The 5 Big ‘Known Unknowns’ of Donald Trump’s New War With Iran

During his career as a real estate mogul, Donald Trump repeatedly bankrupted casinos. In his second term as president, Trump continues to indulge his love of high-stakes gambits—and the war-entirely-of-personal-choice he launched over the weekend with Iran might be the biggest gamble yet of his entire political career. The apparent death of Iran’s supreme leader in the opening hours of the war only heightens the danger for Trump, his war partner Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the entire region, and the world beyond.

On the one hand, the events of the weekend so far seem all-but foreordained. It was a war that almost everyone could see coming—the US military buildup has been underway for months and, in many ways, Trump’s been on this road since May 8, 2018, when he jettisoned the Iranian nuclear deal known as the JCPOA, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which ...