I don’t suppose anyone remembers Dan Quayle, the semi-literate Vice President of the US, when the first George Bush was President. But I have thought of him a lot as the US misadventure in Iran has progressed.
Like many conservative US leaders (Donald Trump, for instance), Quayle came from a wealthy and well-connected family. He talked the language of courage, strength, power and war. This went down well with his supporters till it was revealed that the brave vice president had avoided the draft and had chickened out of fighting in Vietnam (like Trump).
Quayle had secured a safe position with the Indiana National Guard and had never risked his life or even left his country to fight. Trump also avoided being drafted, but that was because he said he had ‘bone spurs.’
Quayle was accused of cowardice, and a common joke at the time went: “What do you get when you cross a hawk with a chicken?” Answer: “You get a Quayle.”
I don’t think Trump is a Quayle or even a quail; he is far more dangerous and mercurial. The parallel is not with an individual but with America itself. Like Quayle, the US talks the language of strength and bravery. But when it comes to facing bullets, it avoids any risk to itself. The strength is not matched with any courage.
From hawks to chickens
Living so many miles away from the US, we sometimes fail to realise how secure America is. No matter what the war is, the Continental United States is never in any danger. There are never any hostile troops massed on its borders. No aircraft ever bomb it. No invasion is possible. These are the advantages of geography. (Don’t be misled by the Pearl Harbour attack. Pearl Harbour is in Hawaii, around 2,500 miles from the US mainland.)
So America can conduct wars with impunity and with no risk to its civilian population. This accounts for the faraway wars it has been involved in (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc), where American bombers have obliterated whole cities, secure in the knowledge that the enemy cannot do the same to its own cities.
There is only one major risk involved in this approach. Any war causes military casualties. And Americans don’t like dying in wars. Up to 60,000 American soldiers died over several years in the Vietnam War, and the war changed American society forever, unleashing social revolutions and leading to the abolition of the draft.
So, Americans are happy only with wars that are fought as video games, where they kill thousands of enemy combatants and civilians, but where no Americans have to die.
It’s the old Dan Quayle story again. Americans are hawks. Until their personal safety is endangered. Then, they turn into chickens.
US politicians realise this. That’s why so many conservative candidates win office by declaring that they will not send American troops into wars in faraway countries. There will be no body bags coming home, they had always promised.
That was one of the key planks of the Trump Presidential campaign. JD Vance, Vice President of the US, also returned to this theme again and again.
So why has President Trump, who not only promised isolationism but also demanded the Nobel Peace Prize because “nobody has stopped as many wars as I have”, suddenly plunged his country into a war that has sent the global economy into a tailspin and is unpopular in America? (Only 28 per cent of Americans support the war; 59 per cent oppose it.)
There are many reasons. More, in fact, than there should be because American officials offer at least five new reasons every week. None of them is terribly convincing, so it is hard to avoid the conclusion that we are in a Wag The Dog situation — named after the 1990s film where an embattled US President orders unnecessary military action to divert attention from a sex scandal.
I imagine that Trump’s advisors told him that the best way to distract attention from the Epstein files was to join the Israelis in bombing Iran. It would be over in a few days, and he could project himself as a great victor.
It hasn’t worked out that way at least partly because the Iranians, realising that they can’t retaliate against the American mainland, have used the most potent weapons they have—oil and control of the routes to transport it, to threaten the global economy. These consequences will take a little longer to hurt the average American than the rest of us, but as gasoline prices rise in America, Trump is already beginning to worry.
Why have the Iranians been so confident that they can withstand the American onslaught? Well, because they know that America is fighting with one hand tied behind its back. You can’t really win a war against a determined enemy if you are too frightened of domestic public opinion to send in ground troops. The calculation that Iran will fold quickly has proved to be wrong. And now Trump has to be willing to demonstrate that he does more than talk like a hawk and act like a chicken. (Trump’s critics have long used the pejorative TACO to describe his behaviour: Trump Always Chickens Out.)
Also read: Why Chinese media is amplifying Pakistan’s role in US-Iran ceasefire talks
Trump’s three trump cards
It’s hard to predict what a mercurial figure like Trump will do now; he routinely contradicts himself, often in the course of the same sentence. But he has broadly three options.
First, something comes of the peace talks that are currently being conducted at several levels, and he can get out of the conflict with some dignity.
Second, he gets out anyway and claims victory.
Third, he finally commits ground troops at least for commando missions and prays that casualties are limited.
Trump and his aides have suggested that all three options are on the table. What is clear is that the complete victory he once promised—ridding Iran of rule by the Ayatollahs and their supporters—is not going to happen.
Of the three options, India benefits from anything that ends the war. Neither India nor the rest of the world should be made to suffer only so that Americans can be distracted from whatever it was that happened on Jeffrey Epstein’s island.
As far as we are concerned, we can only rest easy when the American chickens go home to roost.
Vir Sanghvi is a print and television journalist and talk show host. He tweets @virsanghvi. Views are personal.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)