Does President Donald Trump have an endgame in Iran? Are personality traits a factor in Trump’s foreign policy behavior? How different is Trump from his postwar predecessors? Will he end US democracy? Political scientist, political economist, author, and journalist C. J. Polychroniou tackles these questions in an interview with the French-Greek journalist and writer Alexandra Boutri, but does not hesitate to point out that whoever thought that some of the acts associated with mad Roman emperors (like Caligula’s war on Neptune) belong to a bygone era probably hasn’t been paying attention to how crazy and disruptive things are in the Trump era.

Alexandra Boutri: The war in Iran has entered its second month and one cannot rely on the US president for when it might end. Trump refuses to give a clear timeline, although he has boasted on numerous occasions that his war was won. In your view, what is Trump’s endgame in Iran?

C. J. Polychroniou: Let me start with the following statement: The second Trump presidency is far more dangerous than its first but no less incompetent. Whether it’s the economy and his “beautiful”  tariffs or world affairs, Trump has no clue what he is doing. His decision-making style is governed by self-interest and a gut-instinct approach. And he has, given who he is, surrounded himself not only with loyalists but with subservient yes-people.

Indeed, it is most unlikely that Trump engaged in a comprehensive review of intelligence reports and military analyses before he initiated military action against Iran. My guess is that he simply became convinced by war-criminal and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu  and the most pro-Israel officials in his administration that the strategy of taking out Iran’s leadership would paralyze the country and lead to regime change. That was a gamble, not a plan. The Iranian regime did not collapse after the decapitation strikes because it is not a one-man dictatorship like Iraq was under Saddam Hussein. The power hierarchy in Iran is very complicated. Power is actually distributed throughout several layers of the government, and there are parallel armies and intelligence services. Of course, the fact that power is not concentrated in the hands of one man does not make the Iranian regime less brutal. But it makes it less likely to collapse because of an attack on the country’s top political and military leaders.

Incidentally, and this needs to be strongly emphasized, the decapitation of Iran’s top leadership is criminal and illegal. Trump’s war on Iran is in violation of international (and US) law. It’s a war against the United Nations Charter. Israel and the United States don’t give a hoot about international law and  human rights, but it doesn’t mean the world should allow them to think that they are being perceived as anything other than rogue states.

We live in dark, perilous times for humanity and the planet as a whole. Whoever thought that the acts of mad Roman emperors (like Caligula’s war on Neptune) belong to a bygone era probably hasn’t been paying attention to how crazy and disruptive things are in the Trump era. The current occupant of the White House is mentally unhinged. He threatens to bomb Iran “back to stone ages” and do whatever he wants with Cuba. I fear he is capable of unbelievable acts of cruelty and madness. In fact, and I said this about his second presidency long before he decided to go to war with Iran, we haven’t seen anything yet. The Trumpian nightmare has a long way to go before it is over, and it’s bound to get much worse.

Alexandra Boutri: How much worse can it get? What is it that you are really worried about Trump and his actions?

C. J. Polychroniou: Trump is a real threat to world peace. That’s already well established. He has unleashed what can be best described as lunacy imperialism. He is also dismantling US democracy at unprecedented rate and has launched an equally unprecedented assault on the environment. He is a wrecking ball, and it’s simply shocking that there is still a sizeable portion of the citizenry that thinks he is doing a great job. But what else can one expect from people who believe that explosive conflict in the Middle East will trigger Christ’s return and see Trump as the man God has chosen to defeat the satanic forces in the United States and Christianize it? No wonder why Trump behaves like a king and views himself as an emperor who can do whatever he pleases. There has never been a bigger sociopathic megalomaniac in Western democratic polities than Donald J. Trump, which is why he lacks self-awareness, lies about everything, all the time, and is so fixated with attaching his name to institutions, buildings, and symbols.

Imperialist adventuring is standard US foreign policy. But Trump’s foreign policy agenda, I would argue, seems to be less about the advancement of US interests than about his own legacy, his own personal political immortality. The US doesn’t need Greenland for national security; it can access its resources without gaining sovereignty over land. The US doesn’t need Venezuela’s oil (there is a global oil oversupply anyway), and leaders of the industry have shown little interest in making the massive investments needed to revive its outdated  infrastructure, despite the fact that Venezuela has the largest known oil reserves in the world. Annexing Canada and making it the 51st state will not make the US necessarily richer or more secure. But there is no doubt that Trump likes the idea of being the president who expanded the country’s borders. This is how he may be remembered by the future generations.

In saying all this, I do not doubt that there are “strategic” rationalizations circulated by Trump’s national security team for the revival of naked US imperialism. Or that these rationalizations are insignificant in the making of foreign policy. But, for Trump, I believe the foreign policy decisions that he ultimately reaches are based on how he thinks they may cement his own legacy. And most of these decisions are as irrational as those driving his domestic agenda. Abstract theorization about the revival of US imperialism under Trump II is fine and well, and much needed, but I think this is one outstanding case where personality becomes an important factor in decision-making and therefore adding to our understanding of both domestic and foreign policy behavior.

Alexandra Boutri: How different is Trump from his recent predecessors? Also, I can conclude from what you have already said that you don’t expect Trump to go down without a fight. But does he really want to end democracy in the United States?

C. J. Polychroniou: Trump is a very different president from all of his postwar predecessors in several critical ways. First, he has monetized the White House. Trump and his family have made huge amounts of money off of the presidency. Second, he views himself above the law and makes everything about his own ego. Third, he suppresses and ignores scientific research and findings like no other president I am aware of and simply doesn’t give a hoot about public health and the environment or the lives and the livelihoods of anyone outside his own family and his rich donors. Fourth, he is a racist, misogynist, and bigot who also hates working class people and the poor. Fifth, he is carrying out an anti-democracy project both inside the United States and across the globe, while also seeking to create “a kind of a Trump world.”

It would be naive and dangerous on the part of anyone to think that Trump will go down without a fight. His numbers are collapsing, and he is terrified of the possibility that the Democrats will flip the House and the Senate while he is still president, which is why he is trying to undermine this year’s  midterm elections. If it was entirely up to Trump, US democracy would be already dead by now. But he is trying to rig the 2026 midterm elections, and my fear is that he may succeed. Also, I don’t think it is far-fetched to say that he may declare martial law to keep the Democrats from winning. I hope I am dead wrong, but I am of the view that the worst is yet to come with Trump.

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