Michael Barone

A president orders the onset of hostilities without authorization of Congress and without much in the way of making a case with the public. His troops win important victories and decapitate large parts of the government of the enemy. But in the enemy capital, no one surrenders or will even negotiate seriously.

That leaves the president with the unhappy choice of launching a new military attack on the central focus of the enemy, one riskier and less certain of success than those before, or of declaring an incomplete victory, well short of his essential objective, and just getting the heck out of there.

One president in American history chose the risky first option. A more recent president has chosen the second option.

At this point, it should be clear who one of the presidents is and which power he has chosen to attack and back off: President Donald Trump and the regime of Iran. The other is the less familiar James Knox Polk.

Polk told historian and Cabinet member George Bancroft that he would pursue just four goals: set up an independent treasury, lower tariffs, take unified control of the Oregon Territory, and take possession of California.

He succeeded at all four in just four years. For California, however, he had to go to war.

There was then some dispute about the borders of recently annexed Texas. Polk ordered Gen. Zachary Taylor to lead troops across the Nueces River to the Rio Grande, claimed by Mexico. Mexican troops attacked Taylor’s Americans.

With American bloodshed on American soil, Polk called on Congress to declare war. Although one-third of members had qualms, they voted for war with Mexico. Taylor then proceeded to beat Mexican troops in multiple battles near the border. But in the capital of Mexico City, no one was negotiating.

Polk, in effect, started a second war, ordering Gen. Winfield Scott to land troops at Veracruz and proceed across 11,000-foot mountains to reach Mexico City. It worked. He got his successor to surrender, and helped Nicholas Trist negotiate a treaty netting one-third of Mexican territory. Polk wanted more and fired Trist, but when presented with his treaty, he sent it to the Senate, which quickly ratified it.

Trump’s actions were driven more by anger over Iran’s 1979 seizure of U.S. diplomats than by any goal as specific as Polk’s. Still, the joint U.S.-Israel attacks during the June 2025 12-day war seriously degraded Iran’s nuclear program and set it back.

His attacks this year, starting in February, further degraded Iran’s nuclear program.

But the mullahs in Tehran, like the leaders in Mexico City, wouldn’t surrender, and they blocked oil tankers from transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Trump was left with two of his goals – higher tariffs and zeroing out Iran’s nukes – seeming to produce politically disastrous high inflation.

So Trump decided not to follow the path of Polk. Amid occasional military attacks, he sought a “deal” with a regime that has paraded its hatred of America for 47 years and has made dozens of promises it has no intention of keeping.

Perhaps Trump believes he can intimidate Iran’s evil leaders not to do things he doesn’t want, the way he has apparently intimidated Venezuela’s not-so-savory leaders. But it’s not clear that such intimidation is working optimally in the geographically closer, culturally more similar Caribbean, and, inevitably, heading into the second half of his last term, Trump’s ire is a waning asset. Neither his vice president nor any possible Democratic successor is likely to share it.

“If you set out to take Vienna, take Vienna,” Napoleon is supposed to have said. Setting out to take Tehran may or may not have been a mistake. Setting out to take Tehran and then not taking it almost clearly is.