We are witnessing a peculiar spectacle: two former presidents, one current candidate, locked in a rhetorical war over a country most Americans could not locate on a map. The recent exchange between Donald Trump and Barack Obama regarding Iran is not merely a policy disagreement. It is a symptom of something far deeper, a civilisational neurosis that has gripped the American elite since the end of the Cold War.
Obama’s cautious diplomacy, his insistence on multilateralism, his belief that the nuclear deal was a triumph of reason over recklessness: this is the language of a man who still believes in the liberal international order. Trump’s bellicose withdrawal, his maximalist sanctions, his pride in killing Qasem Soleimani: this is the language of a man who has seen that order crumble and does not mourn it. Neither approach has worked.
Iran is closer to a bomb than ever. The region is more unstable. And America’s allies, from Europe to the Gulf, are hedging their bets.
The real story here is not the personal feud. It is the exhaustion of the American project. We have become a nation that debates tactics in what we no longer understand to be a coherent strategy.
We are re-enacting the fall of Rome, but with fewer statues and more Twitter. The question is not whose Iran policy is superior. The question is whether the Republic can still think in terms of a national interest, or whether we are content to let our foreign policy become a mere extension of our domestic culture wars.
On that score, both Trump and Obama have failed. And we, the people, are left to pick up the pieces.
