“We’ll see what happens with the people,” President Trump said as he appeared to be distancing himself from the longer-term consequences of the war in Iran.
American leaders say they are “punishing” Iran, “annihilating” its navy and meting out “retribution” against its rulers.
What comes after all that destruction, they increasingly insist, is not the United States’ problem.
“We’ll see what happens with the people,” President Trump said on Tuesday as he hosted Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany, referring to the possibility of a popular uprising in Iran in the wake of the war. “You know, they have their chance.”
It was the latest instance of Mr. Trump and his top officials taking pains to paint Iran’s political future as being outside the scope of American responsibility.
I mean, that’s not how geopolitics ever worked. “You break it you bought it” is a system you sometimes see when there’s actual enforced laws to rely on, not at all in the affairs of sovereign powers in an international state of anarchy.
Well-off people in the West seem to think human laws are physics.
