Donald Trump failed illegal Iran war is expanding with no end in sight

“We won,” 😒😕😏😩 Trump announced on March 11, less than two weeks into his Iran war. “In the first hour, it was over.”

The Dead End to Trump’s ‘Perfect’ War

Echo opinion published in The New York Times by Nicholas Kristof

On March 24, in the Oval Office, he reiterated, “This war has been won.”  On April 6, he asserted, “They are militarily defeated.”

On April 11, Trump posted on Truth Social, “The United States has completely destroyed Iran’s Military.”

“The war in Iran is going along swimmingly,” Trump said on April 16. “It’s perfect.” (Maine Writer- What the hell does "swimmingly" mean❓ This word sounds like a psychological neologism, meaning, it makes absolutely no sense.😒😖)

The perfection of Trump’s war has confused his supporters. “I don’t understand how it’s possible that Iran has the capabilities to fight this way and continue to try to lash out at Gulf countries and U.S. military bases,” Maria Bartiromo of Fox (FAKE❗) News said on air recently. “Because the U.S. has obliterated Iran’s military, and the president continues to reiterate that.”

Yet Trump’s far from perfect war has flaws, including the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and, in the past few days, the partial closure of passage through the Red Sea as well. 

So Trump is escalating attacks in what looks like a doubling down on a failed strategy. (But the attacks have cause the military to become low on ammunition and, therefore, at risk for being in a dangerous defensive position when Iran launches a massive drone attack against U.S. ships.)

Also, in an updated, a missile exploded a mine in the Strait of Hormuz so now nothing is getting thru the blocked section. 

A reported explosion involving an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz has intensified concerns over security in one of the world's most important maritime chokepoints. According to Iran's Tasnim News Agency, the tanker allegedly struck a naval mine after deviating from a navigation route announced by Tehran. Iranian officials have previously warned that vessels leaving designated routes would bear responsibility for any consequences. The incident comes amid heightened tensions in the Gulf, where military activity and disruptions to commercial shipping have increased.

But the problem now is not Trump’s terrible miscalculation in illegally starting the war on February 28, in ways that weakened America, depleted munition supplies, reduced our capacity to deter China in Asia and strengthened Iranian hard-liners. 

Rather, the issue at the moment is the way he is disastrously escalating the war.

Trump has lately been striking sites across Iran each day, and he warned that the United States would hit a power plant or bridge for each ship that Iran struck. Putting aside the question of war crimes, there’s also the problem that Iran responds in kind.

“Iran still retains multiple escalation options,” noted Danny Citrinowicz, a retired Israel Defense Intelligence expert on Iran. Citrinowicz noted that Iran could attack Persian Gulf states, cut undersea cables or harness the Houthis in Yemen to attack shipping in the Red Sea.

Both sides have already struck water and desalination plants, which could be disastrous for Gulf countries if this continues. Iran is not heavily dependent on desalination, but Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates rely on desalination for almost all of their drinking water. Cities could become pretty much uninhabitable if power plants and desalination plants are destroyed.

Likewise, if the United States attacks Iranian oil and gas sites, Iran is likely to do the same in Gulf countries, reducing oil flows for months or years. The Houthis have announced that they have joined the conflict, targeting Saudi maritime traffic in the Red Sea and thus diminishing global oil supplies even more. The Houthis had stayed out of the war until now, and I wonder if this means they see Iran as the effective victor.

Trump is threatening to strike the Houthis. But he should remember that he and Joe Biden before him spent some $7 billion bombing the Houthis for a bit more than two years and achieved nothing obvious. Trump extricated himself from the bombing campaign in May 2025 with a standard diplomatic magic trick: Both sides declared victory, and the bombing ended.

What is Trump trying to achieve by ramping up attacks? What’s the intent❓

“Any realistic strategy should begin with one core assumption: Iran is unlikely to capitulate,” Citrinowicz said.

In other words, increased airstrikes seem a fiery dead end. 

I hope Trump isn’t considering invading with ground troops, for that would be even more disastrous. 

Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired general, estimates that it would take a year and 600,000 American troops to subdue Iran, taking casualties along the way.

“Then what❓” McCaffrey asked. “Stay❓”

I do see one military escalation that could be useful to squeeze Iran: Help the United Arab Emirates recover the disputed islands of Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa, if the Emirates are willing to do this with their troops rather than ours. 

Iran forcibly seized the islands in 1971, but the Emirates have a plausible claim, and the islands are strategically located by the Strait of Hormuz and could help control it.

Indeed, I’m increasingly fearful that the most dismal legacy of this catastrophic war may be that a decade or two from now both Saudi Arabia and Iran will have nuclear weapons. Two unstable, misogynist Middle Eastern autocracies with nuclear weapons — what could go wrong?

Beyond that, there’s really no alternative but negotiation, recognizing that any negotiated outcome will be unpalatable — though not as unpalatable as escalating a war to nowhere. Perhaps the most important aim of negotiation should be keeping Iran from getting nuclear weapons, but Trump’s foolish new nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, if it goes forward, will make that even harder. 

If the Saudis are enriching nuclear fuel, the Iranians will insist on doing so as well, and the upshot may be a nuclear competition between them.

Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth are not telling Americans the truth about the failed war in Iran

Editorial opinion published in the The Virginian-Pilot:

Americans deserve honesty from White House about Iran war

It’s called the fog of war — the uncertainty and confusion that can proliferate during the physical and emotional demands of combat operations. Orders and directions can be muddled, communication can break down, and those in the thick of it can struggle to find their footing.

For the Trump administration, though, events in Iran are more akin to a fog machine of war — from the shifting justifications for attacking in February, to the moving goalposts of what it hopes to achieve, to the deliberate obfuscation of the number of service members harmed.

Americans don’t need access to classified intelligence or after-action reports to better understand what’s happening in this conflict, certainly not anything that could put members of our military at greater risk. But the nation does deserve frank, honest talk from its leaders in order to properly assess the purpose, status and cost of a war it is being asked to support and to fund.

The United States, in partnership with Israel, launched a war against Iran on February 28. Donald Trump, speaking the morning of the initial strikes, called on the Iranian people to take control of the government and urged the armed forces to surrender, saying that “America is with you.”

