Trump, the Mullahs and Skin in the Game

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Trump took out Qassem Soleimani for attacking the US Embassy. Who wants to be next?

You could call it the Donald Trump theory of international relations: getting skin in the game without sending US troops.

That’s what you saw when President Trump offered Zelenskyy the deal to exploit Ukraine’s rare earth minerals. The Z-man was obsessed with getting US “security guaranties” – a promise to send US troops should Russia attack again in the future.

Trump rightly said, no. Instead, he offered to put US companies on the front lines, essentially making those civilians a tripwire should Russia dare attack.

Similarly, last week Trump convinced both Putin and Zelenskyy to engage in a limited ceasefire by ending strikes on energy and other civilian infrastructure, and then floated the idea that Ukraine should sell its power plants to U.S. companies as a deterrent to Russian attacks.

Now as a shareholder, I’m not sure I would want my company owning such a high risk asset. But still. The intent was clear: skin in the game.

Without skin in the game, we see what happens. On Friday, Russia launched waves of armed drones against the Black Sea port city of Odessa, sparking power outages, and the Ukes responded by allegedly blowing up a gas metering station near Kursk, Russia.

Both seemed to be pretty clear ceasefire violations. But with no skin in the game, neither attack has led to consequences, yet.

With NATO, President Trump is using a similar strategy.

Last week, he floated the idea of allowing a French (or other non-American) general to become the Supreme Allied Commander, the first time ever a non-American would command NATO. Some Republicans on the Hill were unhappy with that, but that’s because they don’t understand the notion of skin in the game.

Let the French suddenly be in charge of NATO troops and I’ll bet you they increase their defense spending significantly. Because now they will have skin in the game.

The European Union is beginning to understand the concept, although how they get to execution is another matter.

European Commission president Ursula Van der Leyden is floating her “Readiness 2030” plan that would obligate EU members to spend 800 billion euros over the next five years to expand their defense capabilities.

How they actually achieve that goal is another matter. She is calling on the EU as an institution to “lend” 150 billion to member countries to get the ball rolling, perhaps by magically printing money or just by asking richer countries to pony up cash for their poorer neighbors.

She wants the money to be spent on massive purchases of new weaponry – mainly from European defense companies, specifically excluding US and British companies from the competition.

Good luck on that.

President Reagan tried to open a “two-way street” of defense procurement with Europe in the 1980s, but after many years of trying, the Euros didn’t have that much to offer the Pentagon, and certainly zero in terms of major weapons systems.

Germany’s Leopard tanks have turned out to be clanking coffins in Ukraine, and the Ukes are clamoring for more Patriot air defense systems, not the European knock-offs. But it’s always worth a shot.

The Iranians are also beginning to realize they’ve got skin in the game in Yemen — and wish they didn’t.

President Trump last week made sure they understand that the United States considers every Houthi drone to be an Iranian drone, every Houthi missile to be an Iranian missile, and every Houthi attack on Israel or international shipping in the Red Sea to be an Iranian attack.

Desperate to divert President Trump and Pete Hegseth from utterly demolishing the Houthis in Yemen, the Iranians summoned the chief-let of their main proxy militia in Iraq for meetings with top revolutionary guards brass in Tehran.

The word on the street is that they ordered Akram al-Kaabi to carry out a massive rocket attack on the US Embassy Baghdad. I can’t wait to see how that works out for them.

The last time they tried that stunt, which I describe in some detail in Chapter 40 of The Iran House, President Trump ordered a drone strike that took out the commander of the Quds Force, the master of those proxy militia groups.

It’s no coincidence that Qassem Soleimani’s successor, Esmail Qaani, has become a bit shy about appearing in public. If you are an Iranian Quds Force officer these days, you just never know when you might meet an American drone with your name on it.

That’s what I call real skin in the game.

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Kenneth R. Timmerman is a senior fellow at the America First Policy Institute.  His latest work of non-fiction, The Iran House: Tales of Revolution, Persecution, War, and Intrigue, was recently published by Bombardier Books.