Donald Trump spent 110 days declaring victory in a war that consumed him, then signed a memorandum of understanding at Versailles on June 17 that undermined every justification he had offered for launching the conflict in the first place.
The arithmetic of his triumph claims is staggering. By day eight, he announced victory. By day 10, the war was "very complete." On day 12, he won five times in 13 seconds. By day 39, he was calling it "total and complete victory, 100%." In between these proclamations, he floated 38 separate claims that a peace deal was imminent.
Yet the strategic reality moved in the opposite direction. On day one, Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz following US and Israeli airstrikes, achieving what amounts to asymmetric dominance over a crucial chokepoint in the global economy. Trump had lost the war on the day he started it, though he would spend the next 109 days bombing his way toward a deeper hole.
The memorandum Trump signed in the gold-leafed halls where World War I ended bore the fruits of total capitulation dressed up as triumph. He lifted oil sanctions on Iran. He opened access to tens of billions of dollars in frozen assets. He committed to a $300 billion "Reconstruction Plan" with unspecified terms. He withdrew from a position that had held for eight years, returning to the negotiating table on Iran's nuclear program after he had spent his first term vilifying the Obama-era nuclear deal as a "horrible, one-sided deal."
To mark his achievement, Trump staged Ultimate Fighting Championship matches in a cage on the South Lawn of the White House on his 80th birthday. The symbolism was unintentional but perfect: a man performing strength while presiding over the erosion of it.
The Iranian regime, once cast as an existential enemy requiring military annihilation, suddenly became, in Trump's telling, made up of "very rational people" who were "smart people" and "looking to help their country." On day 39, Trump had tweeted: "A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again." By day 110, he was praising the same people as reasonable negotiators. He had provided his own refutation of the war's stated purpose.
What Trump obliterated was not the Iranian military or Iranian resolve, but the coherence of his own argument for going to war. He had claimed to have accomplished regime change. He had demanded unconditional surrender. Neither happened. What did happen was the elevation of the Iranian regime into a regional hegemon, the persuasion of Gulf states that American security guarantees are worthless, the drastic waste of US military power, and the further alienation of European allies who had prudently stayed out of the conflict.
His vice president, JD Vance, was tasked with defending the indefensible. Trump joked beforehand that if the deal fell apart, he would blame Vance. Vance then pointed at Israel as the culprit, seemingly unaware that he had volunteered to drink from the poisoned chalice. Israel's rightwing press, which had cheered Trump's election, turned on him. Netanyahu, who had handed his fate to Trump, discovered too late that Trump abandons everyone in the end.
Trump's predicament mirrors the trap that caught other American presidents who lost wars. Lyndon Johnson, haunted by defeat in Vietnam, privately confessed: "I just can't be the architect of surrender." Richard Nixon said virtually the same thing: "I'm not going to be the first American president to lose a war." Both were undone by their inability to end wars they escalated. Democratic leaders who lose wars do not survive politically. It has never happened in modern democratic history.
Trump is now caught in what might be called a Caligula Trap. The ancient emperor marched his legions to the English Channel to invade Britain, then suddenly ordered his soldiers to gather seashells as the spoils of war. He erected a tower on the shore to commemorate his victory and sailed home to Rome for a celebration on his birthday. Trump, similarly, has gathered his seashells, declared them victory, and moved on to the next project.
On the same day he signed the Iran deal, Trump also declared victory over algae blooms in the Reflecting Pool near the White House. The pool had turned green after he awarded no-bid contracts worth $16 million to a firm with no federal contracting history and a Mar-a-Lago club member with two criminal convictions. When the pool required more work, Trump blamed "Radical Left Lunatists" of sabotage with knives and chemicals, presenting no evidence. The Park Service arrested a 67-year-old former Olympic cyclist for touching peeling paint on an American flag decoration. He was released within hours.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the MAGA queen and former congressional Republican, posted on the day Trump signed the Iran memorandum: "Congratulations to all for almost achieving peace to the war that is not a war, spending hundreds of billions of US tax dollars again for another foreign war after we voted no. This, apparently, is what winning looks like."
Author James Rodriguez: "Trump has written the playbook for launching a war without justification and losing it without consequence, because he refuses to admit either fact."
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