Wait... the draft is “on the table”?

{{current_date_mdy}}

As with all things Donald Trump, the American people are often forced to ask what is actually real and what exists only in the president’s mind. That is never more apparent than when Trump brings his sledgehammer of a mind to the normally sensitive and nuanced world of foreign policy. If America’s allies don’t fully understand Trump’s goals in Iran, it’s because Trump doesn’t either.

Trump on Monday sent conflicting signals about the future of his Iranian war, telling reporters both that the war was “very complete, pretty much” while also announcing a sharp escalation in air strikes targeting Tehran. He also floated the idea of sending ground troops into Iran, while White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested that a reinstituted military draft was “on the table.” 

Wait, what? The draft? I thought the war was very complete (pretty much)! Trump’s big draft news floated by almost unremarked by the mainstream media, but it raises a worthwhile question: Can he actually do that? Let’s dive into what Trump’s latest brain dump says about his thinking on Iran and what it might mean for our men and women in uniform.

— Max Burns

What you make of the Iran War depends a lot on which of the government’s many conflicting timetables you accept as true. Trump has repeatedly claimed the conflict will be over in “four to five weeks,” though Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently said the conflict could last eight weeks or more. Meanwhile, US Central Command is preparing for a conflict that could stretch all the way into September. Each scenario brings with it wildly different demands for funding and troops. 

Even so, reinstituting the draft would be a seismic decision from a White House already struggling to prop up a broadly unpopular war. The last draft call was issued on December 7, 1972, at the tail end of the Vietnam War. In total, over 1.8 million men were drafted into military service in Vietnam, turning the draft into one of the nation’s most reviled and feared initiatives. (Trump famously avoided the draft on five separate occasions). America’s military has been an all-volunteer force since 1973, though men aged 18-25 are still required to register with the Selective Service. 

Bringing back the draft would be a political nightmare for Republicans, especially those MAGA loyalists who touted Trump as the “peace president” in 2024. Military drafts disproportionately affect poor communities without the financial or family resources to avoid conscription. Drafted troops also suffer the immediate effects of low morale, weakening their overall usefulness as a fighting force. But can Trump actually reinstate the draft on his own?

No. Raising an army is an explicit power granted to Congress in the Constitution, and reinstating the draft would require amending the Military Selective Service Act to reauthorize conscription. Any effort to draft young American men — and under the law, it is only men who can be drafted — would require a formal act of Congress that even Republicans recognize would immediately rank among its most unpopular decisions in modern history. This is one area where Trump can’t lean on Executive Orders to do the walking for his colleagues in Congress. If the White House wants a draft, it will need the House and the Senate to move first.

Trump’s team could be using talk of a new draft as misdirection to keep the media busy as the White House scrambles to develop an actual plan for his war in Iran, but it’s telling that the Pentagon hasn’t backed up Leavitt’s claim that a draft is “on the table.” When pressed by reporters, a Pentagon spokesperson would only refer them back to Leavitt and the White House. For his part, Trump has avoided directly discussing the issue at all.

Just because Trump can’t institute a draft doesn’t mean he can’t commit troops to a long-term conflict in Iran. NBC News reported last week that Trump has shown “serious interest in U.S. ground troops in Iran,” a position that caught many of his closest advisors by surprise. Trump’s broader goals — seizing and operating the Strait of Hormuz, deposing Iran’s hardened Revolutionary Guard corps, and appointing a Supreme Leader of his choosing — would all require a significant and long-term military presence in the country. You can’t change the regime with air strikes alone. 

Trump’s sudden passion for long-term warfare is also fracturing his own Cabinet. Vice President JD Vance, long a critic of foreign intervention, has been completely cut out of Trump’s decision tree in favor of war hawk Secretary of State Marco Rubio. As Trump’s sycophants rally around Rubio’s yes-man approach to the war, Vance now finds himself without meaningful allies in the White House. 

Despite Trump’s effort to rebrand his war as “just a little excursion” into Iran, the past few days have seen the conflict expand so significantly that Axios on Tuesday ominously described the conflict as “a world at war.” Trump is acutely sensitive to being viewed as weak, and he is deeply resistant to the idea of leaving Iran without completely decimating their leadership. If that takes American ground troops, Trump seems to be saying, so be it. After all, they won’t be any of his kids — they are all too busy profiting off the war to actually serve.

Reading Trump’s mind is an act of frustration, as global oil markets learned this week. The White House is now in an open panic as the price of oil whipsaws and gasoline prices hit record highs for Trump’s second term. The president who made the low cost of gas a centerpiece of his administration is now faced with the reality that his war of choice is pinching consumers directly in their wallets.

Even so, Trump may feel committed to not only staying but doubling down on his Iran operation in a way that plunges the world into even deeper chaos. A draft seems unlikely, but a war in Iran seemed unlikely until the moment it happened. Even without the draft, Trump’s power as Commander in Chief is sweeping enough to land America in another costly and destabilizing meat grinder of a conflict  in the Middle East. Great job, Mr. Peace President.