We are heading into dark days.
If someone had told me four months ago that after the United States and Israel succeeded in delivering the most devastating blow Iran had suffered since the Ayatollah regime came to power, eliminating large parts of its military and security leadership, severely damaging its military capabilities and weapons industry, and undermining the network of threats it had spent decades building across the Middle East, it would ultimately be the United States that blinked first and handed this regime what it wanted without receiving anything of real value in return, I would have dismissed it as a complete fantasy.
After all, this is a regime that not only funded, armed, and directed terrorist organizations around the world, but also threatened and acted against the United States itself, including against Trump personally and even against his daughter. For decades, it openly declared its ambition to undermine the regional and international order. Yet when it was weaker than ever before, the path chosen was one of embarrassing retreat rather than decisive victory.
There is no strategic logic behind such a move. None whatsoever. The leader of the world's most powerful nation, having brought his adversary to its lowest point in nearly five decades, decided at the critical moment to stop, withdraw, and concede. Not because of military weakness. Not because of diplomatic necessity. Not because of an existential threat. Simply because of a bewildering and foolish choice.
What should have been done was to continue applying pressure until the threat was removed at its source. To keep crushing the snake's head until it could never rise again. Yet at the very moment of decision, when the road to victory was wide open, a choice was made that seems as though it came straight out of a textbook on strategic failure.
It is difficult to think of a comparable historical precedent. Great powers have withdrawn when they were defeated. They have withdrawn when they exhausted themselves. They have withdrawn when the cost became unbearable. But how many times in history has a superpower achieved overwhelming superiority and then voluntarily chosen to abandon the fruits of victory?
It is almost like imagining the Allies standing at the gates of Berlin in 1945 and, instead of finishing the campaign, turning around and going home.
If Barbara Tuchman were alive today, it is hard to believe she would ignore such an episode. One cannot help but think that this event would earn a place alongside the long list of historic decisions that entered the pantheon of political and strategic blunders.
The common comparison to the Munich Agreement is actually too generous. At least Chamberlain faced Hitler at a time when Germany had already reemerged as a rising military power, while Britain and France had spent years neglecting their armed forces and were woefully unprepared. One can understand the fear, even without agreeing with the decision.
Here, the situation is the exact opposite. The adversary was weakened, isolated, and vulnerable. And yet that was precisely the moment when the path of concession was chosen.
If I were the leader of Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, or any other country that relies on American security guarantees, I would be deeply concerned. Alliances are not tested by speeches or press releases. They are tested at moments of decision. And if an ally is willing to concede when operating from a position of strength, what will it do when the costs are much higher?
In the end, leaders are judged not by their speeches and not by the books they write, but by the decisions they make when history hangs in the balance.
Trump wrote several books, including Trump: The Art of the Deal and Think Like a Champion.
My recommendation to any rational person who owns those books is simple: read them, and then do the exact opposite. The man is a complete defeatist. A coward who will be remembered as the worst president in American history.
And if it ultimately turns out that this decision allowed Iran to recover, rearm, and once again threaten the region, it will not be remembered as an ordinary missed opportunity. It will be remembered as one of the greatest and most unnecessary acts of strategic surrender ever witnessed on the international stage.
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