’s structure. By widening the theater and prolonging the war, Tehran is shifting the contest from a battle of military capabilities to one of political endurance.

As in Vietnam, the United States may win most engagements. As in Serbia, it may ultimately prevail after sustained pressure. But in both cases, the decisive arena was not the initial shock of airpower. It was the politics of an expanding war.

The decisive phase of this war began not with the first strike but with the regional crisis that followed—air defenses activated across multiple capitals, airports suspended, markets jolted, and alliance politics strained. Whether this conflict is merely a contained episode or it becomes a prolonged strategic setback for the United States will depend not on the next volley of missiles but on whether Washington recognizes the enemy’s unfolding strategy—and responds with one of equal clarity.

Topics & Regions: Iran Diplomacy Geopolitics Security Defense & Military Strategy & Conflict War & Military Strategy U.S. Foreign Policy War in Iran

FP Q&A Did Trump Miscalculate on Iran? -- March 2, 2026, 5:47 PM - The White House is discovering that Iran and Israel have a higher tolerance for pain, according to Mideast expert Vali Nasr. - By Ravi Agrawal, the editor in chief of Foreign Policy.

Q&A

Did Trump Miscalculate on Iran?

The White House is discovering that Iran and Israel have a higher tolerance for pain, according to Mideast expert Vali Nasr.

By Ravi Agrawal, the editor in chief of Foreign Policy.

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Listen to the full podcast

March 2, 2026, 5:47 PM

Intense fighting is underway in the Middle East. Early on Feb. 28, Israel and the United States struck a range of sites across Iran. It later emerged that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, was killed as bombs rained down on his compound. But both before and after the confirmation of that news, Tehran shot volleys of missiles at Israel, suggesting a command-and-control structure that operates even in the top leadership’s absence. Iran is also attacking several other countries in the region, particularly Gulf states that host U.S. military bases such as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.

Iran War

Analysis and updates

How will the war end? How do each of Iran, Israel, and the United States define success, and how different are their respective thresholds for pain? On the latest episode of FP Live, I spoke with Vali Nasr, an expert on Iran and the Middle East, a former senior advisor in the U.S. State Department, and a professor at Johns Hopkins University. Subscribers can watch the full discussion on the video box atop this page or download the free FP Live podcast. What follows here is a lightly edited and condensed transcript.

Ravi Agrawal: Ali Khamenei was a brutal leader. At 86 years old, he had ruled Iran for more than three decades. Vali, how are you processing his death?

Vali Nasr: In some ways, it was expected, not just because of his advanced age but because taking him out was one of the war goals of both Israel and the United States. It’s momentous for Iran and the Middle East. This is a leader who was in charge of Iran for 36 years and also was the main focus of the Iranian strategy to confront the United States and resist anti-imperialism in the region. So, his passing is a turning point for Iran.

RA: But it’s clear that Iran is not Venezuela, where Nicolás Maduro was replaced by a deputy in a one-day mission. Iran is continuing to retaliate despite Khamenei’s death. Who is in charge right now?

VN: Iran’s Islamic Republic has been designed to survive. This goes back to the early years of the republic, when there were assassinations of its president, prime minister, and senior leaders, and continued through the Iran-Iraq War and even the 12-day war with Israel. So, this system is built not to rely on one person. Even though Khamenei was the most significant leader in Iran, who set the course for the country and made the final decisions on things like the nuclear deal, Iran is operationally a multi-nodal system. There are different institutions and different operational leaders. As we can see, even the removal of Khamenei so early in the war has not impacted Iran’s footing. It’s executing a plan and going forward.

He created a system in which there are key leaders, like national security advisor Ali Larijani, the speaker of the parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the head of the judiciary, commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and several layers below them. There’s also the operational side of the state under the presidency, which constitutes what I would call Iran’s deep state of senior statesmen, bureaucrats, military commanders, and clerics. That deep state and the institutions they control are collectively managing the war.

RA: Who might eventually succeed Khamenei? Is that even important in the here and now as we look at these continuing attacks?

