As a physician, a judge, and a political animal, I know a blockage when I see one. In medicine, when a patient’s system is completely backed up, tense, taking in tons of input but absolutely locked up when it comes to any outward movement, we call it constipation. Lately, looking at our foreign policy with Iran, I have to ask a serious question: Is President Donald Trump politically constipated?
You don’t need a top-secret security clearance to see why people are asking this. You just have to sit where I sit on Saturday mornings — at the local diner, talking with different groups of my friends. My breakfast table is pretty much a slice of America. I’ve got mostly Republicans, some Democrats, people who lean toward both sides of the aisle, and some who just sit square in the middle of it.
And they all look at me and ask, “Eric, what’s going on with the president? One day, he’s saying he’s going to bomb them. Then he’s not going to bomb them. Then he’s going to wipe Iran out, or he’s going to free the people. We hear the sanctions are working, the sanctions are working… I mean, what is actually going on?”
What I say to them is exactly what I’ve stated in my prior op-eds, and what many people now recognize: the economic sanctions are working.
There is a great deal of turmoil inside Iran right now. The regime’s leaders are fighting with one another behind closed doors because our economic pressure has put them in a total vice grip. According to the latest data from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, wide-reaching secondary sanctions have systematically locked up their digital assets, gold, and banking networks. Independent financial analyses featured in the Economist report that the trade blockade has triggered a staggering 90% inflation rate and chopped oil exports to zero. But to the regular guy sitting at the diner watching the news, it looks like a total standoff. The administration keeps saying the policy is working, but the public message feels stuck in place. We get all this aggressive talk followed by total hesitation, and it leaves people wondering whether we actually have a plan to finish the job.
To be absolutely fair, the president faces incredibly tough decisions. That comes with the job. There is no question about it. As a political animal, I know exactly what is happening inside the Oval Office. He has plenty of administration officials whispering in his ear, screaming, “Don’t do this because of the midterms!” while another faction yells, “Do this because of the midterms!” They are shoving all kinds of contradictory polls and surveys across his desk to support whatever political position they are pushing that day.
On top of the internal domestic theater, he is facing intense international pressure. He has the Saudis and our other moderate Arab nations — our so-called friends in the region — trying to pressure him into taking the lead to bomb the Houthis or pull the trigger on the Iranians… or not. Intelligence assessments detailed by Axios reveal that Saudi Arabia has repeatedly pleaded with the United States to launch offensive airstrikes to break regional trade chokeholds.
There is an overwhelming amount of noise. This is a man who is personally accustomed to making big, heavy decisions throughout his life. But right now, all these conflicting voices in his ear, the domestic polling, and the foreign pressure might just be clouding his judgment.
Look, I am a fan of Trump. I think he is doing a remarkable job on so many fronts. A lot of his chaotic signaling in the media is obviously completely intentional. It is a calculated move designed to keep our own media guessing, and more importantly, to keep the enemy off their feet. It’s Trumposophy at its best. Reports from global correspondents tracking Reuters reflect that the administration intentionally utilizes public posturing to maintain diplomatic leverage. There is real value in keeping Tehran completely unsure about what comes next.
But even the best strategic defense has a shelf life. There comes a point where the noise has to stop. There is a time where he has to look in the mirror and ask himself a very basic American question: Do I “s***, or get off the pot?” For better or for worse, this is that time.
The reason it looks like a stalemate right now is that, despite the internal rot our sanctions have caused, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is still the one holding the microphone over there. And its public face behaves exactly like the Black Knight in the Monty Python movie, which I’ve written about before.
If you remember that movie, the guy is getting his limbs chopped off one by one, but he is in total denial about his situation. He stands there on his remaining stumps, shouting that it’s “just a flesh wound.”
That is the public face of the Iranian regime today. Detailed security overviews published on Congress.gov highlight that, while internal infrastructure cracks, the Guard continues to front aggressively on the global stage. Iran’s economy is shattered, and its people are furious, but the Guard boasts like the Black Knight. It is total, laughing-out-loud denial. The regime is putting on a big, brave public face to hide the fact that it is bleeding out internally.
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The sanctions are working great. We can’t let the crazy, chest-thumping bravado of the Guard scare us into hesitation. We have to ignore the Black Knight’s shouting.
While keeping the enemy off-balance with media signaling has its merits, letting that signaling look like frozen indecision creates the exact illusion of political constipation. We need to transition from unpredictability to an unyielding final stance. The pressure inside Tehran is at an all-time high. The policy itself isn’t the problem — the execution is. It’s time for the president to tune out the pollsters, look past the anxious whispers of foreign allies, and deliver the clear, decisive results that American security demands.
Eric Wargotz is a physician, a judge, a former U.S. Senate nominee, and an active political commentator. He frequently writes on national security, domestic policy, and the intersection of healthcare and governance. Views are his own.