[War] Trump surrenders to Iran in a humiliating defeat

The definition of tactical successes and a strategic defeat. There is no metric by which this can be spun as a victory. As Timothy Snyder says:

Trump lost this war in every possible sense — morally, legally, politically, economically, reputationally, and strategically.

 

Hours after threatening to turn 90 million people into glass, we get this exchange. It's not 3d chess. It's depravity.

 

I'm open to hearing how we "won", or at the very least "didn't lose".

But as far as I can tell this war had 3 objectives.

1) Regime change
2) Securing the Strait
3) Iranian nuclear disarmament

We achieved none of the these goals.

Militarily, yes, we blew up more **** of theirs than they did of ours. We'll never lose on that scorecard.

But who got what they wanted? Who got the most bang for their buck? On both counts, Iran did.

 

Trump the sociopathic moron and the whole starting a war for the equally sociopathic Netanyahu is indeed humiliating. Aside from the humiliation of wasting of trillions we need for better things in stupid wars. The gap must be much greater. now. Roughly 10 years ago when we went to China and Japan it was already painfully obvious that their roads and rail were much better than our declining. infrastructure. Our last trip to Europe we kept meeting people who said why can't America come up with better than two old guys as candidates for president? (Before Biden had his breakdown and was escorted out).

 

I wonder if the military REFUSED his orders, and he had to do this deal.

DD

 

Just because we blew up stuff is irrelevant. We accomplished virtually none of our objectives.

 

Not true. The military industrial complex is getting fed.

 

Just when you think he can't get crazier. in his need to declare victory.

Hey if he needs it to keep from killing millions and wasting trillions of $$ , until we can remove him.

"OK, Donald you did very well. You made a great deal!! Thank you so much for being so great!"

 

In a way, sort of like you can increase the GNP by taking the homeless by locking them up in private prisons and increasing the share price of the prison companies.

 

Such an optimist, DD. We can only hope.

 

Now we're talkin' real money...and don't forget migrant housing! Glad we have the tariffs to pay for all of that because the increased taxes would be crazy!

 

Oh, dude, don't get me started on China.

Their high-speed rail is one thing. Stunning in and of itself. But, hell, they're building cities on mountainsides. Chinese are racing ahead on infrastructure. We can barely pass a bill to get high-speed internet to rural areas.

 

Trump will be remembered as the only US POTUS to have started a war---threatening to destroy the entire civiliztion---then surrenders

 

I'll believe if when the ships with Marines, etc turn around. Until then, I think there is still a lot of uncertainty and it isn't implausible that he is just trying to buy time. I mean this sounds like such a terrible outcome that it is almost unfathomable.....but then again on brand....

 

While you still see trolls defending him in the comment sections, there are now way more people bashing Trump. He’s such an unserious person.

 

Robert Reich predicted this, on 24 March 2026, some 2 weeks ago.


Why Trump will surrender soon, but he’ll call it a great victory


No one knows what Trump is going to do from minute to minute, least of all Trump. But it’s looking ever more likely he’ll be exiting Iran within days, declaring his “excursion” into it (as he’s termed his war) a major victory — and then changing the subject.


On Friday, Trump posted on his social media site that “we are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East.”

What objectives? He never said what they were to begin with.

He’s about to wind down and exit because he doesn’t give a damn about anything except maintaining his wealth and power — and the war is now costing him both.

It’s hurting his financial backers in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar — whose wealth has been seriously diminished by the war and whose vulnerability has been exposed.

It’s pissing off Trump’s wealthy political backers at home — who are getting pummeled as the U.S. stock market sinks under the weight of the war.

It’s infuriating American voters, as gasoline sells for nearly $4 a gallon — causing Republicans to become ever more anxious about a political backlash in the midterm elections. Most were elected on Trump’s coattails in the 2024 election, in which Trump promised to reduce prices and avoid foreign entanglements — rather than do the exact opposite.

