It took Donald Trump exactly fourteen days to discover what every first-year international relations student learns: calling for popular uprising from his Mar-a-Lago couch is easy; actually overthrowing a militarized theocracy is another matter entirely.
On February 27th, the former American president was urging Iranians to rise up against their autocratic government. Yesterday, according to the New York Times, the same Trump was sagely explaining that Iranians face "a big obstacle" in overthrowing their regime. Congratulations, Mr. Trump: you've just rediscovered the complexity of the real world.
The Irresponsibility of Revolutionary Tweets
Read more: breaking analysis iransThis intellectual pirouette would be laughable if it weren't revealing of a deeper malady eating away at American politics: social media diplomacy. When a former President of the United States launches calls for insurrection from his living room, then backtracks two weeks later citing "difficulties" on the ground, he's not just changing his mind. He's exposing human lives.
Because during those fourteen days of Trumpian hesitation, what happens to Iranian dissidents who might have taken his initial encouragements seriously? They find themselves alone facing a repressive apparatus that Trump himself now acknowledges as "a big obstacle." Thanks for them.
The Instant Expert Syndrome
Trump perfectly embodies this contemporary disease: instant expertise. Read more: trump discovers israeli One day, he knows how to pacify the Middle East in 140 characters. The next day, he discovers it's "complicated." This versatility would be merely an amusing character trait if it didn't reflect a more general approach to American foreign policy: permanent improvisation disguised as pragmatism.
The problem isn't that Trump changes his mind – that's actually rather healthy when starting from such simplistic positions. The problem is that he transforms every personal reflection into a political declaration, every intuition into a guideline, every mood into geostrategic doctrine.
Iran, Laboratory of Our Contradictions
This Trumpian waltz-hesitation reveals above all our own Western contradictions regarding Iran. We want Iranians to free themselves from their theocratic regime – who wouldn't? But we don't want to assume the consequences of such upheaval: regional instability, potential civil war, migratory chaos.
So we content ourselves with encouragement from afar, sanctions that primarily hit civilian populations, and martial declarations that only commit those who make them. It's morally comfortable and totally politically ineffective.
The Real Question Nobody Asks
But the real question isn't whether Trump is right today rather than two weeks ago. The real question is: why do we still give credence to geopolitical declarations from a man who discovers the world's complexity in real time, on Twitter?
Trump is not a geopolitical analyst. He's not even president anymore. His opinions on Iran are worth exactly what any American citizen's opinions are worth: not much in terms of concrete impact, but far too much in terms of media echo chamber.
Infantilization Through Spectacle
This affair perfectly illustrates how political spectacle infantilizes public debate. Instead of seriously discussing American options regarding Iran – targeted sanctions, discreet diplomacy, support for human rights NGOs – we comment on a former president's mood swings as if they constituted foreign policy.
This is exactly what real decision-makers want: for us to get passionate about tweets while they negotiate in the shadows. While we analyze Trump's contradictions, the Biden administration continues its own Iranian policy, discreetly, without fanfare or public about-faces.
The Iranian Lesson
Iranians, for their part, understood long ago that they can only count on themselves. They know that Western encouragements are inversely proportional to the concrete aid they'll receive. They've learned the hard way that revolutions aren't fought by proxy, and that regimes don't fall under distant applause.
Trump has just rediscovered this elementary truth. It took him two weeks and a moment of lucidity to understand what Iranian opponents have known for decades: overthrowing an authoritarian regime is indeed "a big obstacle."
Too bad he didn't say so from the start. It would have saved everyone – except the commentators – from wasting their time.