What Donald Trump promised would be a limited campaign has subsequently proved to be way more complicated than he expected, reflecting why his predecessors never launched such a massive undertaking. His rationale has shifted in the weeks and months since, from halting Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, to removing its leadership and, lately, keeping the Strait of Hormuz open to international shipping.

Trump asked Americans to follow this scattered logic and to trust in his handling of the war. But most aren’t buying into his arguments; polling this month by The Washington Post-Ipsos found 68% said the Iran war was not “worth fighting,” while just 28% said it was. The conflict is more unpopular than the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan were at any point.

On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified before Congress that the Pentagon needs $67 billion in emergency funding to pay for operations, despite also claiming that Iran’s military was decimated. NBC News, citing internal DOD numbers, reports the cost of the war is already between $80 billion and $100 billion. Taxpayers will foot that bill, in addition to paying higher costs for gasoline, fertilizer and other goods due to disrupted trade in the Middle East.

And then there are the casualty numbers. This White House isn’t the first to obscure the number of service members killed and wounded in combat operations, but Trump and his allies painted the Afghanistan withdrawal — which Trump negotiated — as a colossal failure when an attack amid that chaotic exit claimed the lives of 13 Americans.

That was unquestionably a tragedy, so how can administration officials square their outrage with this action in Iran, where at least 18 service members have died, including four in the last week❓😔😡😢

One extricated our nation from a decades-long conflict while this campaign seems to be dragging the U.S. further into one.

The Pentagon finally admitted Monday that more than 100 troops were injured in recent attacks, but only when pressed by journalists to release that information to the public. 

A Defense Department spokesperson told The New York Times that “the ‘vast majority’ of … casualties since July 7 involved ‘mild concussions,’ and 96% of those service members have returned to duty.”

That is, indeed, welcome news. But Hampton Roads needs no reminder of the long-term consequences of injuries sustained in battle and the cost of caring for wounded service members, having endured those challenges for decades due to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Americans need a clear-eyed view of Donald Trump's illegal war, as do lawmakers making decisions about how — or whether — to pay for ongoing operations. That responsibility rests with the president, who should turn off the fog machine and level with the public about his war of choice.

Donald Trump can not read. So a literate person in the White House should read this aloud to him. His illegal war with Iran has failed!

Iran and US slide back into dead end of war
Editorial  Echo opinion published in Le Monde

Americans are not reading the updates about the illegal Iran war. We must access foriegn news like Le Monde to find the truth. Merci❗

Both sides remain locked in an escalating standoff with no way out. Tehran cannot withstand a long-term blockade of its ports, and Donald Trump risks further alienating American public opinion four months ahead of midterm elections. Meanwhile, the escalation further undermines the global economy.

After a few weeks of relative calm, the illegal Trump war of choice between the United States and Iran has returned, to the point of calling into question an agreement signed less than a month ago at Versailles. That agreement was meant to replace a ceasefire announced in April, the main goal of which was reopening the Strait of Hormuz (that had been opened and free prior to February 28, 2026). 

From the start of the Israel- and US-led attack, which aimed to force regime change in Tehran, Iran had used the strait as a major deterrence tool by blocking the strategic route for hydrocarbon exports.

What followed was a systemic crisis in global energy markets that made the war even more unpopular in the US, as it broke with President Donald Trump's campaign promises to use force only when American interests were at stake, a claim that seemed doubtful in this case. Disillusionment and his administration's hallmark improvisational style led Donald Trump to accept a poorly structured agreement, which explains much of the current stalemate.

The Iranian regime is using the vague wording of the clause concerning the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to claim control over the passage, including by force. (Although it had been open and free prior to February 28, 2026).

At the same time, the US has sought to establish maritime routes through Omani waters, on the opposite shore of the strait, to bypass Iran.
Time running out

The current focus on the chokepoint is a short-term victory for the Iranian regime, since its nuclear program, presented as one of the major reasons for the attack on Iran, is no longer being discussed. By announcing his intention to levy a fee on ships passing through the strait under American protection and then quickly backtracking, Trump also lent credibility to Iran's claim to impose a toll there, in disregard of freedom of navigation.

Despite being severely hit by US and Israeli bombings, the Iranian regime, hardened by war and convinced it had won this confrontation simply by surviving, could only be drawn into a deadly spiral of escalation, the consequences of which would fall mainly on its people. As the hawkish wing regains influence in the US, Trump could once again be blinded by his country's overwhelming military superiority, the limits of which were nonetheless exposed during the initial phase of this asymmetric war.

Time is running out for both sides. Despite its bluster, the Iranian regime is unlikely to be able to withstand a prolonged blockade of its ports by the US Navy. Meanwhile, Trump risked further angering public opinion, with midterm elections, traditionally perilous for the party controlling the White House, less than four months away.

The double deadlock has once again exposed the Arab Gulf states to Iranian reprisals and further weakened a significant part of the world economy held hostage by the crisis. It also highlighted the impotence of the US administration, whether it chose to wage war or fall back on diplomacy. A devastating verdict for a president who had promised to make America great again.

Le Monde

Donald Trump created a war with Iran to remove the Epstein Files from headlines but he is stuck with the consequences

Donald Trump has failed to bring a peace agreement with Iran because he is stupid❗ He caused a war and cannot get out of it.

Trump’s reckless threats are sabotaging his own Iran negotiations

Echo opinion published in PennLiveLetters:

Donald Trump has as much self-restraint as a raging bull, and his tough talk may sabotage any possibility of a deal that would finally end his ill-advised war. The mouth that roared just can’t shut off the flow of vindictive threats that he will resume bombing even amid critical negotiations.

Does Trump not understand that the negotiations are, for the time being, keeping the Strait of Hormuz open❓ What possible 🥺good is he doing by running his mouth and messaging the world and Iran’s leaders that he is in charge—which he clearly is not. 

Is the growing criticism Republicans are giving our kingly dealmaker, whose reputation for reneging on promises is well documented, “seller’s remorse”❓

#ImpeachTrumpNOW❗

Donald Trump signed a useless piece of paper called a Memorandum of Understanding with Iran but there is no strategic value to his surrender

An interesting point of view. In summary, the MOU Donald Trump signed is a useless piece of paper.  If Iran can outlast the Trumpzi crumbling administration, the MOU will be as useless as used toilet paper.  Published in Al Jazeera by Adolfo Franco
Opinion|US-Israel war on Iran

The US-Iran MoU: A mirage of an agreement

Both Washington and Tehran know that current deal will not lead to lasting peace. It is merely a strategic pause.

