Is Anyone in Iran Willing to Accept Trump’s Surrender?

By Noah Rothman

Friday, August 07, 2026

 

Some have speculated that, when dealing with state terror sponsors with nuclear ambitions, Trump’s conduct of the war against Iran risks discrediting the military option. Well, at least in Trump’s case, it should.

 

Those doing the speculating would be hard-pressed to find an advocate for a muscular, extroverted American presence on the world stage who would endorse the president’s bipolar war-fighting strategy.

 

As any reasonable observer should be expected to concede (as evidence of his reasonableness, if nothing else), Operation Epic Fury was a tremendous tactical success. Even America’s failures — such as the shooting down of an F-15 Eagle — were a success, lest you believe that America’s adversaries take no notice of our ability to establish a forward-operating airbase deep inside Iran that successfully exfiltrated our airmen. Even if America’s adversaries are emboldened by the war’s strategic failures, no one can afford to ignore America’s unparalleled ability to project sustained and efficacious force anywhere on earth.

 

But if the war was a triumph, the cease-fire and all that it entailed was disastrous.

 

The cease-fire to which Trump agreed in early April should have lasted no more than a week. That was how long it took to conclude that the Iranians were not abiding by its terms. Moreover, the conditions that supposedly justify Trump’s hesitation are unpersuasive.

 

If the depth of America’s defensive ordnance magazines was a problem then, as it is now, they can be supplemented by offensive capabilities. After all, American offensive strikes had held Iranian missiles in check during high-tempo combat operations. If the Strait of Hormuz was going to be closed, as just about every war-game scenario projected (indeed, the U.S. opened the strait by force in the late 1980s), then Trump should have implemented his blockade of Iranian ports at the outset of hostilities.

 

But after the bombs stopped falling in April, the president swiftly revealed that the reason he wound down the campaign was not that the primary target list was exhausted and dual-use civilian infrastructure was about to be hit next. Rather, he’d simply had enough.

 

The so-called memorandum of understanding was designed to codify Washington’s quiescence — ceding much to the Iranians in return for parchment promises on which the Iranians themselves never delivered. But the remnants of the Islamic Republic were not content to allow the president to slink away. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ periodic strikes on shipping in the strait and civilian targets in the Gulf ultimately forced Trump to start shooting once again.

 

And yet, at no point did Trump resort to truly coercive measures. Instead, he opted to attrit Iranian capabilities, signaling both his indecision and his own reluctance to invite another encounter with his pain-tolerance threshold (Brent Crude at about $110 per barrel).

 

No one with an ounce of strategic sense would fight a war this way. And if Trump’s example discredits his on-again, off-again war fought with the smallest possible force posture — a conflict he sought without consulting the public, their representatives, or America’s treaty-bound allies — we should be grateful.

 

“Far from discovering a new way of war, Trump has merely discovered new ways to lose,” the American Enterprise Institute’s Kori Schake wrote for Foreign Affairs. Had the president observed the Powell Doctrine, she observed — e.g., deploying all state resources, including overwhelming and disproportionate force, in pursuit of clearly delineated objectives — Trump would have more options at his disposal and the IRGC would have fewer.

 

A “cataclysmic defeat” in Iran “is not yet inevitable,” Schake contended. But only an adversarial Congress can dissuade Trump now from sacrificing America’s vital strategic interests to extricate himself from the conflict he started. If the legislature has any intention of saving Trump and the country from the president’s cravenness, they had better act fast.

 

Officially, the Trump administration’s position is that it will oppose a deal that includes Iranian impediments to maritime traffic in the strait — “meaning no approvals or permissions and no tolls or charges,” as one U.S. official put it. But that is what the terms of an Iran-Oman deal would reportedly allow. The U.S. side of this equation hasn’t voiced any objections to that deal — not yet, at least. Even as Iran continues to fire on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, and as Iran’s terrorist proxy in Yemen, the Houthi militia, menaces traffic entering the Red Sea — menacing Saudi and Western European assets alike — the president continues to broadcast nigh delusional optimism.

 

Perhaps the administration doesn’t want to get ahead of the negotiations, which might be wise. But the president and his allies are signaling their satisfaction with what are, as publicly reported, unacceptable conditions. Trump is telegraphing his desire to withdraw from the fight, even if that sacrifices America’s role as guarantor of free maritime navigation rights and sets the stage for future challenges to U.S. naval dominance by aggressors far more dangerous than the Islamic Republic.

 

The only ray of light piercing these dusky geopolitical clouds is the degree to which the Iranians, emboldened as they are, don’t seem willing to take yes for an answer.

 

The IRGC overplayed its hand in July, compelling Trump to withdraw the waivers that allowed Iran to sell its oil openly for U.S. dollars. That’s not an outcome the regime wanted, and the intra-regime tensions it caused quickly spilled out into the international press. Iranian negotiators are now reportedly pushing for a deal that would allow them to extort funds not just from incoming ships but also to impose that deal on Washington without Trump’s input. Flush with confidence, the IRGC will not allow Trump to save face.

 

The Iranians may have miscalculated just how much leverage they have over Trump. They’ve certainly misjudged his willingness to admit error, which is what Tehran seems to want. With luck, the Iranians’ obduracy will persuade the president not to give away America’s generational geostrategic heritage — if only because doing so would be too humiliating to bear.

 

As causes for optimism go, that’s not much. But, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go to war with the president you’ve got.