Jonathan Chait

Like, let's just see what I could do with with my new toy.

If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time.

It could be a year.

It could be within a few months.

Trump clearly believes that people don't like long wars.

But I think he seems to have been persuaded that he can engage in some kind of short, one-off conflicts.

And as long as there are no troops on the ground, there's no

long commitment, it won't cost him any popularity.

The question is whether he can actually do something like that in Iran that's consistent with those parameters.

The Wall Street Journal had a really interesting story about this last week.

And what they said was, you know, again, I don't know if these are leaks from people who are against it and trying to stop it, or if these are actual leaks from people who are for it.

But what this was, he's decided on the tactic, but he hasn't decided on the objective.

The tactic is he's going to bomb Iran.

He doesn't know if he wants to do it to stop the nuclear program, to stop the ballistic missile program, or to topple the regime altogether.

Right.

And I've never heard of someone starting a war without knowing what their objective is first.

Usually the tactic follows from the objective.

Here's what we want to accomplish.

How do we accomplish that?

Not here's what we want to do.