President Trump has said he is unconcerned with the economic impact of the war with Iran on the American people and that he wants the U. S. to seize Iran’s store of enriched uranium mainly for “public relations” purposes. The first statement is defensible, but the second statement means he should work to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and thereby end the war as soon as possible. To do so, he should enlist our NATO allies, using strong arguments and mending broken bridges in the process.
The New York Times reported that “when Mr. Trump was asked whether the economic hardship Americans are feeling would motivate him to make a deal to end the war,” Trump said, “Not even a little bit.” He added, “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation.” Rather, said the Times, “His only consideration, Mr. Trump said, was preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.”
No doubt the Democrats will make much of Trump’s remarks in the upcoming congressional campaigns to show how Republicans in general and Trump in particular care nothing for the economic hardships his policies have inflicted on the American people. But it could be argued that what Trump was really saying was that the consequences of Iran’s development of a nuclear bomb are so enormous as to outweigh all other considerations, including economic hardships, which Trump has said will be short-lived anyway. He could be right.
But how seriously does Trump really take the threat of the possibility of Iran going nuclear? In an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Trump defined America’s efforts to seize Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium as “more for public relations than anything else.” He added, according to both Fox News and Bloomberg News, that he considered efforts to acquire the uranium were “unnecessary,” since the uranium is buried under tons of rubble and not accessible to anyone anyway.
If efforts to take Iran’s uranium, once touted as one of the main purposes of the war, are nothing more than a publicity stunt, then that stunt must be the most expensive in history, and should be ended before more billions of dollars are spent and more economic hardship is inflicted. The war should be brought to an end with Trump declaring that, having significantly degraded Iran’s war-making capabilities and made its uranium no longer available, America has won, while adding that the situation will continue to be monitored, and that if Iran shows progress in recovering the uranium, bombing will be resumed.
Of course, however, there’s still the issue of the Strait of Hormuz, which must be reopened. Thomas Friedman, 3-time Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Times, has suggested that our NATO allies send warships to Iran to help pressure Iran to reopen the Strait. Granted, NATO being a defensive organization, its members are not required by treaty to go to war on America’s behalf in this particular instance, since America was the initial attacker, not the attacked. Nonetheless, said Friedman, our NATO allies should come to America’s assistance for two reasons:
- Enlightened self-interest—after all, European energy markets and supplies are being affected by the closure of the Strait, and
- To prevent Iran from charging ships with tolls, which might otherwise inspire other nations to charge tolls as well, and thereby undermine the principle of freedom of the seas.
And one can add a third reason as well: Like his predecessors in the White House, Trump has rightly complained that our European allies have historically failed to contribute enough to the common defense. Unlike his predecessors, Trump actually did induce the Europeans to at long last pay more. Nonetheless, while America was shouldering a greater financial burden to maintain NATO, its European members were taking advantage of the United States to expand their own social welfare systems. In effect, America was facilitating the rise of the modern welfare states in Europe, and now it’s time for our allies to repay our generosity with their support.
But to better encourage our European allies to come to our aid, Trump should also make amends for the offenses his past statements and policies have inflicted on them. Specifically, Trump should:
- Explicitly acknowledge the sacrifices made by our NATO allies when they went to war on behalf of the United States against the Taliban in Afghanistan following 9/11, rather than depreciating their contributions (Denmark, for instance, lost more soldiers in combat compared to its overall population than the United States did);
- Declare he has permanently and irrevocably abandoned any attempt to annex Canada, seize Greenland from Denmark, or take any other hostile action against any of our NATO allies;
- Resume support for our NATO allies to aid Ukraine in its war with Russia, and publicly disavow the Vice President’s campaigning on behalf of Victor Orban and his boasts of having stopped arms shipments to Ukraine (which should be resumed and accelerated).
In sum, less talk about the war and more action to end it are required.
Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville since 1987 and taught politics and government at Tarleton for 36 years, retiring in 2023. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990-2024). He was Mayor pro-tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Stephenville
Economic Development Authority since 2018, and as chair of the Erath County Appraisal District’s Appraisal Review Board since 2015. He is also a member of the Stephenville Rotary Club, the Board of Vestry of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and the Executive Committee of the Boy Scouts’ Pecan Valley District. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.
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