Trudy Rubin: Trump is now co-owner of the Israel-Iran War

Now that the United States has bombed Iran’s nuclear sites, many Americans are recalling the long-term war we got sucked into by invading Iraq in 2003.

I spent weeks in Iran and Iraq just prior to that March 20, 2003, attack and logged a huge amount of time in Iraq over the next eight years, so the comparisons feel very personal.

Yet, as the world waits to see how Iran responds to the U.S. strikes on three key nuclear sites — and whether that sparks a wider war — I can’t help recalling the strange but prescient remarks by then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld a year before the Iraq War started.

When asked whether there was evidence that Iraq had actually tried to aid terrorist organizations with weapons of mass destruction, as the Bush White House claimed, Rumsfeld responded. “There are known knowns, things we know,” he said. “Then there are known unknowns, the things that we know we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country, … it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.”

There are far more known knowns available to President Donald Trump than there were to George W. Bush (provided Trump pays attention). But that doesn’t mean we can escape the dangers of “known unknowns,” especially since they involve the psyches and hidden intentions of three mercurial leaders: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Trump himself.

We don’t know whether any or all of these leaders seek, or even grasp how to end the Israel-Iran war, and what will satisfy them. Moreover, the shadowy unknown unknowns will emerge from the long-term vision, or lack thereof, of these three ego-driven men.

Compared to what was presented to Bush, Trump had access to more and very obvious facts on the ground (although how he chooses to interpret them is a different question).

I will never forget my shock in watching on TV from a hotel in Erbil, northern Iraq, as Gen. Colin Powell presented false claims about Iraq’s nuclear and biological weapons programs to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003.

The information had been fed to Bush — and Powell — by tainted intelligence gleaned from Iraqi exiles who desired to drag the U.S. into war against Saddam Hussein and was endorsed by war hawks in the White House. More accurate information was readily available before the Iraq War started, but the administration ignored it.

In the case of Iran, the details of uranium enriched to nearly weapons grade have been verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The known unknown is whether and when Tehran had decided to “break out,” meaning to weaponize the enriched uranium, and how long it would take.

True, the Israeli government may have convinced Trump that the threat was far more imminent than in reality, and that it also threatened the U.S. mainland. (I argued in a previous column that Iran presented no direct threat to the U.S. mainland, and therefore the U.S. should play no active part in the bombing.)

But unlike with Iraq, there is no question that a regime which publicly calls for an end to Israel was capable of producing nuclear weapons. Nor was there a question that the ayatollahs were a constant challenge to Mideast peace, via armed proxies in Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, and Syria under its previous regime.

The other known knowns were that Israel had pretty much neutered Hamas and Hezbollah, and had destroyed Syria’s defenses, and had taken out Iran’s air defenses. This meant that Israel, or the U.S., could virtually bomb at will.

Here we come to the known unknowns, and how they depend on the long-range vision of three leaders who have often failed miserably in thinking ahead.

Let’s start with Khamenei, who made a fatal mistake in supporting Hamas after it attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

We don’t know yet how the theocratic leader will respond to the U.S. bombing. But it is highly unlikely he will agree to Trump’s ultimatum that Tehran give up the right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes (even though that right was misused to enrich to military grade).

So the first key known unknown is what will Khamenei do now.

The Iranian leader is no fool. He knows the U.S. will strike back if Iranian missiles kill U.S. soldiers based in the region. So he could reprise the approach he used after Trump ordered the assassination of a key Iranian general during his first term, namely hitting bases without killing U.S. personnel.

Or, even more likely, he could try to hit Trump where it hurts — by smacking the U.S. and global economy. The Iranian parliament has just called for the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, the passage at the head of the Persian Gulf through which much of the world’s oil passes. This would raise oil prices sky high.

Or Iran’s supreme leader could gather his remaining nuclear assets and secretly race for a bomb.

The second known unknown is what Israel’s Netanyahu will do next. He has made clear he wants regime change in Tehran. But Trump has apparently pressured Jerusalem not to assassinate Khamenei: the White House sent out Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance to the Sunday talk shows to insist Trump’s goal is not regime change. Yet by Sunday evening, Trump was tweeting in his typically inconsistent way, “Why wouldn’t there be a regime change?”

What happens if Netanyahu can’t resist the temptation to hit Khamenei? What if the Israeli leader’s passion to cement his role in Israeli history — and his extremist political backers’ desire to annex the West Bank and Gaza — drive him to keep on bombing Iran?

Although Khamenei’s death would be a blessing for most Iranians, it would hardly guarantee a new regime friendly to the U.S. or Israel. More likely it would lead to a longer war that draws the United States in.

Such a scenario would encourage Iran to produce a bomb with hidden supplies of highly enriched uranium in order to protect its clerical regime.

The third critical known unknown is what Trump’s intentions are. He clearly hoped this bombing would be a one-off hit that would scare Tehran into bowing to his demands. Yet the president has never shown any talent for long-term strategic patience and vision. So can he resist being drawn further into this war if it drags on?

Although serious damage was done to Iran’s nuclear program, some of it may have survived, and it may be resurrected. The U.S. attack could spur Iran to rush much more urgently toward building actual nuclear weapons.

Moreover, Khamenei is unlikely to respond positively to Trump’s calls for total surrender at the negotiating table. He has no reason to trust a U.S. leader who pulled out of a previous nuclear agreement, and has joined Israel in this war.

So the U.S. president may have to make a choice between further bombing of Iran, or softening his demands for zero uranium enrichment on Iranian soil. Neither choice would endear him to his MAGA acolytes at home.

Which brings us to the most dangerous factor, the unknown unknowns.

They rest upon the motives of a god-driven ayatollah, an ego-driven U.S. president, and a power-driven Israeli leader — none of whom have displayed the skills or long-term vision to end wars. Any one of them could trigger an unknown unknown that would keep the Israel-U.S.-Iran war burning and destabilize the region.

Whatever happens next, Trump is now co-owner of the Israel-Iran war.

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