There is one good thing to be said about President Donald Trump’s handling of the war with Iran: Unlike past presidents who kept the country enmeshed in forever wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, Trump is pulling out of his misadventure as fast as he can.
At least, it looks like he might be out of it. The U.S. and Iranian presidents have signed a memorandum of understanding that should halt hostilities and get oil tankers cruising through the Strait of Hormuz. The very knotty details of a permanent agreement have yet to be worked out and, given the amateur crew of Trump cronies and relatives who have been negotiating on the American side, there is no guarantee that the peace deal will not disintegrate.
Still, Trump is ready to skedaddle, and, as always, he is seriously bending reality to reach the exit. The president’s plan is to simply claim victory and run.
If this wretched little war is over, how can we assess who won? Let’s consider Trump’s elastic goals for the attack on Iran:
Regime change and the liberation of the Iranian people.
The old guard at the top of the regime did, indeed, get eliminated, but they were immediately replaced by younger, more militant leaders. Hence, no regime change and no liberation.
Elimination of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Iran’s weapons grade uranium was already buried under rubble from a previous American bombardment. Currently, there is no enforceable deal in place, no inspection system, no nothing other than the president’s usual boasts and threats (nothing like the sophisticated arms control system the Obama administration negotiated with the support of the international community, including Russia and China — the system Trump overturned in his first term).
Reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
It looks like that will happen in short order. Of course, that does not really count as a goal of Trump’s war, since the closing of the strait was a consequence of the war itself. And it taught the Iranians that they may have something better than nukes; they have a way to hold the world economy hostage anytime they want, simply by closing the strait.
Unconditional surrender.
Trump said he would accept no less, but of course he has accepted far, far less. In fact, he is agreeing to unfreeze billions of dollars in Iranian assets and also let the Iranian regime dip into tens of billions more from a reconstruction fund.
Yes, Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth got to blow up a lot of buildings and kill a lot of Iranians (and, in the process, seriously deplete stocks of very expensive weapons), but, in the end, the United States comes out of this economically disastrous fight looking like an muscle-bound prizefighter who failed to finish off a wily opponent who took every punch and remained standing.
Just about no one believes the USA won this absurd little war, other than the MAGA faithful in the hinterlands who could not find Iran (or Canada, probably) on a map.
MAGA? Trump sure has a strange way of making America great again.
See more of David Horsey’s cartoons at: st.news/davidhorsey
View other syndicated cartoonists at: st.news/cartoons
Editor’s note: Seattle Times Opinion no longer appends comment threads on David Horsey’s cartoons. Too many comments violated our community policies and reviewing the dozens that were flagged as inappropriate required too much of our limited staff time. You can comment via a Letter to the Editor. Please email us at letters@seattletimes.com and include your full name, address and telephone number for verification only. Letters are limited to 200 words.
