Hard to understand it without the context and I don't want to do the captcha right now on the archive link. But in general here, I think we usually categorize ideology as part of superstructure and a thing like military resources as part of base, as a way of helping to understand it. Both are real, substantial factors in what occurs. But importantly, ideology alone cannot withstand a declining material base; to put it one way, belief won't stop an ocean wave from sweeping you up in it. However, if you're in charge of a material base that still has quite a bit of oomph behind it and you not only believe sincerely that you have far more resources than you actually have, but also believe you need to actively use it to subjugate others, you may squander what you do have. You may attack Iran, thinking you can break the people there, and get your imperial bases broken instead.
Trump is definitely not secretly a long-term strategic thinker, but some people in his orbit may be. However, there's nothing particularly clever about what they did with Iran. There's no positive spin for the empire on getting debased by Iran or handling navy logistics so poorly that people wanted to jump overboard. Arrogance big, military limited.