VN: We don’t know. I don’t think Iran will name a leader immediately, largely because they have in their rear-view mirror what happened to Hassan Nasrallah’s immediate successor. Israel killed Nasrallah of Hezbollah and then killed his immediate successor, as well. They are moving in the direction of appointing a successor, but we may not see it right away. Those moves are largely to signal continuity to the world, the Iranian population, and Iran’s followers in the region that the system will continue in accordance with the constitution. There will be a supreme leader. But, in reality, it will take some time for that person to actually assert control and consolidate power.

RA: So when you hear the likes of U.S. President Donald Trump or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu encouraging Iranian people to protest, given what you’re describing about the deep state in Iran, what is the likelihood of an uprising?

VN: Well, the anger that the people felt, which led to the uprising in January, is real. And there is still a lot of anger and sorrow regarding the bloody way in which the system cracked down to suppress those demonstrations.

But there are a few things going against an uprising right now. First of all, despite the anger, there is no political movement on the ground outside of the Islamic Republic to organize and direct political sentiment and anger in a sustained, resilient way toward the goal. And a leadership-in-exile cannot provide that and doesn’t have the ground game to manage it. Secondly, there is a very heavy presence of security forces, particularly in the capital city, to discourage demonstrations in the streets. And thirdly, the Iranians are facing a war. They’re worried about their own security. And they’re also worried about how the war will end and whether they would lose their livelihoods.

When the dust settles, when there is no war, that’s when we might see political expression.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei meets President Hassan Rouhani in 2014.

Death Comes to the Dictator

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei brought his country and regime to ruin. This article has an audio recording

Obituary | Barbara Slavin

An Iranian man walks past debris from a destroyed building following a missile strike on Tehran.

Trump Made History. Now the Iranian People Can, Too.

Airstrikes on Iran have already made the Middle East safer. They may also make it freer. This article has an audio recording

Argument | Matthew Kroenig

A missile fires from a military ship at sea.

Iran, Israel, and the U.S. Are Racing the Clock

The attackers seek quick success as their air defenses dwindle. Iran will try to drag it out. This article has an audio recording

Analysis | Amos C. Fox, Franz-Stefan Gady

RA: Vali, you’ve worked in the U.S. government. What are you able to discern right now about the White House’s objectives? What does it want to achieve? And at what point are you imagining that it concludes that the job is done?

VN: It’s very difficult to tell because the president never really made a case for this war. It looked like he was very satisfied that, in June, the United States destroyed Iran’s nuclear program. There was no reason for him to talk to the Iranians. And then he suddenly became interested in military intervention to bring about regime change in Iran. So, America’s objective went from Iran’s nuclear program to regime change. And then when that moment passed, with the suppression of the protests, he went back to using the nuclear deal as an argument. And then he started the war and is again asking for regime change in Iran. So, it’s not clear why the United States felt this urgency to go to war with Iran. Now that the war has started and the supreme leader has been killed, I think the president is ready to call victory. It’s the Iranians who don’t want to stop right now, largely because they think there’s any gain in a quick cease-fire. And that puts the president in a pickle as he’s now caught in an expanding war, which is raising energy prices, and could expand even further in terms of U.S. casualties and damage to U.S. assets.

RA: So you’re saying this war ends, to some degree, when Iran wants it to end. I have to ask, how long can Tehran keep this up?

VN: Well, I would just caveat what you said in that it’s up to Iran and Israel, because I think Israel would like this war to go on longer until it’s achieved its war goals, which, in Israel’s case, are much clearer. In other words, Israel wants to topple the Islamic Republic or at least degrade it to a point that it is no longer a real regional actor—and also to degrade Iran’s missile and other military capabilities to the point that they’re no longer a threat to Israel. Israel believes that it has to bomb Iran for a much longer period of time in order to get close to that goal if not achieving it.

