Trudy Rubin: Failure of Iran war reveals Trump's inability to deal with America's security needs

As we approach America’s 250th anniversary, the political party that brags of its patriotism is actively undercutting national security.

Although many GOP House members and senators are versed in foreign affairs and grasp the irresponsibility of their actions, they are too cowardly to confront the biggest security threat America has faced in decades: President Donald J. Trump.

As his Iran debacle laid bare, Trump’s ego-driven foreign policy is making America more vulnerable to our enemies — both at home and overseas. Yet, the aging POTUS seems ever more determined to ignore real security dangers. His main focus is on seeking quick military hits he thinks will win him personal acclaim.

His failed Iran war perfectly displays his misuse of the U.S. military for unnecessary battles that decrease capacity for any future conflicts with Russia and China. And Republican legislators — who claim a monopoly on love of country — don’t have the guts to call him out.

Why? Because they value their chairs more than keeping Americans safe.

The Iran war, and the memorandum of understanding that has temporarily halted it, are a perfect example of Trump’s failure to protect the nation.

In February 2026, Iran presented no threat to the United States. Tehran’s enriched uranium was deeply buried under rubble after the U.S. and Israel waged a 12-day war on Iran in June 2025.

But, driven by ego, POTUS let Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu persuade him that a quick bombing run could achieve regime change in Tehran and remake the entire Middle East.

Don’t blame Bibi, because only a president who knows nothing about Iran and obsessively seeks a Nobel Peace Prize could have believed such nonsense. POTUS ignored warnings from U.S. military brass that Iran would respond by blocking the Strait of Hormuz, because he insists he knows best.

After four months of war, what has Trump’s ego wrought?

In desperation to get Iran to reopen the strait and push gas prices down before the midterms, Trump has promised Tehran huge and immediate economic benefits. Meantime, nuclear talks are pushed back to 60 days of negotiations, which will probably be extended indefinitely.

The one-and-a-half page memo contained only one paragraph on nuclear talks, but POTUS has already revealed a host of U.S. concessions in interviews. They guarantee that if a nuclear deal is ever reached, which is far from certain, it will be similar or worse than President Barack Obama’s JCPOA nuclear accord, from which he withdrew in 2018.

Rather than ending Iran’s nuclear program altogether, as Trump promised, any deal will permit Tehran to enrich uranium to low levels, as did the JCPOA. It will also allow Iran to downgrade its highly enriched uranium inside their country, rather than send 97% out of the country as required by Obama’s deal.

In fact, Trump now debunks the importance of rushing to extract Iran’s enriched uranium from the rubble, because Tehran can’t access it. “Nobody’s touching it,” he said. “We have Space Force cameras [monitoring the sites]. It’s actually not valuable. …”

So tell me again, Mr. President, why you started this war?

The list of Trump concessions to Iran goes on, each one explained more bizarrely by the president. Trump casually declared he would allow Iran to keep its ballistic missiles, which were fired at Israel and U.S. bases — a total reversal of his pledge before the war started. “I’m saying that ⁠if other countries have them, it’s a little bit unfair for them not to have some,” Trump told reporters in Paris the other day. Say what?

What is particularly dangerous — and requires Congress to confront the president — is that this unnecessary war has degraded the U.S. military, and revealed its weaknesses to our adversaries.

The war has also exposed the erratic style of the U.S. commander in chief, who treats the U.S. military like his personal plaything. Both he and his showman “secretary of war,” Pete Hegseth, have proved they lack the judgment and temperament to command this force.

By keeping such a huge percentage of our air force and naval assets in the Mideast for months, Trump has worn out the readiness of our military. This war also used up a staggering amount of U.S. long- and medium-range missiles that are badly needed to stabilize the Indo-Pacific against Chinese aggression, and by NATO allies to ward off Russian aggression.

Yet, instead of selling such missiles to Taiwan, or letting Europeans buy them to protect Ukraine from massive Russian bombing, Trump used them up against Iran.

Moreover, the Iran war revealed the continued Pentagon failure to prepare for the new drone and artificial intelligence-driven 21st century form of warfare. The U.S. military used billions worth of $2 million missiles to intercept $20,000 Iranian drones because the Pentagon has been unable to speed up drone production and refuses proffered help from Ukraine.

In fact, at the G7 summit in France on Tuesday, Trump made a point of how unimportant the Ukraine conflict was to America. “Look, we have nothing to do with it,” he said of that war. “It has no impact on us, other than we sell weapons” to Ukraine, he added. “We’re thousands of miles away.”

That kind of dumb remark, in a world where satellites and electronic warfare make distance irrelevant, is proof positive of Trump’s total misunderstanding of geopolitics. The U.S. abandonment of Kyiv and coddling of Russia enhances China’s belief that America’s power is declining and the global balance of power is shifting.

Indeed, the most vivid illustration of the president’s blindness to the fallout from his Iran fiasco, came when he thanked Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping for their help with ending the Iran war. What head spinning brain-blank could prompt gratitude for Putin giving intelligence information to Tehran to target U.S. bases? Or to Xi for providing all the parts for Russian drones that killed Americans in Kuwait?

Which side is Trump on?

POTUS’s conviction that his personal relationships with Putin and Xi will prevent them from doing America harm is endangers America’s safety. He won’t critique them for aiding Iran, because he believes both men are his comrades. His easily manipulated ego plays into both dictators’ hands.

This war has provided proof that America’s adversaries need only wait and watch as the U.S. president undermines the U.S. military’s fighting capacity by wasting it on delusionary wars.

Instead, Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth make a point of slamming our allies, whose help we need to deter to Russian and Chinese imperialism.

Even as POTUS was signing the surrender document with Iran, Hegseth announced the U.S. will pull back troops from Europe and weapons support for NATO. Thus, Trump openly advances Putin’s dreams of splitting the transatlantic alliance, at a time when Russia is openly hostile to the West.

POTUS even infuriated his closest European ally, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who accused him of “fabricating” claims that she “begged him” for a joint photo.

“I can only say it is disappointing that he does not show the same determination with the enemies of the ⁠West and of the United States, whose leaders he instead treats with far greater indulgence [than his allies],” Meloni stated angrily.

There is a name for a leader who coddles the enemy while alienating friendly democracies that share our values. Such treachery, whether carried out wittingly or blindly, betrays our nation.

Trump’s indifference to U.S. security isn’t just evident in his misadventures abroad.

At a time when foreign terror threats to the nation are high, the president just refused to reauthorize critical U.S. foreign spy powers, unless they were tied to a voter suppression bill.

The same week, he used political trickery to officially appoint a fervently loyal ally, Bill Pulte, as temporary director of national intelligence, over bipartisan Senate objections. Pulte has zero intel experience, but is tasked by POTUS to pursue his political enemies and undermine the midterms.

Never mind the serious risk of terror attacks during FIFA matches or sesquicentennial celebrations — or during fall balloting. GOP senators bowed to their boss man rather than make a big fuss.

So as July Fourth approaches and Trump busies himself with architectural destruction in the nation’s capital, his GOP enablers in Congress are helping a doddering egomaniac undermine the. security of the citizens he supposedly serves. These Republicans know what POTUS is doing, yet they refuse to stand up and make their voices heard.

On America’s 250th, GOP pols are aiding Trump in betraying constitution and country. How they can look in the mirror and call themselves patriots mystifies me.

___