Donald Trump seems to have emerged from the worst crisis in America’s estrangement with Iran’s Islamic Republic with a win.
The president leaped on Tehran’s modest missile response Monday to the US pounding of its nuclear sites as a sign it wants to end escalations. “CONGRATULATIONS WORLD, ITS TIME FOR PEACE!” he posted on Truth Social.
Trump’s exuberance was a sign that he sees the US involvement in the conflict as over, at least for now.
And he followed up by announcing a ceasefire between Iran and Israel due to come into force later Tuesday. Ceasefires in the Middle East are often fragile and fleeting, as was underscored by attacks by both Israel and Iran in the hours before the truce was due to be established.
But the president was already trumpeting his chosen image as a peacemaker and consummate deal maker, only 48 hours after US stealth bombers slammed Iran.
“I think the ceasefire is unlimited. It’s going to go forever,” Trump told NBC News on Monday night, predicting that Israel and Iran will never “be shooting at each other again.”
That’s a bold claim given the Middle East’s reputation as a graveyard of American presidencies. And for all Trump’s marketing skills, events will decide whether his breakthrough is for real or just another illusion.
Has the United States, as Trump claimed, really ensured the “obliteration” of Iran’s nuclear program, an existential threat to Israel? Or is it all a classic Trump mirage, and does the glaring unfinished business of this conflict — an apparently missing stockpile of highly enriched uranium that can be quickly made into a bomb — mean a deeper crisis looms?
A quick end to the fighting would shape Trump’s presidency and legacy and boost a foreign policy previously marked by failures like the stalled peace effort in Ukraine. But will the world change its mind about the master of chaos if he really does help ease tensions in a blood-soaked region?
What is next for Israel? Does Trump trust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt his attacks on Iran? And will Israel finally take steps to relieve the agony of Palestinian civilians, starving and dying by the thousands in the onslaught in Gaza?
And in Tehran, will the humiliation of Iran’s clerical regime and the splintering of its Middle East network of fear promote a political spring that many of its citizens crave?
The president can claim the most significant foreign policy and military success of his time in the Oval Office. Trump made a bet that many skeptics saw as irresponsible — that he could hammer Iran’s nuclear plants without plunging the US into a new Middle East quagmire to mirror Iraq.
So far, he’s been proved right. While Trump might have initially been uneasy about Israel’s assault on Iran, which seemed calculated to draw him in, he asserted control and exploited an opening to severely degrade Iran’s nuclear program with little cost to the US. After days of public teases, his approach looked like a risky hunch. For sure he got lucky. But he also demonstrated strategic acumen and decisiveness and will always bask in the daring mission by B-2 bombers carrying bunker-buster bombs on a marathon flight from Missouri.
If the conflict cools now, Trump may get a domestic political boost, at least in the GOP, and be able to heal rifts in his MAGA base, where some supporters felt he has broken his promise to start no new wars.
The crisis also gave important insights into Trump’s second presidency. It revealed that he’s neither a tool of the remnant Republican hawks nor the “America First” populists. And a core circle of trust emerged around Trump, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and presidential envoy Steve Witkoff, according to CNN reporting. The futures of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seem less assured, however.
The president is also determined to try again to get a deal with Iran to end its nuclear program through negotiations. But he’s also shown he’s willing to wield overwhelming military force, putting a dent in the caricature of his TACO (“Trump always chickens out”) diplomacy.
He committed the US to military action without preparing the nation ahead of time and politicized the mission by keeping top Democrats out of the loop. This was only the latest occasion when Trump has shown contempt for Congress’s constitutional role and any sense he’s the president of all Americans.
And he’s still not shown Americans intelligence that he used to justify the attacks on the grounds that Iran was weeks away from a weapon. He ignored US spy agencies that found Tehran had taken no such decision to build a bomb.
Trump also snubbed US allies and mocked their peace efforts. This was the clearest sign yet of a volatile new global age when the US has decoupled from its alliances and will ruthlessly pursue its own national interests.
The president is already writing his preferred version of history of what he calls the “12-Day War.” His claims to have eradicated the Iranian nuclear program already look like a feint to neuter any contrary evidence that emerges. It will be a brave US official who contradicts the president’s great victory.