Iran also thinks that a short war in which the United States does not pay much of a price would only lead Trump to think that war with Iran is easy. And he can go back to it. But if the war went on longer, got bloodier, more complicated, then it would establish a deterrence against further American aggression against Iran down the road—a kind of deterrence that Iran did not establish after the June war. The Iranians think right now that they have the stamina to keep hitting targets in the Gulf, raise energy prices, raise concern in global markets, and also gradually bring the Europeans into it. Shutting down liquefied natural gas terminals in Qatar ultimately impacts Europe’s energy supplies. And all of this essentially makes the war more and more complicated, to the point where the United States may decide that it has to pay a higher price for a cease-fire rather than just demand it at this point in time.

RA: It feels that when Iran was striking back during the 12-day war last year, it was holding back. It wasn’t using its full capacity. It was picking targets that it was telegraphing ahead of time and wasn’t looking to cause maximum damage. That’s my assessment. Right now, it is clearly escalating beyond what it did last summer. Do you know how much more capacity it has? How many more cards does it have to play under these circumstances? How bad can it get?

VN: I agree. Iran is escalating gradually in this war, whereas the biggest punch from Israel and the United States came right at the beginning—killing the supreme leader and 30 or 40 other commanders, devastating military bases, etc.

First of all, Iran is trying to deplete the supply of Patriot missiles, interceptors, and THAAD missiles, across not only Israel, but the region. In other words, every little Iranian drone that might cost $10,000 or $20,000 requires a large amount of Patriots and other interceptors to bring it down. Ultimately, they calculate that at some point this will become an issue for Gulf countries, the Pentagon, and Israel. That is one of the games they’re playing.

Secondly, they’re not trying to necessarily hit targets in the Gulf or in Israel but to keep constant pressure. They are sending missiles to Israel throughout the day, not in large volumes, but in a continuous pattern and similarly in the Gulf. The goal is to keep constant pressure on the air defense systems and on the populations in those countries. If people have to continuously run to shelters, you can completely disrupt activities. And then, at some point, they’re going to go to higher-grade missiles and capabilities once the air defense systems have been depleted. So, I think we actually haven’t seen the worst of the war.

This war has now become a test of stamina: Who can knock out whom first? Do the Israelis and Americans break the back of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and hit enough missiles, silos, and launchers to incapacitate Iran’s missile capability? They clearly have not achieved that. Or can the Iranians stay in the game long enough to change the calculations in Washington and [Tel Aviv]? The Iranians are going to continue to escalate gradually and make this war more and more costly, both financially and in material terms for the Gulf and for Europeans.

RA: Can you give us an overview of what you’ve called the Axis of Resistance, Iran’s so-called proxy groups in the region? What is their capability right now, and at what point do you think they might enter the fray?

VN: The proxy with the greatest capability to have a material impact on this war is the Houthis, because their missile firepower is intact. They could target Israel or shipping in the Suez Canal and the Red Sea. They could also, in certain scenarios, end their cease-fire with the Gulf countries and start shooting at Saudi Arabia and the UAE from the rear side, as well as at American bases in the Gulf. Yes, the United States, Israel, and the Saudis can take them on, but that also means diverting certain attention to Yemen.

Similarly, Hezbollah is not in a position to really dent Israel, but it can create a sufficient amount of distraction to force Israel to focus on its northern border, either with air campaigns or by putting troops in Lebanon. So, the Iranian game is not that any one of these things will make a big difference for Israel and the United States, but that this combination—across a much larger battlefield than the United States and Israel had planned for—can change the calculations.

Israel and the United States have calculated fighting Iran along two corridors: offensively and defensively in the air corridor, and in the corridor between Iran and U.S. bases in the region. The Iranians are trying to expand this to civilian areas within the Gulf as well as the broader region. So, it benefits Iran to fight at a low boil across a broader region so they can stay in the fight for longer.

RA: It strikes me that the three main actors here—Iran, Israel, and the United States—each have a different pain tolerance of how much they’re able to sustain in terms of civilian losses, infrastructural damage, and military damage, before they might radically change their calculations. From what you’re describing, Iran seems to have a remarkably high pain threshold. They’ve lost their top leader, and they’re still holding back militarily with their proxies. How much more pain do you think they can take before any of these calculations change?