So, forget regime change. Forget freedom for Iranians. Forget “obliterating” Iran’s nuclear capabilities (which Trump claimed he accomplished last June).

Trump will say he vanquished Iran’s military and defense capacities, destroyed its economy, and decapitated its leadership.

Job over. Mission accomplished. Iran obliterated (again).


Right now, though, he has to save face. Iran has rejected Trump’s threat that if it doesn’t open the Strait of Hormuz by Monday night, the United States will strike Iranian power plants. Iran says if the U.S. attacks Iran’s power plants, it will attack energy, information technology, and desalination facilities across the Gulf.

So Trump will do some more bombing this week. He’ll then leave the job of opening the Strait to other countries, claiming that the U.S. doesn’t need it because we produce enough oil on our own (which is untrue because oil prices depend on the global market, and U.S. refiners depend on foreign grades of crude).

And he’ll leave the bombing of Iran to Benjamin Netanyahu, who’d rather continue striking Iran and Hezbollah’s strongholds in Lebanon than stand trial in Israel for bribery and corruption. (Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Friday that the military campaign in Iran would “escalate significantly” this week.)

Thirteen U.S. service members have been killed, and the war has cost the U.S. an estimated $18 billion so far, not counting the costs to American consumers of higher-priced energy and food.

The regime in Iran has changed, but there’s been no “regime change.” And the change that’s occurred has been toward a harder, more nationalist, more belligerent Islamic state.

Iran is still hiding its enriched uranium and is presumably more determined than ever to turn it into nuclear warheads.

Trump and Israel may crow about destroying Iranian launchers and missile stocks, but Iran is firing even more ballistic missiles and drones across the Middle East now than it did a week ago — launching new missile attacks on Israeli cities and damaging key energy installations in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates.

On Friday, Iran launched intermediate-range ballistic missiles at the U.S.-U.K. Diego Garcia military base 2,500 miles away. That’s far enough to hit much of Europe.

Iran figures that political and economic pressures are mounting against Trump faster than they are mounting against Iran. While Iran uses cheap drones to disrupt global supply chains, it’s generating huge profits on its sale of oil (mostly to China), reportedly $8.7 billion in additional oil profits since the war began, driven by a $47 per barrel increase in prices compared to pre-war levels.

Forget Iran negotiating with the U.S. over ending the war. Ebrahim Rezaei, spokesman for the Iranian Parliament’s foreign affairs and defense committee, says any talks with the U.S. are off the agenda as Tehran “focuses on punishing the aggressors.”

Other Iranian leaders are demanding as conditions for ending the war massive reparations from the U.S. and the expulsion of American military from the region.

They’re also talking about transforming the Strait of Hormuz into an Iranian toll booth controlling a third of the world’s shipborne crude oil.

We have no way of knowing whether America will now be more vulnerable to Iran-sponsored terrorism, but the risk seems greater than before Trump launched his war.

All told, there has been no American victory here, only tragedy — although the sociopath in the Oval Office will surely claim victory and lie through his teeth about what he has accomplished.

Make no mistake: This will be a surrender. Trump’s only real course of action now is to “declare victory and get out,” which I expect him to do momentarily.

 

After it became clear that no friendly regime was going to rise to power in the wake of the initial strikes, there were only two outcomes on the table.

We either invade or we capitulate. Both bad, but an invasion would have been far worse.

I cannot recall a situation like this in my lifetime where a President has swung and missed so badly.

 

100% a result of gutting the professional bureaucracy and surrounding himself with yes-men sycophants.

Who could have possibly seen this coming? I mean, besides everybody that wasn't cheerleading MAGA from day 1.

 

Yeah this is the real nuts of it. Trump was foolish and bought into bad advice that if we just hit them then a revolution would happen. All the hype about the Shah's son going back to rule lol. The Kurds will march on Tehran!

Was an outrageously stupid war to start because Trump was never going to finish it. Yesterday's leaks from the admin that all the people who might want to be president were all against this war and knew it was a bad idea was a telling sign.