Donald Trump had the opportunity to end the Iran War on Wednesday night.
He could have declared victory, and we would almost have believed him.
The killing would have stopped, and he could have gone back to talking about solving wars rather than starting them.
The world—and the markets—would have breathed a sigh of relief, and Trump’s MAGA base could have patched up the rift over the war that is ripping it apart.
But the president’s ego wouldn’t let him walk away.
And neither will Iran.
Trump is so desperate for the public’s approval that he sincerely believed that by going on television to make his claim for war 32 days too late, he would turn his plummeting poll ratings around.
By making his case for war, he would help people understand why he was right.
Instead, he revealed how wrong he was to put the United States into a war it couldn’t really win.
And he strengthened the bargaining position of America’s enemies.
It was a 19-minute admission that he didn’t have a clue what he was doing.
One moment, he was talking about how he could bomb Iran’s electric and gas plants, but had spared them so far because he wanted to leave them some hope of survival (and perhaps not defy the Geneva Convention).
Then he bragged about sending his enemy “back to the Stone Ages where they belong.”
The war is effectively over, he continued, but the bombings would escalate over the next few weeks.
With every point he made, he revealed how little thought he’d given to the consequences of his strike on Iran.
Does anyone really believe the Strait of Hormuz will go back to normal once the missiles have stopped, if, indeed, they ever do?
Or that gas prices will drop back down? The two factors are inextricably linked. Oil prices were down when he started speaking and were back up by the time he finished.
Trump may be right when he claims that America’s military might is winning. But he is losing the PR war.
Despite having its leadership decimated in the early days of the conflict, Tehran is in a much better position than it could have anticipated.
Contrary to Trump’s claims, it is still firing missiles at America’s allies in the Middle East, and it has the all-important bargaining chip of the Strait of Hormuz.
And now it’s new leadership, no less fundamentalist than the last and hell-bent on revenge, smells Trump’s desperation.
They could see it in the barrage of confusing and contradictory Truth Social posts he has spewed in recent days, a blatant attempt to manipulate the markets.
They could sense it in the almost pathetic pleas for the Iranians to agree to a 15-point deal that was never going to fly. He was so desperate to find a way out.
But bombing as bargaining power isn’t enough, whatever Pete Hegseth is telling you.
The only explanation for Trump’s lack of forward planning is that he thought it was going to be another Venezuela, with the regime collapsing in hours or days.
How else can you explain why he neither warned his allies nor asked for their help BEFORE going to war; he made no pre-emptive attempt to secure the Strait of Hormuz, and appears to have no exit plan.
Trump thought the Iranians would throw their hands up in surrender before he returned to the White House from his makeshift Situation Room at Mar-a-Lago, where he launched his war with a Truth Social post.
But Iran will fight to the bitter end. Trump won’t be able to tie this one up in a bow.
The president tried to make the point that past wars like WWI, WWII, Korea, and Iraq lasted years, while his assault on Iran had lasted a little over a month.
But it’s not over yet.
And Trump showed a primetime audience of millions around the world that he doesn’t have a clue what he is going to do about it.