VN: Iran can take the pain. The question is when their capabilities may falter. They have made the decision that the only way the Islamic Republic, the revolution, and even the country survives is to persevere in this fight. In particular, this cycle of assassinations has convinced the leadership that any or all of them may be killed at any moment. So, they’re all in on this fight.

Israel also has a fairly high threshold of pain. It has now made it its mission to defeat Iran and its proxies, and it has the commitment and support of its population to do so—although one can see at what point that might change, because the difference is that, in Israel, you do have public opinion that the government may actually have to respond to. In Iran, you don’t, especially after the suppression in January.

The United States is the Achilles heel, particularly because Trump himself has been skittish about messy military entanglements His base doesn’t like this, and he hasn’t even made a case for war to his base or to the American public. He is the most likely to cringe at higher gas prices and substantial damage that would provide bad optics in the United States. It makes sense for the Iranians to put their thumb on that vulnerability, so it’s really a test for Trump.

Part of the danger here is that the Iranians don’t want to go back to where they were at the end of the June war. For the Iranians, this is the last battle. Either they will lose completely and fall, or they will be able to change the rules of the game going forward, which means that there will not be a war with the United States and Israel for some time to come. So, their calculations are very different from Trump’s.

RA: Given what you say, is it your sense that the White House has enough Iran advice? Are they properly gaming out the Iranian pain threshold?

VN: I don’t think so. When U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said that the president was frustrated that the Iranians hadn’t capitulated, it just meant that they completely misunderstand what the calculation is in Iran. I’m sure they are seeing battlefield evaluations that tell them that this is not going in the direction they thought and that the Iranians, despite the killing of Khamenei, are not ready to throw in the towel.

We may end up seeing this as a huge miscalculation on the part of Trump, based on a misreading of the adversary’s thinking.

RA: A lot of the Gulf countries—the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Bahrain—have been facing attacks from Iran. They’ve had civilian casualties and infrastructural damage. I recognize they are not a monolith, so they will have different reactions, but can you give us a broad sense of how might they be reacting?

VN: The Gulf countries face a massive dilemma, which is that they host U.S. bases in order to attack Iran or protect against Iranian attacks. But, in reality, these bases are not able to provide protection to the Gulf countries.

Iran has also decided that it’s going to go after them, not because of their support for the United States—although that’s the excuse—but because impacting the Gulf economies and energy supplies impacts the global economy. So, Iran is after creating pressure on Trump by disrupting and impacting the global economy. That means that you have to create some degree of risk for the Gulf and also disabuse the world of this notion that the economies of the Gulf can be purring, generating money, becoming a source of economic prosperity around the world, while being divorced from a war with Iran. By embroiling them, Iran is creating pressure on the entire global economy to its own advantage.

Now, the problem that Gulf countries have is if they join the U.S. fight—not that they will really change the military balance in any way—and the regime survives, then they’re at risk of an Iranian attack for decades. That will ruin their economies. If they don’t join and the regime survives, the risk from Iran doesn’t go away.

RA: Oman’s foreign minister, who was the chief mediator in these talks, flew to the United States last week and told the media that the talks were going better than the U.S. side had been saying in public. He said that Iran had essentially agreed to give up its nuclear program. Why did Oman come forward in that very public way to diverge from the U.S. version of events?

VN: I thought that was actually quite interesting and also worrisome because when he did that, my impression was that this was an act of desperation. This was a belief that Trump was not being appropriately briefed, or the entire United States was not getting a sense of what had been achieved in Geneva. This was the last act for him to come here and relay that achievement directly. He obviously had the support of his king, which suggests that Oman also decided that it was worth going against Trump by saying that the deal was achieved and it was being undermined.

RA: What kind of Middle East are you expecting to emerge in one, two, three, six months from now?

VN: For a while, the Middle East is going to be unstable, not just because of this war but because everything that has happened since Oct. 7, 2023, has disrupted the balance of power that was dominant in the region for about four decades. There are winners in that, and there are losers in that, but a new balance has not been achieved.

