Washington Merry-Go-Round

IMMEDIATE RELEASE 2 March 2026
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
Today’s Events in Historical Perspective
America’s Longest-Running Column, Founded 1932
The Hope Doctrine
By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift         
 
WASHINGTON – Three days into the war with Iran, it has become clear that the objective – that first and foremost of the Principles of War – is based upon hope.
The Trump administration has enunciated several iterations of this plan, all of them based upon hope rather than sound political or military tenets.
They hope U.S. and Israeli airpower will finally bring Iran’s nuclear program to an end, the same hope associated with our attacks against their nuclear facilities last summer. In response, it appears that the Iranians simply build facilities deeper underground. There is a logic to their nuclear ambitions. North Korea, certainly run by a no less evil dictatorship, has immunized itself from U.S. threats because it became a nuclear power.
The next hope on the list has been that decapitating the Iranian leadership would at least force Iran back to the negotiating table or, at best, cause the government to fall. The first of these – regime change – is based on the Venezuela gambit that witnessed Pres. Nicolas Maduro being captured and replaced by his equally dangerous vice president, who suddenly became accommodating lest she follow her predecessor’s footsteps into a U.S. prison. So far, Iran has not succumbed to this threat. Rather, the Iranian leadership has responded with furious counterattacks against not only the U.S. and Israel, but also the Persian Gulf states as well, thereby greatly diminishing the flow of one-fifth of the world’s supply of oil and gas.
Hope number three is that the Iranian public will rise up in revolution, although they lack weapons, organization, communications, supplies, and leadership. However, the corollary hopes are that the Revolutionary Guard will adhere to Pres. Trump’s demand that they lay down their weapons and the unarticulated idea that, unlike the Revolutionary Guard and Militia, the national army, made up of conscripts, which by their nature are tied to the populace, will join the anticipated revolution.
Finally, the administration hopes that airpower will eliminate Iran’s ballistic missiles, weapons that are easily and quickly replaced through manufacturing and importing from the likes of China. Interestingly, importing missiles from China poses the most immediate threat because China has developed highly sophisticated weapons such as the anti-ship hypersonic missile dubbed the “carrier killer.”
This last hope-turned-unintended consequence brings to the fore a potentially catastrophic result. Unlike China, the U.S. continues to rely on the aircraft carrier as the key to naval warfare, as it was in World War II. But if in this worst-case scenario, Iran receives and employs a “carrier killer” missile that severely damages or destroys one of the two carriers now deployed to the region, aircraft carriers will hereafter be rendered obsolete, and China will emerge as the world’s pre-eminent sea power. Such an event would dwarf the war with Iran, although with the U.S. Navy being forced from the region, Iran would come away as the victor.
In the end, all of this is supposition and hope, constituting a replacement for the Principles of War: The Hope Doctrine.
 
See Eleanor Clift’s book Selecting a President, and Douglas Cohn’s latest books The President’s First Year: The Only School for Presidents Is the Presidency and World War 4: Nine Scenarios (endorsed by seven flag officers).
Twitter:  @douglas_cohn
© 2026 U.S. News Syndicate, Inc
Distributed by U.S. News Syndicate, Inc.
END WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND