{"id":324758,"date":"2026-03-02T09:39:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T09:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/324758\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T09:39:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T09:39:11","slug":"americans-left-asking-what-next-after-trump-leads-country-into-war-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/324758\/","title":{"rendered":"Americans left asking \u2018what next\u2019 after Trump leads country into war \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the cold thrill contained within US president Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s message on Saturday confirming the killing of Iran<\/a>\u2019s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Sunday brought into sharper focus the immediate consequences for the Middle East. A barrage of continuing US and Israeli<\/a> joint strikes were countered by retaliatory strikes from Iran across the Persian Gulf. The deaths of three US service members were also confirmed during what the Trump administration has named \u201cOperation Epic Fury\u201d.<\/p>\n

It was becoming clear that radical reversal of policy in Trump\u2019s foreign interventionism had thrust the Middle East, and potentially the United States<\/a>, into a heightened chapter of uncertainty and chaos.<\/p>\n

Word of those military deaths will reaffirm the visceral fear felt by many Americans of both political hues ever since the disastrous consequences of the country\u2019s ill-fated intervention in Iraq two decades ago. The sophisticated military precision of the Saturday missile raids which killed 86-year-old Khamenei in his Tehran compound has been set against loudening questions over Trump\u2019s broader strategy to facilitate an uprising by the Iranian people. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen this playbook before,\u201d said Democratic senator Mark Kelly, the Arizona politician and retired combat pilot. <\/p>\n

\u201cWeeks of inflated claims, selective facts and talk of imminent threats that led the American people into a war that cost thousands of American lives and trillions of taxpayer dollars . . . So, what\u2019s the plan for what comes next? I don\u2019t think Donald Trump knows the answer and that\u2019s dangerous when American lives are on the line.\u201d <\/p>\n

Kelly added that when he launched his first combat mission in Operation Desert Storm, during the Gulf war 35 years ago, he \u201cunderstood the mission and the end goal\u201d, adding: \u201cThat\u2019s the minimum level of leadership this country deserves. And Donald Trump has failed again at that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"USUS president Donald Trump indicated Iran has been targeted as it is developing artillery to be used against the US. Photograph: Matt Rourke\/AP <\/p>\n

Within the US, initial responses to the strikes are a vivid blend of delight among Iranian exiles and a guarded welcome of the end of the Khamenei reign of domestic terror. It is tempered by Democratic criticism that the Trump administration again bypassed Congress in seeking approval for its decision. There is mystification as to what the long-term plan is \u2013 or there is one at all. Senior figures in Congress have called for a quick vote on a war powers resolution to restrain Trump from further strikes on Iran. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Death toll rises as Israel and US continue air attacks and Iran fires hundreds of missilesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The decision to bring the country into what Trump has termed a \u201cwar\u201d has been criticised by Republican outliers as the opposite to the Maga theme of \u201cAmerica First\u201d. A forecast spike in oil prices to $100 a barrel will not help the administration\u2019s argument it is bringing down prices for US consumers.<\/p>\n

The immediate White House explanation \u2013 that the Iranians were on the brink of developing an artillery capable of threatening US soil \u2013 has been broadly disputed. Trump\u2019s loose invitation to Iran\u2019s citizens to \u201ctake back their country\u201d has so far offered no US military or administrative directives as to how that might be achieved.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe endgame is pretty clear- we need to stop the terror coming out of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp. That terror will continue as long as that regime is in place,\u201d countered Tim Sheehy, a Montana senator and military veteran, in a Sunday interview.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0 People Keith Duggan\u2019s journey through America: The farther west you go the less real Trump becomesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Iranian people have made clear that they are ready to take their country back. But they need help. My hope is that we are able to weaken the regime to the point where the Iranian people can rise up and once again build a government that represents their interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fragmented details of background, days and hours before Trump ordered the strikes, began to emerge over the weekend. Significantly, he gave scant mention of Iran during his marathon state-of-the-union address last Tuesday. It has been reported that several of Trump\u2019s closest advisers, including vice-president JD Vance, general Dan Caine and senior Pentagon official Elbridge Colby, indicated their doubts about the likely success of air strikes. <\/p>\n

But Israeli intelligence suggesting that Khamenei and Iran\u2019s key commanders would be in the Tehran compound on Saturday corresponded with CIA information. That opportunity, combined with Trump\u2019s stated conviction that the Khamenei regime would not agree to US demands that it surrender its nuclear capabilities, led to Trump authorising a ferocious barrage of air strikes, with a stunning outcome.<\/p>\n

The US president limited his Sunday morning communications to a posted message stating: \u201cI have just been informed that we have destroyed and sunk nine Iranian naval ships, some of them relatively large and important. We are going after the rest \u2013 they will soon be floating at the bottom of the sea, also.\u201d<\/p>\n

At least 201 people were reported to have been killed in the air strikes on Iran. <\/p>\n

Even as the reeling Islamic regime set about naming interim leadership, it delivered ballistic missile strikes on US military bases in Bahrain, Iraq, Qatar, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The Israel Defence Forces announced it is mobilising 100,000 reservists. <\/p>\n

At least 22 people were killed in Pakistan amid crowds denouncing the US-Israeli strikes, including 10 people during an attempt to storm the US consulate in Karachi. The chaos and bloodshed looked set to intensify in the days ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After the cold thrill contained within US president Donald Trump\u2019s message on Saturday confirming the killing of Iran\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,11829,3410,150432,43,40,38,41,39,90],"class_list":["post-324758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-israel-iran-conflict","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}