Ceasefire without strategy: How Donald Trump undermined allies and empowered Iran |
There is a familiar rhythm to American overreach in the Middle East: a burst of confidence, a cascade of miscalculations, and then—almost inevitably—a retreat dressed up as strategy. The latest chapter, authored by Donald Trump in the form of a hurried two-week ceasefire with Iran, fits this pattern with unsettling precision. What is being marketed as prudence looks, on closer inspection, like capitulation. And what is described as de-escalation may well be remembered as abdication.
Start with the central illusion: that coercion without consequence could bend Tehran to Washington’s will. The administration entered the conflict with a breezy confidence that now reads less like strategy and more like wishful thinking. Advisers dismissed the possibility that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz—through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil flows—as if history had not already offered multiple warnings about the fragility of global energy chokepoints. When Iran did exactly that, halting shipping and rattling markets, the illusion collapsed.
This is not merely a tactical failure. It is a conceptual one. For decades, American policymakers—across administrations—have underestimated Iran’s willingness to absorb pain while imposing asymmetric costs on its adversaries. The Reagan administration learned this during the Tanker War in the 1980s. The George W. Bush administration relearned it in Iraq, where Iranian-backed militias bled American forces through indirect confrontation. Trump, it seems, learned nothing at all.
The result is a ceasefire that freezes the conflict at a moment most advantageous to Tehran. Iran has demonstrated its capacity to disrupt global trade, strike regional infrastructure, and unify its domestic population against an external enemy. These are not the hallmarks........