Weekly Mind Dump: Attacking Iran as a Means to Impose Dictatorship at Home

Trump is risking American lives with his impulsive actions. What to do if he uses his attacks on Iran as a ploy to impose dictatorship at home?

Week of 6/15-6/21. 2025:

American Embassy Personnel are Most Vulnerable to Iranian Retaliation

First, a few initial reflections on Trump’s impulsive strike against Iran. While commentators talk about Tehran likely targeting U.S. military personnel in retaliation, they almost never mention much easier targets: American diplomatic personnel. A common refrain among our diplomats is, “The Foreign Service serves on America’s front lines.” A prime example is when Iranian revolutionaries seized our embassy in 1979. Sixty-six U.S. diplomatic members were held for 444 days. Some were tortured; some were lined up before mock firing squads. A number of the hostages were my colleagues. Richard Queen was released early, having been afflicted with multiple sclerosis during captivity and died young. Mike Metrinko was tortured and marched before a mock firing squad. Another, Lee Schatz, who was in my diplomatic training class, was one of the lucky ones whom the Canadians smuggled out. Several years later, in response to an Iranian fatwa to assassinate U.S. diplomats, I, as a consulate chief, was assigned a 24/7 bodyguard for a month and was issued a weapon. This seriously crimps one’s social life. In later tours, I was seized twice at gunpoint and incarcerated; at one hardship post, a guerrilla fighter threatened to kill me. Since 1977, 65 U.S. diplomatic personnel have been killed in terrorist attacks. Here’s the bottom line: thousands of U.S. diplomatic personnel and their families are now under heightened threat because of Trump’s action.

In my last essay, I described how Trump makes decisions based on his “gut,” consulting neither Congress nor our allies, or relying on intelligence, and depends on a menagerie of unqualified cranks and sycophants whom he has appointed to the top national security positions. So, what could go wrong? Oh, just about everything. Any American blood shed because of his shoot-from-the-hip actions will be on his hands.

Could the Iran Hit be Trump’s Reichstag Fire? How Should We Respond?

In an commentary in The Atlantic titled “American Democracy Might Not Survive a War With Iran,” Brookings Institution fellow Robert Kagan posits that “Trump can use a state of war to strengthen his dictatorial control at home.” He asserts that —

Donald Trump has assumed dictatorial control over the nation’s law enforcement. The Justice Department, the police, ICE agents, and the National Guard apparently answer to him, not to the people or the Constitution. He has neutered Congress by effectively taking control of the power of the purse. And, most relevant in Iran’s case, he is actively and openly turning the U.S. military into his personal army, for use as he sees fit, including as a tool of domestic oppression. Whatever action he does or doesn’t take in Iran will likely be in furtherance of these goals. When he celebrates the bombing of Iran, he will be celebrating himself and his rule. The president ordered a military parade to honor his birthday. Imagine what he will do when he proclaims military success in Iran.

Iran-sponsored terrorist actions within the United States, furthermore, would provide Trump with the ideal excuse for imposing any number of drastic actions that would include rounding up citizens without warrants, quashing dissent and muffling the media. It’s been done before. In response to a series of anarchist attacks in 1919, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer had thousands arrested and hundreds deported often with scant attention to due process of law. Previously, during World War I, President Woodrow Wilson incarcerated peace activists, including Eugene V. Debs. In the hysteria following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the government unconstitutionally rounded up and placed in camps over 120,000 Japanese-Americans.

Should the Iran conflict hand to Trump his very own Reichstag fire pretext to complete the job of imposing dictatorship at home, what would be the options for democracy-defending patriots? Three come readily to mind:

1) accept it as a fait accompli and collaborate, keep your head down and avoid trouble, or emigrate.

2) actively resist: take to the streets, organize mass protests, engage in civil disobedience, take up arms and fight back.

3) form and underground movement to sabotage the regime and weaken it by throwing monkey wrenches in the gears of the apparat of oppression — along the lines of resistance movements during World War II.

Option 1 for me is unacceptable and I believe for tens of millions of fellow Americans. Option 2 would turn bloody in short order and trigger even harsher countermeasures by the regime. Option 3 seems like it could be more effective. By grinding down those sectors of the economy that best serve the regime through measures such as passive resistance, disseminating truthful information, sabotaging equipment, damaging selected infrastructure, derailing trains, cyberattacks, crippling government operations and instilling fear in those responsible for carrying out the regime’s illegal actions and policies, resisters can weaken the regime.

Here’s a key fact to keep in mind: Trump is 79 and, by many accounts, not in the pink of health. Thousands of licensed mental health professionals have gone on record to assert that he suffers from a range of mental health afflictions, from a variety of personality disorders to dementia. Many who have sat in the same room with Trump attest that he is incontinent, judging by the fecal odor emanating from him. Trump often loses his train of thought, rambles incoherently and slurs his speech. His gait is often halting and he requires a golf cart to travel short distances. And he is known for indulging in a diet rich in red meat, fries and diet cokes and short on fruits and vegetables, and eschews exercise. The average life expectancy for a white male in the U.S. is just over 75 years.

Bottom line: while Donald Trump may follow the example of Haiti’s late dictator Papa Doc Duvalier and declare himself “President for Life,” the clock is already running out.

The MAGA movement is a cult. When a cult leader is gone, the cult falls apart. With all the charisma of a sack of cinder blocks and loathed by most, J. D. Vance is a poor heir to power. Do not expect this stiff apparatchik to take up the MAGA mantle and power on. With Trump having staffed his administration with a coterie of cloying clowns, expect no one to rise from that swamp either.

Therefore, the best approach may be to engage in acts and behavior that weaken the regime, keep the flame of freedom alive, prepare for the future and wait for one-man rule to meet head-on the relentless unforgiving reality of the actuarial tables.

The opinions and characterizations in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent official positions of the U.S. government.