Finian Cunningham
This defeat of U.S. imperial power is on par with the shame of the Vietnam War.
When Trump launched his war against Iran on February 28, his maximalist demands included regime change, total surrender, no nuclear program, and no enriched uranium.
None of that has been achieved. Iran has emerged stronger, the U.S. looks weaker, its military assets in the region battered, and Tehran is calling the shots on what a final deal will look like, based on its unbowed terms.
Nearly four months on, the American president is hailing a peace deal with the Islamic Republic, but one where Tehran is writing the terms, not Washington. It's a debacle for Trump, exposing the limits of U.S. global power like never before. Even the Western media is commenting on how Trump has come out as the loser.
Historians might note this epic failure as another inflexion point in the decline of the U.S. global empire.
As for the framework agreement announced last weekend, admittedly, anything that this president puts his name to has to be taken with a pinch of salt. This week at the G7 summit in France, Trump was threatening a return to bombing and all hell raining down on Iran if it didn't comply with his supposed demands.
Who knows what the Israeli regime will do, too. Netanyahu is scorned for his association with Trump's sell-out to Iran. The Israelis are continuing to bomb Lebanon in violation of the U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding that will be formally signed in Geneva on Friday. Tehran has warned that Trump must rein in the Israelis to abide by a ceasefire covering Lebanon, or else all bets are off.
Will the Israelis bomb the incipient peace deal into oblivion to spare Netanyahu from going to jail over long-time corruption charges ? Or will the Mossad blackmail Trump with files from the Epstein pedophile scandal to get back to bombing?
The peace negotiations that the Trump administration and Iran will engage in following the MoU signing are going to be fraught and long-drawn-out, liable to be crashed from several angles.
But at least, at this stage in the conflict, it is evident that Iran is the winner and Trump a monumental loser. Ironically, the initial deal was agreed on June 15, the same day that Trump hosted a cage fight spectacle on the White House lawn to celebrate his 80th birthday. If Trump were in a cage with Iran, he would emerge with his nose bloodied and a few teeth knocked out.
The text of the peace deal has been kept under wraps so far, but a draft obtained by U.S. outlets CNN and Bloomberg shows massive concessions forced on Washington. Out of a 14-point list, Iran is to have all historic U.S. sanctions removed, it will resume export of oil and oil products, and also avail of billions of dollars from released frozen assets.
Trump will crow about Iran forswearing any effort to acquire nuclear weapons. But that's what Iran has always said, that its civilian nuclear program was peaceful, non-military, and legally entitled under international law. Again, Trump will crow about the Strait of Hormuz being reopened to oil shipping. But it was his war of aggression against Iran that closed off the Strait and 20 per cent of global oil supply. In short, Trump gains nothing despite the astronomical cost of his debacle.
Iran is not going to surrender its nuclear program. Its government and military are stronger than ever, and its 90 million people are more united than ever.
Iran's defiance of U.S. aggression and threats of nuclear annihilation resulted in a strategic defeat of American power. The damage to the U.S. international image is incalculable as Washington's allies find themselves betrayed by empty promises of protection.
Trump, who wrote an ego-trip book, Art of the Deal, about his supposed business genius as a real estate mogul, is shown by Iran to be a charlatan with no smarts, only bluster and bluff, arrogance and a big mouth, and an exemplar of the art of capitulation.
He blundered into a situation in which he was way out of his depth in terms of understanding and strategic thinking. His stupid arrogance was the only force driving his moves.
With American citizens appalled by the senseless war, the barefaced lies, the U-turns, the economic misery inflicted, Trump's reckless and callous indifference to their opposition, and the mid-term elections looming, the spoiled-brat president realized he had no choice but to stop digging a hole and scrape his way out of it.
Let's not forget, too, that over 7,000 people have been killed in the U.S. and Israeli aggression against Iran and Lebanon, including 168 Iranian schoolgirls murdered in a multiple airstrike on February 28.
Trump's hawkish former national security advisor, John Bolton, got it right when he derided the deal with Iran from the U.S. point of view. He is scathing that Iran "played Trump like a fiddle".
"That's why they've got the deal that they want," Bolton told Euronews.
The economic damage that Iran was inflicting on the U.S. from closing the entire Persian Gulf oil supply via the chokepoint Strait of Hormuz, totally under Iran's control, was forcing Trump to his knees. Iran knew it had the ace card, and its courage, military firepower, and national unity to defy genocidal threats was a quad of aces.
Bolton said the White House's reluctance to publish the text of the peace deal framework indicates that Trump knows he is a loser, despite the bravado and bluff.
"If it were a great deal, it would be out in public. And I think that tells you pretty much what you need to know," remarked Bolton.
This defeat of U.S. imperial power is on par with the shame of the Vietnam War. Back then, Trump was a rich-boy draft dodger during the 1960s. Appropriately, perhaps, he finally experienced a similar Vietnam moment as a cheating president.