The memorandum of understanding (MoU) the United States and Iran signed is not a peace treaty. It is not even a credible framework for one. A vocal chorus of critics has rushed to portray it as a humiliation – evidence that Donald Trump was manoeuvred into negotiations and extracted a poor deal from a regime that outplayed him.

That reading mistakes a mirage for reality. The Trump administration entered these talks with a precise understanding of what the Iranian regime is, what it wants and what any agreement with it is actually worth. No one in that negotiating team harbors the illusion that Tehran intends to honor commitments that constrain its core ambitions. The MоU is not a peace settlement. It is a mutually understood pause – a tactical intermission chosen by both sides for reasons that have nothing to do with trust and everything to do with time.

The new MoU does not signal that Iran has changed. Its calculus remains what it has always been – survival and expansion, pursued through whatever tactical posture the moment requires. When pressure mounts, Iran negotiates. When pressure eases, Iran advances. Its negotiators are, by all available evidence, prepared to offer assurances they have no intention of keeping. This is not a failure of diplomatic craftsmanship. This is simply the nature of any negotiation with a regime like Iran’s.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Iranian nuclear program. As a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has repeatedly committed to transparent cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency. It has repeatedly broken those commitments, blocking inspections, constructing clandestine enrichment facilities, destroying evidence and systematically deceiving the international community. The pattern is not one of occasional noncompliance. It is deliberate, sustained deception in pursuit of a single unwavering objective: the acquisition of a nuclear weapon (although Iran denies this accusation).

A state genuinely committed to civilian nuclear energy has no need for a vast and enormously expensive domestic enrichment program. Nuclear fuel can be purchased – from Russia, among others – at a fraction of the cost and without the international confrontation such a program inevitably provokes.

Iran has chosen the far more costly and dangerous path for one reason: Enrichment is not a means to an end, but the end itself. Its rulers are committed to a nuclear weapon, and that commitment has survived changes in personnel, shifts in rhetoric and decades of pressure.

What this MoU represents is a mutually understood strategic pause, a breathing space both parties have chosen, for entirely different reasons, over immediate confrontation. Iran needs economic relief. A regime facing internal decay and a depleted treasury has strong incentives to buy time, replenish its resources and wait out what it calculates to be a finite window.

Tehran is acutely aware that Trump has roughly two and a half years remaining in office. From its perspective, survival through that period is itself a form of victory.

Washington’s calculus is different in kind. Keeping the Strait of Hormuz open is an immediate, non-negotiable goal – a choked strait means an energy price shock with global consequences. Beyond that, the US has its own repositioning to accomplish. Military inventories drawn down through recent operations are being restocked. Strategic options are being preserved and expanded.

A pause that enables that rebuilding, while avoiding a premature confrontation on unfavorable terms, is not a concession. It is preparation.

The question for Tehran is not whether American resolve exists but whether it can be outlasted. That is a wager the Iranian regime has made before and lost.

The international community will, as usual, observe from a careful distance. Many nations will urge Iran to be stopped while taking few steps to stop it, criticizing US action and inaction with equal facility.

Trump understands this dynamic. It is the foundation of his approach to alliances – the insistence that partners bear proportionate burdens rather than simply drawing on American resolve while contributing little of their own.

The MoU will not resolve the Iranian problem. It was not designed to. When its terms expire or when Iran decides it has served its purpose, the nuclear program will resume its advance, the proxies will be better resourced, and the Strait of Hormuz will once again become a flashpoint.

That outcome is not a possibility. Given Iran’s record, it is a near-certainty. 

Donald Trump cannot fool all of the people all of the time: Donald John Trump signed an Iran surrender MOU at Versailles

Failure of Iran war reveals Trump’s inability to deal with America’s security needs.  Echo opinion published in the Philadelphia Inquirer by Trudy Rubin.

Scary❗😱 Donald Trump's ego-based foreign policy is making the U.S. more vulnerable to our enemies at home and overseas.

“You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” That maxim is often attributed to Abraham Lincoln, but it’s occasionally credited to the great American circus showman P.T. Barnum. It has special relevance when applied to Donald Trump, who has outdone Barnum in self-promotion.

Donald John Trump has had astonishing success in fooling some of the people all the time, from his foundational lie that the 2020, election was stolen through his daily blast of falsehoods about everything from the economy to the financing of his ballroom.

Yet, with his blatant efforts to bamboozle all the people about his Iran deal, Trump may have finally reached the point where most Americans realize he is (and always has been..."bone spurs"...) a fraud.

For starters, Trump’s claim that he has reached a “Great Deal [that] will bring Peace and Security to the whole Region” is flat out fraudulent. The Iran war has laid bare the incompetence of a U.S. leader who assumes that force alone produces victory.

The U.S. and Israel may have destroyed much of Iran’s military, but Tehran has denied them a geopolitical win, which all the world’s leaders (except for Trump) recognize.

And most Americans will soon see this for themselves.

Until the U.S. joined Israel in the February attack on Iran, Tehran’s religious and military leaders had never tried to close the Strait of Hormuz for fear of arousing American wrath. But after Trump openly called for regime change, they had nothing to lose.

Despite its military losses, Iran proved (as has Ukraine) that a smaller country using unconventional means (drones, mines, a willingness to absorb pain) can hold off a superpower.

Moreover, Tehran is still insisting it will charge ships fees for transiting the strait after the 60-day ceasefire extension expires, contrary to Trump’s claim that the strait will be “toll free.” And the world knows that, if pushed, Tehran can close the strait again.

Trump now looks like a chump.

Trump alienated Mideast allies, including Gulf states, which took the brunt of Iran’s military revenge. He encouraged America’s adversaries, including Russia and China, by revealing his lack of any long-term strategy.

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping had only to watch as the U.S. military squandered huge numbers of precious missiles against Iranian drones, leaving them in such short supply that the U.S. military is exposed in the Indo-Pacific.

Moscow can only toast Trump’s blindness, as the U.S. cancels promised sales of mid- and long-range missiles to Europe for defense against Russia and to pass on to Ukraine. 

