Welcome To Waterloo, Mr. President

If we are to have any hope of reversing course in 2028, now is the time for candor, not pride.

Michael C. Hurley | November 6, 2026

In a May 28, 2026, essay for American Thinker, I predicted (over the ferocious protests of many Trump loyalists in the comments) that our blunder into Iran would become “Trump’s Waterloo.” Sadly for Mr. Trump and our nation, that prediction came true in the recent midterm elections. I have never been more disappointed to be right.

There are only two ways to win a war. The first is not to fight. The second is to fight relentlessly to the bitter end. Having missed the opportunity to do the former, in Iran, Mr. Trump  balked at doing the latter. The aura of power that surrounds the American president suddenly devolved into a pantomime of craven pleading for a “deal” to ensure the survival of the very lunatics we had just threatened with certain death. At no point did anyone, least of all the mullahs, believe that any such “deal” would be worth the paper it was written on. By three weeks in, virtually everyone (very likely including Mr. Trump) wished that we had never gotten into this mess, but everyone equally understood that finishing what we started would require the complete annihilation of the Iranian regime. And yet, to the great detriment of his own reputation and the reputation of others who sought to defend him, Mr. Trump assured an increasingly incredulous public that the negotiations with the mullahs were meaningful and that we were “winning.”

Mr. Trump, in fact, declared that he was on the cusp of achieving “peace for our time” with the Iranians so frequently and so sincerely, it would have made Neville Chamberlain blush. We were told there was a deal on Monday only to learn there was no deal on Tuesday. We were told the Straits of Hormuz were open on........

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