This war is part of establishing that balance—by finishing off Iran, by asserting Israel’s position in the region. So even after this war, also depending on how it ends, the Middle East is going to be negotiating a new equilibrium for a while. What worries me is that the U.S. administration is not thinking along these lines at all. It’s dealing with the region transactionally, without having any kind of a vision as to what the United States’ optimum equilibrium in the Middle East is and how to achieve it.

This post is part of FP’s ongoing coverage. Read more here.

Robert Kuttner, The American Prospect - KUTTNER ON TAP - March 09, 2026

Robert Kuttner, The American Prospect<info@prospect.org

KUTTNER ON TAP

Trump’s economy

Bad news everywhere you look, and worse is to come.

Foreign-policy commentators on the Iran debacle have been invoking Colin Powell’s so-called Pottery Barn rule—“You break it, you own it.” As Powell warned George W. Bush on the eve of the Iraq War, “You are going to be the proud owner of 25 million people. You will own all their hopes, aspirations and problems. You’ll own it all.”

Powell’s famous warning failed to deter Bush’s Iraq quagmire. By the same token, as Suzanne Nossel writes in Foreign Policy magazine, “Donald Trump and his administration are plainly unmoved by claims that they bear responsibility for the fates of nations where the United States has intervened.”

However, in the other key policy area that is defining Trump—the economy—there is no escaping responsibility: Trump is breaking the economy, and he owns it.

On Friday, the Labor Department reported the latest jobs numbers, and the result was not pretty. The U.S. economy shed 92,000 jobs in February, and revisions to prior months’ reports reduced December and January jobs figures by another 69,000. The unemployment rate rose to 4.4 percent.

How does Trump bear responsibility? Well, he has cut direct federal employment by about 330,000. Freezes in research funding and other federal aid have cut hundreds of thousands more jobs. Tariffs have raised costs to domestic producers, and Trump’s war on the renewable economy has also reduced employment in that sector.

Since Trump’s reversal of Joe Biden’s industrial policies, manufacturing employment is down by about 300,000 after increasing by about 600,000 jobs under Biden. And Trump’s war on immigrants has caused large numbers of frightened people to stay home rather than reporting for work, largely in service sectors targeted by ICE.

And all this was before the impact of the Iran war. On Saturday, The Wall Street Journal ran an unintentionally hilarious editorial on the economy, which began, “Washington’s pessimist caucus is always on duty and the members had a good Friday.” It continued, “The first point to understand is that the jobs report is unrelated to the Iran war, though Democrats want to link the two. The Labor household and employer surveys took place mid-month before the bombing began.”

This is good news? The war will only worsen the economy going forward, and next month’s report will be even bleaker. The price of oil rose from $67 to $91 a barrel in just a week, and broke through the $100 barrier last night, though it has since moderated slightly. Retail gas prices are soaring.

Generally, the Trump economy is entering a period of stagflation, as both joblessness and inflation tick upward. That means that the Fed, which Trump tried but failed to take over, will not ride to the rescue with low interest rates.

The stock market reacted to all of this bad economic news by declining about 10 percent from its peak—a loss of more than $5 trillion. And this is a very fragile and overvalued market because of highly leveraged speculation not just in stocks but in crypto and AI. Steep declines are likely to feed on themselves.

All of this is on Trump, who has backed further deregulation of crypto and of the financial sector as a whole. Bitcoin is now trading at about $68,000, down from its October peak of more than $123,000.

In addition, the war’s impact on financial markets is likely to worsen. Foreign investors have some $35 trillion of equity investments in the U.S.

A good deal of financial investment comes from the Middle East. Petrostates in the Gulf—Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and Kuwait—are now unable to generate oil income but still must cover their own state budgets. As our friend Matt Stoller reports, they are exploring how to sell the financial assets they own in the West, including invoking force majeure clauses, allowing contracts to be broken in time of war. These sales will worsen the downdraft in stock markets.

Trump’s blather about the affordable economy only further erodes his credibility, as it contradicts people’s lived experience. Even if Trump were to end the war in a matter of weeks, which he is very unlikely to do, the war damage and the casualties of Trump’s other economic policies will live on for a long time.

Trump has not just broken some crockery. He has broken the store.

Robert Kuttner
Co-Editor, Co-Founder