{"id":133171,"date":"2026-05-27T12:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T12:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/133171\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T12:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T12:22:11","slug":"hoping-for-trump-to-pull-off-a-victory-in-iran-is-magical-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/133171\/","title":{"rendered":"Hoping for Trump to pull off a victory in Iran is \u2018magical thinking\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To the editor: According to contributing writer Josh Hammer\u2019s na\u00efve analysis of the Iran quagmire, in which President Trump is clearly in over his head, all Trump needs to do to win an essentially unwinnable war is to escalate the conflict by applying greater military force (\u201cThe paradox of Trump\u2019s GOP,\u201d<\/a> May 22). Hammer articulates four goals that need to be met to enable Trump to declare decisive victory. Unfortunately, so far none of these goals appear militarily attainable.<\/p>\n

Given the failure of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s joint campaign to undermine Iranian national unity, Hammer\u2019s wish list amounts to a feeble exercise in magical thinking. This is a war that cannot be won. Iran has the advantage as Trump struggles to find a way to save face and disengage from a conflict driven, in no small part, by Netanyahu under the banner of Israeli national interests.<\/p>\n

The sad reality is that this war fails to serve American interests. Iran has never posed an imminent threat to the U.S. Continued efforts to overthrow the existing regime (which, as a result of the potentially unlawful<\/a> assassination of the Iranian government\u2019s leadership, has grown more resistant to negotiation) offer no offramp for Trump nor any sensible way forward. Trump\u2019s incoherent and uninformed notion of U.S. hegemony has left him and his partner, Netanyahu, politically isolated.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Hammer embraces a highly unlikely outcome involving a magical victory over the Iranians. Consistent with a wish list whose items remain untethered to the current reality, Hammer celebrates lower gas prices, GOP midterm success and Trump continuing to reign supreme.<\/p>\n

Andrew Spathis, Los Angeles<\/p>\n

..<\/p>\n

To the editor: We have a war waged without congressional authority, with no adequately explained reason from the president. People have died, including American military members. The current IRS scandal has proved again that Trump is a self-enriching autocrat, one who could give nearly $1.8 billion to insurrectionists. And Hammer advocates that Trump can now prove himself by finishing this unexplained and arguably illegal war.<\/p>\n

The result, according to Hammer: \u201cTrump would yet again be king of all of MAGA.\u201d Yes, and that makes it right. What about the rest of the USA and the world?<\/p>\n

Michael H. Miller, Pasadena<\/p>\n

..<\/p>\n

To the editor: In commentary that could have been co-written by Netanyahu, Hammer argues that the key to solving the Republican generational voter divide is to ramp up the Iran war in order to demonstrate Trump\u2019s \u201csuccess on the world stage.\u201d Hammer\u2019s vision of the young Republican \u201cbro\u201d movement as the savior of his party completely sidelines young women who may favor some Republican goals but who eschew the macho playbook.<\/p>\n

Hammer says he wants to avoid the effects of Trump losing face by failing on the Iran war. I am sorry, Hammer, but that has already happened.<\/p>\n

William Patton, Los Angeles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the editor: According to contributing writer Josh Hammer\u2019s na\u00efve analysis of the Iran quagmire, in which President…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[723,9075,19810,34,9681,44458,876,722,392,683,9074,36,16247,44459,1142],"class_list":["post-133171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran","tag-editor","tag-goal","tag-hammer","tag-iran","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-magical-thinking","tag-netanyahu","tag-president-trump","tag-trump","tag-u-s","tag-victory","tag-war","tag-way","tag-wish-list","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116646519930878324","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}