It is tempting—almost comforting—to reduce Donald Trump's bombing of Iranian nuclear sites to another episode in his long-running television presidency: a flash of shock, a hint of awe, and a thumping soundtrack of saber-rattling bravado. But this time, something deeper undergirds the spectacle. This is not mere wag-the-dog posturing. It is personal. It is economic. It is a war not just on Iran—but on the restraints placed upon Trump’s domestic agenda by judges, bureaucrats, and the ghosts of neoliberal consensus.
What we are witnessing is a foreign war launched, in part, because Trump was not allowed to wage the domestic one he wanted. His strategy—cynical or brilliant, depending on your posture—was to Make America Rich Again through tariffs and deportations. Big, beautiful, economy-stimulating deportations. Revenue-generating tariffs. A New Deal of detentions. A Marshall Plan of removals.
Trump’s America-first economic policy never required foreign conquest. His 2025 blueprint looked inward: tax the imports, detain the undocumented, and pour the proceeds into judges, lawyers, bus fleets, ICE contractors, and a sprawling, privately managed logistics network of detention and relocation. It was to be a wartime economy, minus the foreign battlefield. Or at least, that was the plan.
Until the courts intervened.
The Ghosts of Precedent
Barack Obama deported more people than any president before him. Between 2009 and 2016, over three million people were removed—many through expedited removal without hearings. These were administrative orders, not trials. There were no mass protests on due process grounds. There was no outrage from federal judges. There was no procedural lawfare aimed at kneecapping the core mechanics of deportation enforcement.
But when Trump sought to expand expedited removals, the judiciary responded with a wall of injunctions. His policies were halted not because they were unlawful, but because the courts required more “process.” One federal court ruled that even a migrant who had been in the U.S. for less than two years—well within statutory limits—must be entitled to contest their removal in court. Due process, in the most expansive sense imaginable, became the weapon used to deny the president a tool used liberally by his predecessors.
So what happens when a president—especially one as pugnacious as Trump—is denied the instruments of domestic enforcement? He looks abroad.
The Economics of Deportation and the Slave Wage Class
There’s an ugly truth in the subtext of America’s immigration debate that few dare say aloud: undocumented labor props up large swaths of the U.S. economy in much the same way enslaved labor once did in the antebellum South. It’s not hyperbole. Millions of undocumented workers, unable to legally defend themselves, exist in a liminal zone—trapped between coyotes, debt bondage, remittance pressure from families back home, and exploitative employers. Their presence provides cheap produce, underpriced construction, and “invisible” service labor that Americans have come to depend on like electricity.
In this framework, Trump’s mass deportation plan wasn’t just enforcement—it was an economic stimulus masked as moral clarity. If successful, it would have required a wartime budget: detention infrastructure, legal adjudication, transportation contracts, immigration courts, and private prisons. It would have poured billions into domestic industries, creating a kind of “New Deal for Nativists.”
Critics argue that removing this underclass would spike food prices, devastate agriculture, and crater housing starts. They’re right—but that’s a long-term structural problem. Trump, however, wasn’t trying to fix the next decade—he was trying to avoid economic collapse on his watch. The U.S. economy was a hot potato. His job was to keep the music playing until after 2028.
If deportation failed, he needed a backup way to inject federal money fast. That’s why, when tariffs stalled and removals were blocked, he reached for the foreign war lever.
Israel, Iran, and the Politics of the Last Friend Standing
The June 2025 airstrike on Iranian nuclear facilities—Fordow, Natanz, Esfahan—was not merely strategic. It was symbolic. Israel, in a world where Trump is reviled by NATO, scorned by the EU, and dismissed by most of the UN, remains his last real state ally. And when you’re a pariah, your friends’ enemies become your enemies by default.
Trump didn’t need to bomb Iran to distract from scandal or shore up support. His approval among his base is a monolith. He bombed Iran, in part, because it was the only way left to spend federal dollars like a wartime president. He bombed Iran because tariffs were blocked, deportations sandbagged, and America needed a way to pump trillions into itself without calling it a stimulus.
War is bipartisan. War is procedural. War is immune to the injunctions that plague domestic enforcement.
Appendix:
🧲 Counterargument Review:
Claim: Obama used expedited removals without legal resistance.
TRUE. Obama’s DHS relied heavily on expedited removal at the border. No federal court broadly enjoined this tactic.
Claim: Trump was blocked from using the same tools.
TRUE. Federal courts, including in DC and the 9th Circuit, issued injunctions halting Trump’s expanded expedited removal policies.
Claim: Deportation can be an economic stimulus.
DEBATABLE. While massive deportation would create jobs in enforcement, detention, and legal processing, the long-term impact on industries reliant on undocumented labor could be severely damaging.
Claim: Trump’s bombing of Iran was driven by domestic frustration.
INTERPRETIVE. While no official source admits this, the pattern of escalation aligns with political and judicial constraints on domestic initiatives.
📚 Historical Context:
Expedited Removal (8 U.S.C. 1225(b)(1)) has existed since the 1996 IIRIRA law. Obama used it mostly at borders; Trump attempted to expand it to interior removals.
The Alien Enemies Act (1798) was tested under Trump in 2020–2023, used for fast-track removals of nationals from “hostile” states—this, too, was struck down by courts.
The Marshall Plan and New Deal are invoked not to say deportation is noble—but to note the economic logic of large-scale state spending.
❓ FAQ
Q: Did Trump actually bomb Iran?
A: Yes. In June 2025, he authorized strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites using B-2 bombers.
Q: Was Trump legally barred from deporting undocumented immigrants?
A: No—but courts required extensive due process, slowing or halting efforts to use expedited removal at scale.
Q: Why didn’t this happen under Obama?
A: Obama’s use of expedited removal wasn’t challenged as aggressively, and courts deferred more often to executive discretion.
Q: Is mass deportation financially viable?
A: The upfront costs would be enormous, but the government could theoretically stimulate domestic sectors (transport, legal, detention) through such an operation.
Q: Why would war with Iran be ‘profitable’?
A: As with prior conflicts, defense contractors, intelligence services, and federal logistics operations see a surge in funding during military actions.
📘 Glossary:
Expedited Removal – A process that allows DHS to deport individuals without a court hearing if they’re caught near the border within a short period after entry.
Due Process – Legal requirement that the government must respect all legal rights owed to a person. Courts have increasingly applied this to undocumented immigrants.
Tariff – A tax imposed on imports or exports, often used as an economic weapon to protect domestic industries.
Alien Enemies Act – Part of the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts; allows the president to deport non-citizens from enemy nations during wartime.
Marshall Plan – U.S. program after WWII that sent billions to rebuild Europe. Used here metaphorically to describe large-scale government spending.
Lawfare – The use of legal systems and institutions to damage or delegitimize an opponent, often through procedural overload.
Operation Midnight Hammer – The unofficial name given by military analysts to Trump’s June 2025 bombing campaign over Iran.
Judicial Interdiction – When courts intervene to block or delay a government policy, often through injunctions or procedural rulings.
Let this piece stand not as an endorsement of policy but as a mirror to how the mechanics of power work when the avenues of domestic control are closed. Trump didn’t get to spend his way into economic recovery with buses and immigration judges—so he spent it with bombs.
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