(Dobbs) You Reap What You SowBetween the way the president rushed into war without consulting allies first, and the way he has berated them since, they have stayed an arm’s length away.
There are many ways to say it: “What goes around, comes around.” “You made your bed, now lie in it.” “You get what you deserve.” But the best adage now biting the backside of Donald Trump is, “You reap what you sow.” Although originally written in the New Testament 2,000 years ago by the apostle Paul, it is as true today as it was then. You reap what you sow. We’re seeing it in real time now. More to the point, after failing to convince other nations to send in their military forces to break open the Strait of Hormuz, Donald Trump is seeing it now. Ever since his first term in office, the president has insulted, mocked, berated, threatened, and abused America’s closest friends and most loyal allies. These are nations that answered America’s call in 1991 to join its coalition to run Saddam Hussein’s army out of Kuwait. Nations that supported the American invasion in 2001 to hunt down al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Nations that joined American forces in 2003 in the ill-advised offensive called Operation Iraqi Freedom. Remember Trump’s ignorant insult just six weeks ago about Europe’s participation in Afghanistan? “They stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.” For the record, no they didn’t. So now, although they too know how dangerous the Islamic Republic can be, their answer to Trump’s exhortations essentially is, “You started this war. It was a war of choice. A war of your choice, not ours.” It was stated unequivocally by the spokesman for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz: “The U.S. and Israel did not consult us before the war, and…. Washington explicitly stated at the start of the war that European assistance was neither necessary nor desired.” Trump said it again two days ago during a news conference at the White House, boasting, “We don’t need anybody. We’re the strongest nation in the world. We have the strongest military by far.” In other words, “We can go it alone.” So the allies are responding, “You can go it alone? Fine. Go it alone.” It raises the question of course, if “we don’t need anybody,” why are we even asking for help? But we are. And we’re not getting it. Allied nations have been willing in the past to follow American presidents off a cliff if that’s where it took them. But not for this war, and not for this president. You reap what you sow. That just makes our petulant president madder. In fact Trump’s buddy Lindsey Graham wrote that he’d “never heard him so angry in my life.” Yesterday on his website Trump said, “Because of the fact that we have had such Military Success, we no longer ‘need,’ or desire, the NATO Countries’ assistance — WE NEVER DID! Likewise, Japan, Australia, or South Korea. In fact, speaking as President of the United States of America, by far the Most Powerful Country Anywhere in the World, WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!” Good. Because although some of our allies have proactively repositioned their forces closer to the Gulf, they weren’t all going to start their engines anyway. French president Emmanuel Macron says the war against Iran is “outside the framework of international law.” German chancellor Merz says, “We have no interest in an endless war.” The U.K.’s prime minister Keir Starmer says his country “will not be drawn into the wider war.” So what does Trump do? Rather than cultivating their cooperation, he resorts to insults. It’s all he knows. After Starmer made his position clear, Trump wrote, “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.” And although joining the attack on Iran is not even within the purview of NATO, in an interview with The Financial Times Trump threatened NATO itself: “It’s only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there. If there’s no response, or if it’s a negative response, I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO.” The word for that is blackmail.Leave a comment The U.S. is the dominant global superpower, but that doesn’t mean that in some aspects of this war, it isn’t in over its head. Sources say that Donald Trump was warned by advisors before even going to war that the Iranian regime might not be easy to dislodge, and it hasn’t been. He was warned that the Islamic Republic could stop commerce through the Strait of Hormuz, and it has. He was warned that Iran’s military forces might attack neighboring Gulf nations, and they did. In a rare moment of honest astonishment, Trump said on Monday, “They weren’t supposed to go after all these other countries in the Middle East. Nobody expected that. We were shocked.” The assistance of our allies, whether with diplomatic or military muscle, might have helped. But the way the president rushed into war without even consulting them first, and the way he has treated them since, they have stayed an arm’s length away. You reap what you sow. Share © 2026 Greg Dobbs |