It had been a long time since I thought of those scary days during the Cuban Missile Crisis when the world seemed on the brink of nuclear war, but Donald Trump’s wild rhetoric toward Iran over Easter week brought those memories back.
For 13 days in October 1962, President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev squared off over Soviet missiles that had been installed in Cuba. Khrushchev refused to budge, and Kennedy ordered a naval blockade around Cuba.
Six days after a televised address during which Kennedy calmly and steadily explained the threat to the American people and outlined the steps he was taking to protect us, the crisis ended. The Soviets removed the missiles, and the United States agreed it would not invade Cuba.
But up until then, we junior high schoolers were on edge. Between classes, rumors of missiles headed to Pittsburgh spread, and the pressure got to some of our classmates who broke down or lined up at the pay phone to make a reassuring call home.
If Kennedy had reacted in anger — showing panic and weakness and fear — there is no telling how the crisis would have ended. And the confidence of Americans and the global community in our nation’s role as a force for peace would have been irreparably broken.
Donald Trump was no John F. Kennedy last week. When Iran effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz, it scuttled his plan for a quick victory and sent markets crashing and gasoline prices soaring. And Trump lost it.
In his Easter Sunday post on social media, Trump was at his most vulgar and unpresidential. He used the f-word while threatening to blow up Iran’s power plants and bridges, leaving civilians “living in Hell.” He closed with “Praise be to Allah.”
Tucker Carlson, once a strong Fox News voice for Trump, said on his podcast, “Who do you think you are? You’re tweeting out the f-word on Easter morning?” As for Trump mocking Iran’s religion, he added, “OK. If you seek a religious war, that’s a good idea. But by the way, no decent person mocks other people’s religions.”
Hours before the deadline that Trump set for Iran to comply with his demands, he said, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” That is exactly what we feared as teenagers during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Some MAGA true believers believe Trump’s tantrums are part of his “genius,” like the “madman theory” that Richard Nixon used to make North Vietnam’s leaders believe he was crazy enough to use nuclear weapons. But Nixon used that as a back-channel strategy. He maintained strength and resolve in public.
Conservative radio host Eric Erickson, writing on social media, gave Trump credit for a two-week ceasefire, even if it was the result of “outlandish tweets” that are “beneath the dignity of the Leader of the Free World.” But he warned that it gives Iran two weeks to “get weapons and supplies from Russia and China.”
Both Trump’s friends and enemies have no idea what he is doing in Iran. As John Gray recently wrote in his article, “The Fall” in The New Statesman, “Psychopathology may be more illuminating than geopolitics at this point.”
Where the war goes from here is anybody’s guess. David Ignatius’ column in The Washington Post this week bears this headline: “The war began without a strategy for victory. The peace has no formula either.”