This horribly bad decision left Ukrainians defenseless against Russia’s rain of cruise missiles on civilians — and on a thousand-year center of Orthodox Christianity, the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery and its golden-domed Dormition Cathedral.

Not a word of protest by Trump or MAGA’s white Christian nationalists who admire Putin’s religiosity. Instead, POTUS has bizarrely praised Putin’s help with Iran. Could he possibly be referring to Moscow’s sharing of intelligence on U.S. targets with Tehran❓

Donald John Trump signed the surrender MOU with Iran on June 17, 2026, at the Palace of Versailles in France, the same place where Germany surrendered after World War One.

But, never mind. Let’s get to the surrender MOU document Trump signed electronically* on Sunday. It was not a peace deal. Rather, it was a so-called Memorandum of Understanding — “about a page and half … a very general document,” according to Vice President JD Vance.

Contrary to Trump’s grandiose claims, this memorandum kicks all the main questions about dismantling Iran’s nuclear program down the road to future negotiations over the next 60 days.

By keeping the document secret at least until Friday, the president is relentlessly trying to frame his defeat as an astounding victory in hopes this will shape the thinking of the cult MAGA faithful.

From Trump’s own words, however, and those of his henchmen, it’s already clear he has abandoned most of the stated goals of this war.

Let’s look at what we already know.

1. There will be no regime change, as POTUS called for on the opening day of the war, urging the Iranians to rise up. Trump now bizarrely calls Iran’s new leadership pragmatists in a New York Times interview, labeling them “smarter” and more “rational” than those who were assassinated. Yet the Revolutionary Guard’s military commanders now running the show are more hardline and more confident about defying the U.S. president.

2. As so far revealed, the negotiating framework to end Iran’s nuclear program sounds no better than President Barack Obama’s 2015, agreement. POTUS bragged in the Times that the agreement would ensure Iran “cannot develop or purchase a nuclear weapon.” But Tehran has asserted for decades that it would not do so and made the same pledge on the first page of Obama’s deal, known as the JCPOA.

Trump Always Chickens Out

Although Trump promised to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program entirely, he appears to have backtracked significantly, (a.k.a. "TACO Trump) now saying that Iran “can never go beyond a certain amount” of enrichment that could be used for military purposes. Again, this echoes the JCPOA, which limited enrichment to 3.67%, an amount that can be used in power reactors, but not for a bomb.

As for how long Iran would have to limit enrichment, Trump hinted that he might settle for a 15-year suspension, which is the same time limit the JCPOA required❗ (But in a contradiction, he said the limit would be “forever,” although there is no sign Tehran would agree to this.)

If POTUS hadn’t pulled out of the JCPOA in 2015, the 15 years would have extended until 2030, and Iran would now have no highly enriched uranium.

The flaw in the JCPOA was the 15-year sunset, after which Iran could have restarted enrichment, but Trump seems headed toward a similar limitation.

As for the 11.5 tons of enriched uranium Iran produced since Trump junked the JCPOA — including a half ton of nearly bomb-grade nuclear fuel — the president has talked about reducing its purity level (known as downblending), possibly inside Iran. A far cry from previous demands for removing it entirely.

In the Obama deal, 97% of Iran’s stockpile was removed outside the country to Russia. No sign that Trump’s deal will do as well.

Moreover, the joint Israel/U.S. 12-day war against Iran in 2025 had buried Iran’s enriched uranium, and as Trump has recently admitted, U.S. satellites could see if the Iranians tried to remove it. Negotiations in February, mediated by Oman, were reportedly headed toward a better deal than Trump will ever achieve, if he achieves any deal at all.

Trump killed those talks by starting his choice to wage an illegal war.

So, if you parse Trump’s own admissions, there was no need for his four-month war, which has cost America 13 dead and hundreds of billions of dollars — not to mention 3,000 Iranian dead and severe damage to the global economy.

Yet the outpouring of Trump lies this week designed to disguise his failure roll on.

While the president insists that Iran will get no economic benefits until a deal is concluded, it appears that Tehran will be able to immediately restart exporting oil during negotiations. And there are reports that other Gulf states such as the United Arab Emirates or Qatar may release Iranian funds held in their banks immediately, enabling Iran to benefit economically before any nuclear deal.


Moreover, a future Trump deal doesn’t cover an end to Iran’s missile buildup, or the end of support for proxies, sins for which Trump never stops excoriating President Obama. Also, Israel and Hezbollah aren’t party to the deal and are likely to keep fighting.

When the details of Trump’s non-deal are revealed, he will try to paper over his failure with more prevarications. But as Barnum noted, “you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

*Donald John Trump signed the surrender MOU at Versailles on June 17, 2026.  

Donald Trump launched illegal war against Iran now is negotiating a "treaty" including reparations without Congressional approval

Echo opinion published in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette from Bloomberg.  

How many ways to spell "loser"❓

A Trumpzi (secret) deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is set for signature on Friday, and Donald Trump is already congratulating himself on being the first U.S. president to have made peace with Iran since the country's 1979, revolution. 

That's wrong❗ He is the first to have taken America to war with Iran, and therefore the first to have needed a truce- a.k.a., "treaty", to stop it. The peace his predecessors sought and failed to achieve has yet to come.

None of this would be cause for criticism if the decision to attack the Islamic Republic were to leave the U.S. in a substantially better negotiating position than it enjoyed before the start of hostilities. We can't be sure of the terms of the so-called Memorandum of Understanding, because they haven't been published. 

But the fact that the Iranians are gloating while Israelis are horrified strongly suggests that isn't the case.

Indeed, the Israelis are aghast, (who knew ❓) because even though they are a party to the conflict, they have had no role in the negotiations, and there's no indication that Trump's truce will end any of the problems they went to war to resolve. The nuclear issue is reserved for negotiation after the truce takes effect. Others aren't even mentioned.

The eventual deal will have at least four requirements, judging by comments where all sides agree: An end to all hostilities, including in Lebanon; reopening the Strait of Hormuz to shipping; a restart of nuclear negotiations; and the release of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian funds, with conditions and a schedule that remain unclear.

Iran's negotiators also are having to sell the deal at home, where hardliners object to any agreement with the U.S. They don't believe that Washington--which, with Israel, assassinated the nation's supreme leader while engaged in the last round of nuclear talks--can be trusted. Plus in their view, they're winning the war.

