The Iran war is all about psychology: Trump's and Khamenei's

The psychology of leaders always matters in conflict. But rarely have matters of war and peace depended so much on the mental states of the adversaries as in the current conflict between the United States and Iran. And that is frightening.

The psychological condition of Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is unknowable but obviously under the most extreme stress: During airstrikes early in the war he lost his father, his wife, one of his sons, and reportedly other family members including a sister, a nephew, a niece and a brother-in-law, as well as, apparently, parts of his own body. Others in the elite surrounding him are traumatized in similar ways.

Almost too much is known about the psychology of the American president, by contrast. Donald Trump has dominated public life in his country and much of the world for at least a decade, and gives free rein to his thoughts in settings ranging from late-night binges on Truth Social to press interviews — at least until he rips off his microphone and stomps out.

A lot of these glimpses are either confusing or disturbing. Of late Donald Trump has toggled between predicting that peace is imminent and threatening to resume all-out war. One moment he calls Iran’s new leaders "rational." The next he tells them to "Open the [expletive] Strait, you crazy [expletive], or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah."

This is not normal. As a former assistant director of the FBI puts it, it seems that "the American president has lost his mind." Trump himself has at times treated his sanity as a sort of game. The leader of China respects him, he said in 2024, because "he knows I’m f***ing crazy." Optimists called that the "madman theory," according to which a (rational) leader feigns irrationality to gain advantage.

The consensus these days is that Trump’s proven unpredictability instead makes him weaker because it robs him of credibility. Why would Iran’s leaders suddenly trust his assurances enough to make any deal, when the president twice (last June and this February) started bombing them while negotiations were ongoing?

Psychology factors into strategic choices and blunders in other ways. H.R. McMaster, one of the national security advisers in Trump’s first term, often talks about "strategic narcissism" as a weakness, in contrast to "strategic empathy," which is a strength. (He adopted the categories from work by Zachary Shore, a historian of judgment.)

In a podcast with Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer, the national security adviser and deputy adviser during the Biden administration, McMaster defined strategic narcissism as the assumption that whatever we do will decide the outcome, while forgetting that the enemy shares authorship over the future. McMaster was careful not to criticize his former boss, Trump. But he made clear that strategic empathy would have grasped the existential fears and motivations of the Iranian leaders. What reigns in the White House is strategic narcissism.

That word, of course, comes up in every conversation about Trump’s psychology. "He’s a narcissist in every way," not just strategic, Jack Reed, the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told me.

Rose McDermott, a professor at Brown University and author of Political Psychology in International Relations, told me that Trump’s "true political north is not his ambition, it’s his narcissism. When he feels insulted, when he feels he’s not getting the acclaim and adoration he deserves, it creates aggression." The most destructive leaders, she added, are narcissists.

Trump was already a narcissist in his first term, though, and he wasn’t starting wars at that time. Back then he was still surrounded by some advisers who spoke truth to power and talked him out of bad ideas. In his second term, Trump has handpicked counselors who are sycophants and only affirm his narcissistic instincts. Also, Trump is just getting older, which may exacerbate his inclinations.

I asked McDermott what a narcissist does when he feels trapped in an unwinnable situation such as the one Trump now faces in the Middle East.

Narcissism covers up an underlying sense of inadequacy, which feels intolerable, she said. So a narcissist may bounce between being aggressive and trying to dissociate himself from the situation. That second reaction could explain why Trump sometimes pretends that he "couldn’t care less" if peace talks collapse and that he finds the whole situation "very boring," or why he suddenly walks out on NBC News’ Kristen Welker in mid-interview.

Aggression could take any number of forms, including some that are frightening. At one point, Trump posted that "a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again." If the current phony war turns really hot again, as this week’s skirmishes suggest it might, there’s no telling where the escalation might end.

Ruben Gallego, a Democratic senator who served as a Marine in Iraq, told Sullivan and Finer that as losses mount, "the ante goes up for what defines victory," and Trump will be "chasing the dragon." That phrase comes from the world of drug addiction and refers to the elusive pursuit of a high that equals the user’s first.

For Trump, that first high was the quick and painless victory in Venezuela this January. He then sought that high in the Middle East. Now he is consumed by frustration that he can’t find it. On the opposing side are adversaries who have already lost more than most people can imagine, and whom Trump does not — and doesn’t try to — understand. I cannot think of a more dangerous combination.

This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Andreas Kluth is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering U.S. diplomacy, national security and geopolitics. Previously, he was editor-in-chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for The Economist.