'Led by idiots': Conservative blasts Trump administration

President Donald Trump insists that America is winning its war against Iran, but a conservative commentator from The Bulwark is joining a larger chorus of protest from Trump’s own right-wing base — describing Trump’s war as “led by idiots and incompetents.”

“The American military is now telling the New York Times that, far from collapsing, the Iranian regime is adapting to the Israeli–American onslaught and finding our weaknesses,” wrote Jonathan V. Last on Wednesday. Explaining that the Iranian government has long prepared for precisely the type of war being jointly waged by the United States and Israel, Last asked “how is it possible that the people in charge of running America’s war—by which I mean the commander-in-chief and his secretary of defense—could have misunderestimated Iran so completely?”

Reflecting on reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convinced Trump that America would easily win the war once the Ayatollah is dead, Last wrote that “if it is true that the Israelis sold America a bill of goods and deluded American war planners into believing that killing the ayatollah would lead to regime collapse, then I don’t even know what to say.”

Speaking with Axios earlier on Wednesday, Trump reiterated his claim that he could quickly wrap up the war.

"Little this and that. ... Any time I want it to end, it will end," Trump told Axios. "The war is going great. We are way ahead of the timetable. We have done more damage than we thought possible, even in the original six-week period."

He emphasized that he can end the war "any time I want it” because after two weeks of military operations there is supposedly "practically nothing left to target." These were similar to comments Trump on Friday made at his Doral, Florida golf club, insisting that “the war is very complete, pretty much” because Iran has “no navy, no communications, they’ve got no air force.”

Despite Trump’s confident assertions, the Iranian government has already replaced its previous supreme leader with his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who may be even more hard-line than his father.

“This man—the commander-in-chief—has no understanding of the war he is running,” Last wrote. “Iranian doctrine does not depend on maintaining a navy. It was specifically developed to survive a loss of communications. This Iranian regime has never placed any stock in possessing an air force.”

Reviewing that America has no concept of how it will define victory while Iran “is absorbing punishment while accomplishing its strategic goals—exactly as its strategy was designed,” Last concluded that “this is what it means to be led by idiots and incompetents.”

Last is not alone among conservatives in denouncing Trump’s Iran war. Podcaster Joe Rogan made similar points during the Tuesday episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience.”

“Well, it just seems so insane, based on what he ran on. I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right?” Rogan said on his podcast. “He ran on, ‘No more wars,’ ‘End these stupid, senseless wars,’ and then we have one that we can’t even really clearly define why we did it.”

Similarly Megyn Kelly, normally a pro-Trump journalist, admitted shortly after the war began that she had “serious doubts” about what the White House is doing in Iran, while Kelly’s fellow conservative former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) speculated that Trump has gone insane.

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