Iran's state-controlled Mehr news agency has published comments from Mehdi Mohammadi, strategic adviser to the Iranian negotiating  team, as well as a leaked purported 14-point draft of the MOU (memorandum of understanding).

Mohammadi highlighted that the MOU's terms would mark the first time the U.S. has guaranteed it will control Israeli actions, something he considered highly significant. He also said the agreement would commit Trump--the architect of America's "maximum pressure" sanctions policies--to lift primary economic sanctions on Iran.

And although the MOU does require Iran to enter talks on diluting its stock of highly enriched uranium, negotiations on any other part of the country's nuclear program are not guaranteed. That would require the assent of both parties: "Without mutual agreement, there will be no negotiations," he said, according to Mehr.

Other parts of the draft published by Mehr (like the creation of a 💲300 billion reconstruction fund) are hard to credit, amounting to an Iranian wish list. Yet nothing that U.S. officials have said, on or off the record, suggests the core elements of the deal Mohammadi describes are wrong.

Trump criticized the Obama-era nuclear deal he went on to dismantle because it was impermanent, and failed to completely eliminate Iran's uranium enrichment program or address other Iranian threats, such as its ballistic missile program and network of proxies. He also faulted the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action for, in exchange for Iran's concessions, returning some frozen funds and lifting sanctions. Trump said he could do better.

Yet Friday's MOU looks set to fail on the same counts, while making even more concessions for a much more limited potential nuclear deal--and all because Iran has discovered it can hold the world to ransom by closing Hormuz. That may not save a hated regime in Tehran once peace returns, but it will make for an inherently volatile situation in the Middle East.

This is a ceasefire extension and an agreement on Hormuz, not a peace deal that would reimagine U.S.-Iran relations or bring stability to the region. It is a mark of the war's failure that all of the problems that predate it have been left to the future.

Donald Trump has no "win-win" options strategy to exit his disastrous and illegal Iran war of choice.

Has Iran surrendered yet❓ Trump has no one to blame but himself.

Has Donald Trump (maybe) thought abut getting Batman involved❓

Echo opinion published in the Los Angeles Times by Daniel R. DePetris.

Nearly three months after the United States and Israel launched their large-scale bombing campaign against Iran and about six weeks since the April 8 ceasefire took effect, Donald Trump faces an inflection point. Does he return to war❓ Maintain the ceasefire and U.S. blockade on Iranian ports in the hope of cutting a deal on American terms? Or drop his maximalist negotiating stance❓

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), an informal foreign policy advisor for the White House, continues to press for more aggressive U.S. military action. Trump’s political advisors would prefer that the war end as soon as possible to minimize political repercussions against the Republican Party in a midterm election year.

Trump seems conflicted. 🙄😕

Despite weeks of U.S. bombardment and an ongoing naval blockade, Tehran is as protective of its nuclear program today as it was before the war began. “For Iran, the Clock⏲️  is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them,” Trump wrote on Truth Social over the weekend. A day later, Trump took to the social media platform again to announce he suspended planned U.S. attacks on Iran to give talks more time.

Unfortunately for Trump, he’s proved to be his own worst enemy on this subject. Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium and Tehran’s effective control of the Strait of Hormuz, the regime’s two biggest cards, are a byproduct of Trump’s own policy decisions.

The first is a clear indictment of Trump’s first-term order to withdraw the United States from the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a highly technical accord that put Iran’s nuclear work in a box by restricting the number and quality of centrifuges it could use, capped the amount of enriched uranium it could produce and compelled Tehran to ship 97% of its stockpile out of the country. When the Trump administration scrapped that hard-won deal, Iran responded by enriching more nuclear material at a faster pace and accumulating the very stockpile the Trump administration is now seeking to neutralize.

The Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s second card, would not even be an issue today if the Trump administration had refrained from going to war in the first place. On Feb. 27, the day before the conflict began, more than 150 tankers and vessels traveled through the strait. The international waterway was open for business.

Not so today. On Thursday, a grand total of three crossings were registered in the waterway. This collapse of commerce is a consequence of Iran’s ability to harass civilian tankers so much that shipping companies no longer view the journey as worth the cost. 

As Adm. Brad Cooper, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday: “The Iranian capability to stop commerce has been dramatically depleted through the strait, but their voice is very loud. And those threats are clearly heard by the merchant industry and insurance industry.”

By virtue of his own actions, Trump is now left with a series of policy options that range from least bad to terrible. None of them are ideal, and all of them carry some risk.

For starters, Trump could resume the war. Any renewed U.S. bombing campaign would probably expand the U.S. military’s original set of targets to include a portion of Iran’s energy infrastructure, which Trump has threatened repeatedly to hit.

A U.S. invasion of Kharg Island, where 90% of Iran’s oil processing takes place, might also be up for discussion. The aim would be to destroy Iran’s remaining military capabilities and further squeeze its oil revenue until Tehran’s strategic calculus on the war shifts to Washington’s liking.

Yet there are no guarantees that doubling down on military force will work. Trump’s entire strategy has relied on a baseline assumption: The more punitive the United States is, the more likely Tehran will be to cave. Yet that simply hasn’t occurred.

If anything, Iran is more dug in now than it was in the opening days of the conflict. For the regime, capitulating to Trump is as dangerous as losing the war. Why would more bombing succeed where previous bombing failed?

The risks of additional U.S. military action are considerable as well. Before the ceasefire, Iran was launching ballistic missiles and attack drones across multiple gulf Arab states, hitting Qatar’s largest natural gas processing facility, Saudi Arabia’s east-west oil pipeline and Dubai’s luxurious high-rises. As the Iranians have stated, such attacks will not only resume if Trump orders a resumption of the war but will expand to new targets, including desalination facilities and nuclear power plants. Such strikes would raise global oil and gas prices to even more absurd levels, adding to the extra $40 billion the American people are already paying for fuel since the war began.

What about continuing the status quo❓ While this contingency would be less costly than another round of bombing or a U.S. ground invasion, it’s unclear whether it would help or hurt negotiations toward a settlement. There’s a possibility that extending the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports could merely reaffirm the regime’s earlier decision to preserve its own shutdown of the strait. Iran is now urging Washington to end its blockade before talks on the nuclear file can be held. And it’s a mystery whether Trump’s blockade is working anyway; the U.S. intelligence community assesses that Iran could withstand this pressure point for three to four more months, which may be too long for Trump to sustain given the oil disruptions that are bound to get worse.

