Terrified Trump sacrifices troops and torpedoes economy to dodge 'one thing': analysis

Despite frequent warnings from his top military adviser, President Donald Trump has pressed onward in escalating his deeply unpopular war against Iran, and one journalist suspects the president’s “failed” strategy is motivated by his fear of "one thing."

Trump has claimed that Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, held the belief that the U.S. war against Iran would be “something easily won,” whereas The New York Times has reported that in private, Caine has said the opposite. Nevertheless, Trump has continued to escalate the conflict.

“He got told the plan failed and his response was to order more of the plan and lie,” wrote journalist Alissa Valdes-Rodriguez in an op-ed published on her Substack Saturday. “That’s not strategy. That’s a man who heard 'you’re going the wrong way' and pressed harder on the gas so he wouldn’t have to feel the unbearable sensation of pulling over because he f----- up.”

As to why Trump felt compelled to remain committed to his "failed" strategy – one of escalations that has done little to lessen the war’s impact on the economy or avoid U.S. casualties – Valdes-Rodriguez argued it came down to the president’s desire to avoid doing “one thing.”

“The war is not continuing because it can be won," Valdes-Rodriguez wrote. "Everybody who would know says it can’t."

So why does Trump refuse to back down? According to Valdes-Rodriguez, the reason's simple.

“The war is continuing because stopping it would require Donald Trump to admit to Donald Trump that it didn’t work, and admitting it didn’t work would require him to admit that he didn’t work, and that – that little sentence, ‘I was wrong’ — is the one thing this man has spent seventy-some years of his life building an entire personality to avoid ever having to say.”

Valdes-Rodriguez continued, “He would genuinely rather do this. Destroy the global economy. Ruin your life. Kill your daughters and sons. He would rather do all of this than feel that for four seconds.”