(Isaac Brekken/Getty)
If you’d asked me two weeks ago who Qassem Soleimani was, I wouldn’t have had a clue. Oh, you know more about world events than me? OK, name three currently serving top generals of foreign countries we are not at war with. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Remember, you can’t use your smartphone. That’s cheating.
Alright, I think we’ve sufficiently established that nobody here knew who Qassem Soleimani was before Donald Trump decided to drop a bomb on him without asking whether it was okay with the rest of us. The fact that nobody had ever heard of Soleimani really calls into question whether it was worth maybe starting a war with Iran to kill him. Was Qassem Soleimani behind some bad actors who struck out at Americans? Almost certainly. But imagine if some foreign country we were not directly at war with just randomly took out Colin Powell back when he was busy being a general (if you recall, that was before he got tied up blatantly lying to the UN about WMDs in Iraq). Or let’s say that during the 2007 troop surge in Iraq, Mongolia just showed up and trampled David Petraeus with a herd of yaks or something. People would have been understandably pissed. You don’t just go around assassinating other countries’ generals, even the unfriendly ones. It’s bad form.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the U.S. Constitution says, “The Congress shall have Power … To declare War.” It definitely doesn’t say some orange-haired, makeup-caked buffoon who got 3 million fewer votes than the losing candidate gets to functionally provoke a war without even telling Congress beforehand. Trump hasn’t even really tried to explain his attack against Qassem Soleimani, other than vaguely claiming Soleimani was planning unspecific attacks against Americans (the phrase “without evidence” in reference to Trump claims is so overused it’s become a cliché, but it doesn’t seem we can get away from it).
Iran, not surprisingly, has more or less guaranteed that it is going to retaliate. And while it would obviously be best if there was no further loss of life or damage to property, one of Iran’s ideas on how to retaliate would strike a blow directly to Trump’s own heart.
No, Eric and Don Jr. aren’t suiting up to fight alongside the heroes in our armed services, risking life and limb. I’m talking about something far more important to Donald J. Trump than a couple disappointing sons: his brand.
In just one year, from 2012 to 2013, Trump claimed his net worth doubled from $4.6 billion to $8.7 billion simply by adding $4.1 billion in “brand value” — through magic, I guess. And remember the Trump brand’s signature scent, self-described as a “masculine combination of rich vetiver, tonka bean, birchwood and musk”? First of all, I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to eat again after writing that sentence, and secondly, this guy’s marketing copy talks about every crappy product he’s slapped his name on like he’s sleeping with it. Trump is the Trump brand.
Which is maybe why Iran is implying it might target one or more of the Trump Organization properties found in 11 countries outside the United States. A recent tweet from the head of the Iranian presidential research organization, Hesameddin Ashena, simply links to a Forbes article listing a number of Trump-branded properties. In a separate tweet, in English, Ashena wrote:
We have ZERO problems with the American people. We even achieved deals with previous US administrations. Our sole problem is Trump. In the event of war, it is he who will bear full responsibility.
You have to go back to Dwight D. Eisenhower to find a U.S. President whose son or daughter served in uniform, in combat, during his tenure (sorry George W. Bush, your dad getting you into the Texas Air National Guard doesn’t count). Eisenhower’s first son died in childhood of scarlet fever. Eisenhower’s only remaining child was John Eisenhower, who served in World War II and then actively sought combat in Korea, with the blessing of his father, even after Ike won the Republican presidential nomination in 1952.
Eisenhower put his only child in harm’s way, to fight wars he had a hand in administering. It wasn’t fair to ask other American families to make sacrifices he himself wasn’t willing to make. Trump, on the other hand, inadvertently put some hotels with his name on them in harm’s way, by provoking a conflict for reasons that are not clear to himself or anyone else. It’s hardly equivalent. Still, maybe striking at Trump’s brand is the only way for Iran to retaliate against the man himself. He doesn’t seem to care about much else.
Jonathan Wolf is a litigation associate at a midsize, full-service Minnesota firm. He also teaches as an adjunct writing professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, has written for a wide variety of publications, and makes it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.