Striking an agreement to end the war, return the strait to open traffic and restrict Iran’s nuclear program would be the most beneficial policy for the United States with the least amount of cost attached — not quite undoing the harm from Trump’s first-term decision to scrap the nuclear deal and his second-term decision to start a war. U.S. and Iranian negotiators are passing proposals back and forth as we speak. But as of now, Trump can’t stomach agreeing to a deal that covers some of Iran’s terms, including but not limited to a shorter suspension of enriched uranium and some kind of Iranian role in the management of the strait. Even if Trump did reassess his position, he would be forced to confront the hawks in his political coalition who would consider anything short of Iran’s total surrender a failure.

In short, Trump is in an unenviable position. He’s got nobody to blame but himself.

Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist.

Donald Trump is illegally using naval blockades without cause but he cannot find an exit out of the Iran War

Blockades Don’t Work the Way Trump Thinks

Echo opinion essay published in The New York Times by 
By Jennifer Kavanagh,  director of military analysis at Defense Priorities.

It shouldn’t have been surprising when Donald Trump announced on April 12 that the United States would begin a blockade of Iranian ports to force Tehran to accept a peace deal.

Trump prides himself on being unpredictable. But he is a creature of habit, and blockades have quickly emerged as one of his preferred military tactics since his return to the White House. 

Unfortunately, he already used them against Venezuela and Cuba. Now his administration has expanded the Iran embargo, and started to seize Iran-linked ships on the high seas.

But, Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz was not the reason the United States started this war. Before the conflict, traffic passed freely through the narrow waterway. But Tehran’s effective closure of the strait since the United States and Israel attacked two months ago has emerged as the war’s most bedeviling problem and one Trump is desperate to fix. He hopes that by instituting a blockade of his own, he can choke Iran’s economy and force the country’s leaders to reopen the strait and accept Washington’s terms of surrender.

This is unlikely to work for the same reasons the United States finds itself facing strategic defeat by a weaker adversary: a mismatch of stakes and time horizons. While Iran has gained the upper hand in this conflict by extending and surviving what it considers an existential war, Trump wants a fast and decisive victory, something a blockade cannot deliver. A blockade may impose costs on Iran’s economy and population, but it will not deal the quick knockout blow the Trump administration seeks.


Blockades are designed to work slowly, with pressure accumulating over time. At the beginning of the American Civil War, for example, President Abraham Lincoln ordered a blockade of ports across the Confederacy, targeting some 3,500 miles of coastline. It had the desired effect, eventually cutting Southern cotton exports by as much as 90 percent and severely damaging the Southern economy. But it did not result in a rapid end to the war: Fighting between North and South continued for four years.

A similar story played out during the British naval blockade of Germany in World War I. Instituted almost immediately after the war began in 1914, it aimed to limit Germany’s access to essentials like food, medicine and materials that might support the war effort. 

The blockade imposed severe hardship on the German people, contributing to hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, and hampered military operations. But Germany did not immediately surrender. The war endured until the end of 1918.

That blockades often fail to quickly change an adversary’s behavior is something Trump and his advisers should know. 

Earlier this year, the United States started interdicting oil shipments to Cuba in an effort to force Havana to make political and economic concessions. The island is now on the brink of humanitarian collapse, but the Cuban regime has yet to yield. The U.S. blockade of Venezuela’s oil exports was similarly ineffective: Trump announced it in December 2025, part of a monthslong pressure campaign to force President Nicolás Maduro to step down. When a few weeks of blockade failed to elicit any compromise, Mr. Trump had to escalate further, seizing Mr. Maduro and his wife in a dangerous military raid.

Iran may prove even more resilient. The blockade has reduced the country’s oil revenues to a fraction of their prewar levels, but it is likely to be some time before the consequences become untenable for Iran’s regime. In the near term, Tehran will continue to receive oil revenue from shipments that left its ports weeks ago, and at least 34 tankers with links to Iran appear to have slipped through the blockade. These and any future successful exports can be sold at higher prices, which may continue to rise as the war drags on.

To prevent this, the administration has said that the U.S. military will pursue any ship helping Iran, anywhere in the world, a move that is of ambiguous legality under international law. 

To meet the legal standard, any blockade must be deemed “effective,” meaning it is carried out with enough military power to be consistently and impartially enforced; has clearly defined geographic limits; and includes provisions for humanitarian relief. The expanded U.S. blockade meets none of these requirements. It has no geographic boundaries or humanitarian provisions, and the U.S. Navy’s limited capacity to interdict container ships and tankers means it will have to choose which cargoes to intercept or focus on specific regions. It cannot, therefore, be “effective.” 

In the end, most Iranian oil shipments that are already at sea will almost certainly make it to their destinations.

At home, Iran has other ways to mitigate the effects of the blockade. Recent estimates suggest Iran has about 90 million barrels of available oil storage capacity, enough for at least two months of production, before it must make production cuts that risk permanent damage to its oil infrastructure. 

Tehran also has reserves of food and other essentials, and land-based trade routes that it can fall back on if needed for imports of some commodities and even some oil exports. Iran can likely endure the U.S. blockade for months without facing economic collapse. Even then, its leaders might choose to fight on rather than agree to American terms they perceive as a compromise of Iranian sovereignty.

For Trump, this timeline is likely to be unacceptable. His impatience with the war is evident in his increasingly erratic Truth Social posts and near-constant crazy assertions that the war is already over.

His sense of urgency is understandable. Not only is the war deeply unpopular in the United States, but its effects on the American and global economies are real — and likely to grow. The longer the impasse lasts, the more severe fuel and fertilizer shortages will become across East Asia and Europe, and the more Gulf state oil exporters will suffer. A prolonged blockade will also push global oil prices higher, increasing U.S. inflation and torpedoing Trump’s affordability pitch in the upcoming midterm elections.

Instead of stripping Iran of its most important source of leverage — control of the Strait of Hormuz — Trump’s blockade may play into the Islamic republic’s hands. The blockade harms Iran’s economic future, but may lead to a longer, costlier war for the United States, severe and lasting damage to U.S. and global markets and further domestic political damage for Trump.

