This sweeping Trump assault has us headed for a hellscape of unimaginable dimensions

The first days of a bombing campaign almost always look successful. Targets are hit. Explosions dominate headlines. Leaders declare strength. But wars are judged by what follows: retaliation, escalation, unintended consequences that unfold in days, weeks, months, and years.

For example, Israeli sources said on Saturday that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the initial bombings. But if he is dead, who comes next? His death after 35 years in power would likely trigger a prolonged, ugly and tumultuous struggle.

Further back, remember George W. Bush and his rush to declare “Mission Accomplished," shortly after the attack on Iraq in 2003?

That pattern of not thinking and planning ahead for what comes next mirrors Donald Trump’s life of losing. His deals and grand ideas often look triumphant at the start. Later, collapse, chaos, and damage become clear.

Trump’s decision to join Israel in bombing Iran is shocking the world. It feels reckless and ego-driven — both for Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu — undertaken without fully reckoning with the grave consequences such action could unleash.

Yes, Iran is dangerous. Yes, it should never have nuclear weapons. Yes, the regime’s mass killing of protesters is abominable. But behind the curtain of cruelty is an entrenched military and ruthless theocratic leadership capable of spreading unimaginable horror throughout the Middle East.

It’s already begun.

But let’s start in the U.S., with a president who campaigned in 2024 on ending wars through dealmaking.

Trump has ended nothing. He has built nothing. He has stabilized nothing. That assessment isn’t limited to what’s happening now. It reflects how he has carried himself throughout his life. He is not a winner. He is a loser. He does not create peace. He creates chaos.

Now he has detonated that chaos in the most volatile region on Earth. Why now? For what purpose? For how long?

Trump repeatedly claimed that last year’s U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities “obliterated” them. Obliterated. He has insisted on that word, dismissing experts who said otherwise.

So why are American bombs once again falling on Iranian soil? You don’t obliterate something and then have to obliterate it again.

There has been no publicly presented evidence that bombing Iran is in America’s best interest. None. No imminent attack disclosed. No ticking-clock intelligence, laid before Congress.

And what of Congress? Article I of the Constitution is clear: Congress has the power to declare war. Trump didn’t seek it. He didn’t secure it. He didn’t build bipartisan consensus. He simply acted. Congress represents the voice of the American people. We, and our elected officials, should decide whether to put American troops in harm’s way.

Trump failed to rally NATO. After years of threatening to weaken the alliance, flirting with abandoning European partners, even floating the absurd notion of invading Greenland, he has left the United States diplomatically diminished.

Rather than assembling a coalition, he has tethered America’s fate to another leader who thrives on confrontation: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu has long viewed Iran as Israel’s existential enemy. Iran harbors deep hostility toward Israel and Netanyahu. Netanyahu is polarizing in the Middle East, controversial at home. Trump is viewed globally as erratic, incapable of restraint.

Two unpredictable leaders do not create stability. They do not project peace. And if these two have rid Iran of the equally unpredictable Khamenei, God knows what lies ahead.

This is a sweeping assault with no clearly articulated endgame against an adversary as hardened as it is brutal. If Khamenei is dead, his revolutionary forces will surely retaliate to an extreme.

There has been no serious explanation of what victory looks like, only assurances that bombing will continue. Escalation feels inevitable. Regional war is plausible.

Experts have warned for weeks that a full-scale attack on Iran could ignite the Middle East.

Iran is not isolated. It has a network of proxies: Hezbollah in Lebanon, militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen. They are all capable of striking American assets and allies. Retaliation could be relentless, U.S. troops potential targets.

Shipping lanes could be disrupted. The Strait of Hormuz, through which flows a significant share of the world’s oil, could become a choke point. Energy markets would convulse. Inflation would spike. A fragile global economy, rattled by Trump’s erratic tariff obsession, could tip toward crisis.

And then there’s Russia, which was blunt in response to the bombing, saying it was an “unprovoked act of armed aggression.”

Moscow has deepened ties with Tehran. Iran has supplied Russia with drones. Russia has offered diplomatic cover. By attacking Iran in a sustained way, Trump risks entangling the U.S. in a broader dynamic that could spiral beyond control.

When military powers circle the same battlefield, miscalculation is a real probability.

Even within U.S. military leadership, alarm bells have been ringing. Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine has warned that a full-scale confrontation with Iran would come with “acute risks,” along with being extraordinarily costly and unpredictable.

This is not Venezuela. Iran is no pushover. It is one of the most volatile regimes in the world, rivaling North Korea.

And now we have added another unpredictable actor — the habitual liar that is the President of the United States.

This is the man who has failed at virtually every major endeavor he has led, too many to list. He is not a steady leader. He is a coddled billionaire who has never faced meaningful consequences for his mistakes.

Trump, who thrives on confusion, lies, and chaos, has not clearly articulated objectives, sought congressional authorization, or built a multinational framework. And we are supposed to trust him?

We are headed for a hellscape of unimaginable dimensions.

What unfolds next could reshape the global order: regional war, confrontation with major powers, economic shockwaves hitting American families, gas stations and grocery stores, terror retaliation, cyberattacks … the “acute risks” falling like dominos.

Trump falsely bills himself as the man who would keep America out of endless wars. He foams at the mouth for a Nobel. He launched a farcical “Board of Peace.” Yet he has now lit the fuse in one of the world’s most combustible regions.

Unlike his past failures, his latest bomb is far worse than a bankruptcy. Far, far worse.

• John Casey was most recently Senior Editor, The Advocate, and is a freelance opinion and feature story writer. Previously, he was a Capitol Hill press secretary, and spent 25 years in media and public relations in NYC. He is the co-author of LOVE: The Heroic Stories of Marriage Equality (Rizzoli, 2025), named by Oprah in her "Best 25 of 2025.”