Engineered Ignorance, Hubris, and the U.S. Entry into War
An analysis of a developing case study of autocratic backfire
“They weren’t supposed to go after all these other countries in the Middle East. So they hit Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait. Nobody expected that. We were shocked,” President Donald Trump stated recently to reporters about Iran’s response to being attacked by the United States and Israel.
When you go to war listening only to yourself, having substituted military and strategic experts for an inner circle of sycophants, what is evident to others may be shocking to you. Plenty of people in the United States military and national security apparatus could have enlightened the White House regarding the scope and modalities of possible Iranian retaliations. Yet others’ opinions are no match for your own when you live in a bubble of delusions and believe you are omnipotent and “always right.”
Trump is not alone in falling prey to this syndrome, as the history of autocracy makes clear. And when things start to fall apart because of his errors, he will be the last one to see it and the first to cast blame on others. He went to war to feel more powerful, but the war exposed his weaknesses and deficiencies to the world.
This essay examines the entry into war as a developing case study of the flawed decision-making typical of autocratic governance. Drawing on new reporting from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, NOTUS, and other media outlets, I examine the structures and situations created by the Trump administration that facilitated this unfolding catastrophe.
“It is well documented that strongmen are at their most dangerous when they feel threatened,” I wrote in a February 1 New York Times guest essay. “That is why, as popular discontent with the Trump administration’s actions deepens, Americans should brace for heightened militarized domestic repression and more imperialist aggression abroad.”
The path to backfire can start with the self-interested motivations and timing of entering into military conflicts. War is not waged to avoid a clear and present danger to the nation, but as a means of distracting from domestic policy errors and scandals, or to create an excuse for power consolidations in view of electoral challenges.
Assassinating the leader of the enemy also appeals as a way to ward off fears of one’s own mortality. “I got him before he got me,” Trump said of the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, summing up this mentality.
That’s why Trump, never a fan of diplomacy when force would be possible, negotiated in bad faith, initiating bombing when a diplomatic solution was in sight. He needed this war.
When leaders get into this state of mind, they have often already harmed their legitimacy and reputation with idiosyncratic economic policies, corruption, and repression and have an intimation of their decline. Rather than course correct, they double down and engage in even riskier behaviors, including starting wars without the protocols, preparations and precautions that normally precede armed conflicts. Trump fits this pattern.
The Inner Sanctum: Enablers of Megalomania and Fanaticism
High-quality information is everything in war, and yet autocrats often operate in low-information environments, surrounding themselves with loyalists and cronies who tell them what they want to hear. Whether it is called a personalist clique or an inner sanctum, this informal structure often gives family members (sons-in-law are ubiquitous) and friends “from the old days” as much authority as cabinet officials in shaping policy.
This was the situation at the White House, with the Wall Street Journal reporting that instead of the customary assessment process across different agencies that aired dissenting views about strategy and possible outcomes, only Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth were looped into preparations. These apparently did not include informing Trump that his conviction that this would be a quick campaign was ill-founded, nor getting him to believe the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz if attacked, disrupting oil exports around the world.
None are Middle East specialists, and neither are Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, the other inner sanctum fixtures, who pop up at negotiating tables to push side agendas that have nothing to do with United States national security and everything to do with making money for the Kushner, Witkoff and Trump families and protecting Trump from information disclosures that could harm him.
As the New York Times reports, the White House was caught off guard by Iran’s immediate escalation of the conflict. In their hubris and ignorance of Iranian politics, Trump and his inner circle could not envision why killing the Supreme Leader did not lead to regime change.
And yet the job of the inner sanctum is not really to advise on sensible policy, even on the eve of war. It is to repeat the leader’s lies, screen out objective and expert feedback that might conflict with the leader’s will, and create and enforce a version of reality that benefits him. This is why former Fox host Hegseth, in claiming victory in Iran was near, commented of CNN: “the sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.”
Decimating Institutional Knowledge, Discarding Experts
We have seen how the Blitzkrieg against the administrative state that was planneby Project in 2023 and 2024 and executed by DOGE in 2025 has left the United States bereft of institutional knowledge and authority in countless areas of interest to national security and geopolitics, including the effects of wars on the national and global economy.
A NOTUS report based on interviews with oil and gas experts and former government employees reveals that seasoned professionals at the State Department in the very areas that are crucial now were let go six months ago –these were among the people who would have been available to game out scenarios for oil supply flows if the Strait of Hormuz were closed. The Department of State’s oil and gas experts were let go, as were staffers with close relationships to oil and gas companies in the Middle East and foreign energy bureaus.
“There was never any handover or transition. There was no formal handover of contacts or anything like that. We were all just let go,” one former State Department energy official said. This is what you do when you want to leave a country vulnerable and unprepared to handle a crisis.
This destruction of Department of State professional connections and expertise in the oil and gas industry months before the onset of hostilities merits more investigation, especially given the role of Marco Rubio in the decision to go to war and the close affinities of this government with the main beneficiary of United States actions: Russia and its oil and gas industries.
The Trump administration has also left the country more vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Iran has a history of plotting such attacks in the United States. Too bad that almost half of the FBI’s Counterrorism Division prosecutors have left, along with about one-third of its senior leadership. Not only are U.S. Muslims less safe with this war, but U.S. Jews as well, due to an increase in hostility toward Israel. When Joe Kent recently resigned from the position of Director of the National Counterrorism Center, he blamed “Israel and its powerful American lobby” for pressuring Trump to go to war.
“We’re going to have a terrorist attack 100%,” Trump told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo in February 2024, Biden’s Middle East policy for that possibility. Now he is making America less safe, but rest assured that if something happens, it will be blamed on the usual suspects.
Decimating government of institutional knowledge, allowing sycophants and cronies outsized power to determine the destinies of hundreds of millions, and privileging the geopolitical and economic interests of fellow autocrats over the wellbeing and safety of Americans are now creating a version of the “autocratic backfire” that has cost other illiberal leaders their popularity and legitimacy and contributed to their falls from power.
Your analyses have been so important during these times. Tying the present to the recent histories of strongmen is also crucial.
When things get crazier than crazy, and it seems everything is toppling, we need your kind of perspective. So thank you.
The Gulf States put their foot into it when they allowed American bases, etc. Iran is turning this into an economic war. Where are our farmers going to get their fertilizer? They can switch to soy beans from corn but where is the market for soy beans? Did no one think of results down the road? Then there are the conditions ripe for another ISIS.