In a test of wills, Tehran has the advantage and a higher pain tolerance. With their survival on the line, Iran’s leaders can afford to be patient.

Republicans are enabling the destruction of America. Impeach Trump NOW! Attention Senator Susan Collins

Baltimore Sun opinion echo by Tom Jurkowsky

The unwillingness of our U.S. friends, allies and alliances to help the U.S. in its efforts against Iran should come as no surprise.

Donald Trump has spent time during both of his terms in office criticizing, insulting and demeaning NATO leaders — even going so far as to insult the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron and criticizing the pope.

Unfortunately, Trump’s bullying style of diplomacy does not engender a willingness by allies and friends to step forward and provide assistance to our efforts in Iran. Berating foreign leaders who complained about his tariffs, continuing with threats to take over Greenland and accusing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer of cowardice are just a few examples that don’t create feelings of warmth, friendship and respect.

After a recent meeting in the White House with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Trump berated allies and told Rutte that he was considering reprisals against NATO countries for their lack of support in the war against Iran. According to Politico, the conversation was nothing but a tirade of insults.

Throughout his terms in office, Trump has continued to repeat claims that the NATO alliance has never done anything to help the U.S. He continues to ignore the fact that when the U.S. was attacked on 9/11, many NATO countries supported our efforts in Afghanistan. In fact, approximately 3,600 NATO-led coalition troops died in Afghanistan, while over 23,000 were injured. The president’s staff should remind him of those numbers. Failing to acknowledge NATO’s contributions during our 20 years in Afghanistan is insulting.

Donald Trump’s inept style of failed diplomacy stands in stark contrast to that of former Secretary of State George Shultz, who served under President Ronald Reagan.

Shultz compared diplomacy to gardening. “You go around and talk to people, you develop a relationship of trust and confidence, and then if something comes up, you have that base to work from.”

Shultz used his “tending the garden” metaphor throughout his tenure as secretary of state. He said the term described the continuous, daily nurturing of international relationships and diplomatic alliances. Shultz felt that neglecting those relationships, like neglecting one’s garden, will grow weeds.

Trump obviously is unwilling to buy into Shultz’s experienced foreign policy style, choosing instead to bully, threaten and belittle allies and friends because they would not send naval forces to help open the Strait of Hormuz.

Clearly, the Iranian regime is evil. Its sponsorship of global terrorism and murdering dissident citizens if they deviate from the Iranian ideology should not earn the country sympathy. Nor should Iran earn gold stars for supporting its murderous network of allies that includes Hamas and Hezbollah.

However, the unwillingness of countries to answer Trump’s call for help in Iran is understandable. First and foremost, Trump did not provide an argument to either the American people or Congress for his decision to attack Iran. He similarly failed to consult with any allies or friends about the war in advance of his taking kinetic action. This was reckless and careless. Many of our European and Asian allies are dependent on oil and gas from Iran. Blind-siding them with his actions on Iran was a fundamental mistake.

Did Trump not realize what Iran’s reaction would be to being attacked — closing the Strait of Hormuz and a resultant global economic impact? There have been many war games conducted regarding the Middle East over the last several decades. Not one has ever left the Strait of Hormuz open.

Nicolas Burns, a former ambassador to NATO, said, “If you prepare the ground diplomatically before you go in, even if they don’t want to fight alongside you, they understand your strategy, and you get so much more buy-in.”

Two former defense secretaries writing in The New York Times, Chuck Hagel and Leon Panetta, say problems arise when our country engages in conflicts that drift without clear objectives and end points. “They often become tragic, unwinnable wars that history does not remember kindly,” they contend.

“America needs allies, trading partners and friends. But now, instead of working together with them to maintain a global system that has brought real geopolitical and economic benefit to us all, we are isolating ourselves,” say Hagel and Panetta.

Unfortunately, Trump’s thoughtless “do it alone” actions have destabilized the world and are cultivating anti-American sentiment not just in Europe but among people in the Middle East and Pacific. Many countries in those regions are looking to China as a better strategic economic partner.

One of my foreign service friends once told me that diplomacy is based around “ships.” Being a Navy guy, I immediately thought he meant the use of seapower and Navy ships when discussing diplomacy. He quickly corrected my train of thought by saying diplomacy centers around three different kinds of “ships” — partnerships, relationships and friendships.

Adhering to those three ingredients in one’s diplomatic pouch will lead to a weed-free garden that George Shultz strove to achieve, along with friends and allies who will support you. Donald Trump should take heed.

Tom Jurkowsky is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Navy who served on active duty for 31 years. 

#ImpeachTrumpNOW❗

Donald Trump and maga Republicans are enabling war crimes and must be held accountable with Nuremburg trials

Echo opinion letter published in the Virginian Pilot newspaper

Donald Trump posted a message on his (Fake ❗)Truth Social threatening Iran with what can be described as civilization genocide: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” No American president in history has ever uttered anything even vaguely comparable. Even in the light of its past misdeeds, Iran has done nothing to warrant such shocking bombast, much less unilateral destructive action against a nation of 93 million people. Fortunately, at least for now, Trump backed away from his apocalyptic threat. (Nevertheless, Trump has not abandoned these destructive and dangerously crazy notions.  Rumors are he is in conflict with senior officers in the Pentagon who are upholding the Uniform Code of Military Justice and not willing to follow illegal orders.)

Iran posed no material threat to the U.S. before Trump, in concert with Israel, started a war with that nation. So far the monthlong attacks have failed to achieve any of its stated objectives, including regime change, halting Iran’s nuclear program, exhausting its weapons stockpile, loosening its grip on the Strait of Hormuz or ending its ability to attack other nations.

If his threat held any actual intent, then shame on him. If the American public views his threat as somehow acceptable or within bounds, then shame on us.

Robert Spitzer, James City County,Virginia 

Republicans like Senator Susan Collins are enabling Donald Trump's war crimes. GOP must stop Donald Trump's insane tranny

Echo Editorial Opinion published by The New York Times:

Four Ways Trump’s War Is Weakening America

When Donald Trump attacked Iran on February 28, 2026, we called his decision reckless. 

Donald Trump is inept, corrupt a dunce in KKK attire

Trump went to war without seeking congressional approval or the support of most allies. He offered thin and contradictory justifications to the American people. He failed to explain why this naïve attempt at regime change would end better than earlier attempts by the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

In the six weeks since, the recklessness of his war has become clearer yet. He has disdained careful military planning and acted on gut instinct and strange wishfulness. 

After Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel predicted to  Trump that the attacks would inspire a popular uprising in Iran, the director of the C.I.A. countered that the notion was “farcical,” The Times reported. But, Trump proceeded nonetheless. 

Without consideration for the consequences, Trump was so confident that he assembled no plan to respond to an obvious countermove available to Iran: causing a spike in oil prices by blocking the Strait of Hormuz. Nor did he develop a feasible strategy for securing the enriched uranium that Iran can use to rebuild its nuclear program.

Last week, Trump careened from illegal and immoral threats about erasing Iranian civilization to a last-minute cease-fire that accomplishes few of his announced war aims. Iran continues to defy a central part of the deal and block most traffic from crossing the Strait of Hormuz. Trump’s irresponsibility has left the United States on the cusp of a humiliating strategic defeat.

As we have emphasized, Iran’s regime deserves no sympathy. It has spent decades oppressing its people and sponsoring terrorism elsewhere. And the current war, combined with the June attacks by the United States and Israel and other Israeli operations since 2023, weakened Iran in important ways. Its navy, air force and air defenses have been degraded, and its nuclear program has been set back. Its murderous network of regional allies — including Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria’s fallen government — has been eroded.

Yet, these successes cannot mask the ways in which the war has weakened the United States. 

We count four main setbacks for America’s national interests that are the direct result of Trump’s carelessness. These setbacks likewise weaken global democracy when authoritarians in China, Russia and elsewhere were already feeling emboldened.

The most tangible blow to the United States and the world is the increased influence that Iran secured over the global economy by weaponizing the Strait of Hormuz. About 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flows through the strait, which is next to Iran’s southern shore.

Before the war, Iran’s leaders feared that blocking traffic would invite new economic sanctions and a military attack. Once the attack happened anyway, Iran closed the strait to nearly all traffic except its own ships. The policy is inexpensive because it mostly involves a threat, namely that a drone, missile or small boat may blow up a tanker. Forcibly reopening the strait, by contrast, would require an enormous military operation potentially including ground troops and an extended occupation.

Trump’s lack of foresight about the strait reveals glaring incompetence. The two-week cease-fire does not bring back the status quo because Iran is still limiting traffic and has threatened to impose tolls as part of a final peace deal. The war has shown Iran’s leaders that controlling the waterway is a real possibility. Eventually, other countries are likely to develop alternatives, including pipelines, but those solutions will take time. For now, Iran appears to have won diplomatic leverage that it could have only dreamed of six weeks ago. The only apparent way to change the situation would be for a global coalition to demand the strait’s reopening — the sort of coalition that Trump is distinctly unsuited to lead.

The second setback is to America’s military standing around the world. This war, together with recent U.S. assistance to Ukraine, Israel and other allies, has burned through a substantial portion of the stockpile of some weapons, such as Tomahawk missiles and Patriot interceptors (which can shoot down other missiles). Experts believe the Pentagon used more than one-quarter of its Tomahawk missiles just in the war against Iran. Returning the stockpile to its previous size will take years, and the United States will have to make tough choices about where to maintain its military strength in the meantime. Already, the Pentagon has pulled missile defenses from South Korea.

The war also revealed that the U.S. military is vulnerable to new ways of warfare. 

For example, America used billions of dollars’ worth of high-tech munitions to destroy Iran’s traditional air and naval forces, while Tehran used cheap, disposable drones to halt traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and hit targets in the region. The world saw how a country that spends one-hundredth of what the United States does on its military can seek to outlast it in a conflict. It is a reminder of the urgent need to reform America’s military.

The war’s third big cost is to America’s alliances. Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada and most of Western Europe refused to support the United States in this war — unsurprisingly, given Mr. Trump’s treatment of them. When he demanded their help in reopening the Strait of Hormuz, most allies declined. These countries will remain allies in important ways, but they have made clear that they no longer consider the United States a reliable friend. They are working to build stronger relationships with one another so that they can better resist Washington in the future. “Perhaps the greatest long-term damage to the United States from the Iran war will be in its relationships with allies around the world,” Daniel Byman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington wrote on Wednesday.

The situation in the Middle East is more nuanced. Iran’s decision to attack its Arab neighbors during the war may draw those countries closer to the United States. But that prospect is uncertain. Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries have been damaged economically by the war and feel abandoned by Mr. Trump’s cease-fire. The past six weeks have given them reason to question his judgment and his understanding of their interests.

The fourth setback is to America’s moral authority. For all the flaws of this country, it remains a beacon to many around the world. When pollsters ask people where they would move if they could, the United States is consistently the runaway No. 1 answer. America’s appeal stems not only from its prosperity but also from its freedom and democratic values. Mr. Trump has undercut those values for his entire political career and perhaps never more than in the past week, when he made odious threats to erase Iranian civilization. Trump's (whiskey) secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, made a series of bloodthirsty remarks, including a threat to offer “no quarter, no mercy for our enemies.”

Those would be war crimes. Trump and Hegseth have embraced a brutal approach to armed conflict that the United States led the world in rejecting after World War II. By doing so, they have undermined the foundations of America’s global leadership, which claims to place human dignity at the center of an argument for a freer and more open world.

Our New York Times editorial board has long opposed Mr. Trump’s approach to politics and governing. Yet we take no pleasure in his failures over the past six weeks. For one thing, there have been deaths, injuries and destruction, in Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere. At least 13 U.S. service members have died in the war.

It is also a mistake for any Americans, including Trump’s critics, to root for this country to fail. We all have a stake in the nation that he leads. So does the rest of the free world. There are no other democracies with the economic and military strength to counter China and Russia. When America is weaker and poorer, as this war has made us, authoritarianism benefits.

The best hope now may sound naïve, but it remains true. Trump(and Republicans like Senator Susan Collins) must at long last recognize the ineptitude of his impulsive, go-it-alone approach. 

Trump must involve Congress and seek help from America’s allies to minimize the damage from his failed Trump Iran World War.