{"id":656,"date":"2026-06-16T23:10:54","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T23:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=656"},"modified":"2026-06-16T23:10:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T23:10:54","slug":"trump-does-not-understand-the-war-he-lost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=656","title":{"rendered":"Trump Does Not Understand the War He Lost"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This is an edition of The<\/i> Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. <\/i><\/small>Sign up for it here.<\/small><\/i><\/p>\n

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Donald Trump arrived in France yesterday for this morning\u2019s G7 summit and promptly confirmed America\u2019s capitulation to Iran. Instead of merely repeating the outlines of what looks to be a terrible peace deal, however, Trump made a series of statements so bizarre, even by his usual standards, that they raise the question of whether the president still understands the words that come out of his own mouth.<\/p>\n

The president began with a classic Trumpian move, daring his listeners to forget today what they knew yesterday. Just this winter, Trump had promised the Iranian people that the tyrants who ruled them would be gone. But now? \u201cI never cared about regime change,\u201d he told reporters, waving away his failure to achieve a primary strategic goal by denying that it had ever been a goal at all.<\/p>\n

Things got a little weirder, however, when he described the Iranians who have stepped in to replace the regime leaders killed in U.S. strikes: \u201cWe\u2019re dealing with people that I think are very rational people. And they were nice to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were strong people, smart people,\u201d he added. And then he dropped this remarkable claim: \u201cThey\u2019re not radicalized, and they\u2019re, you know, looking to help their country.\u201d<\/p>\n

This definitely not-radicalized group that Trump seems to like includes the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei (whose father, wife, and son were killed by U.S. strikes), and the still-standing Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, all of whom have shown no compunction about lashing out in any direction during Trump\u2019s \u201ccease-fire,\u201d the make-believe pause in the war during which no one actually ceased firing.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s description of the current regime in Tehran as a bunch of swell guys was brewed in a heavy-duty vat of wishful thinking. It\u2019s an extreme version of Trump\u2019s tendency, when he\u2019s been outplayed by powerful enemies, to describe his opponents as basically reasonable people. (He has done the same over the years with dictators and autocrats in North Korea, Russia, and China, among other countries.) This is his way of assuring the public that he did not get taken to the cleaners\u2014because, of course, his affable partners would never do that.<\/p>\n

Trump fared no better talking about the Iranian nuclear program. Iran\u2019s stockpile of highly enriched uranium exists largely because Trump unilaterally called off U.S. participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 agreement that was meant to prevent Iran from enriching uranium beyond minimal levels for civilian uses. After the U.S. and Israeli attacks last year, and yet more pounding during Operation Epic Fury, that uranium remains underground, either hidden in storage or buried beneath tons of rubble; some of it can likely be recovered and enriched for military uses. Trump has said, repeatedly, that Iran must hand it over.<\/p>\n

Until today.<\/p>\n

\u201cI call it the nuclear dust, their enriched material, right?\u201d Trump said. (Why he calls it this remains a mystery.) Does America still insist on its removal from Iran? Well, maybe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole mountain has collapsed on top. We have cameras on it,\u201d Trump said. \u201cYou could make the case \u2018Why are you even bothering?\u2019 \u2019cause it\u2019s not really valuable. It\u2019s, you know, it\u2019s probably half a million dollars\u2019 worth. It\u2019s not very valuable stuff, but I think psychologically we wanna get it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The United States and Israel ostensibly went to war with Iran last summer over the prospect of the Tehran regime developing a bomb, and that same threat has supposedly been at the center of America\u2019s largest military operation in decades\u2014but now the highly enriched uranium isn\u2019t very valuable? The president wants it for \u201cpsychological\u201d reasons? (This is reminiscent of his comment that America should seize Greenland because it was \u201cpsychologically\u201d important to him.) Does the commander in chief understand what he\u2019s saying? More important, will Iran keep tons of highly enriched uranium under this new deal or not?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest thing,\u201d Trump said today, is that \u201cIran will not have a nuclear weapon.\u201d That\u2019s fine, except that it didn\u2019t have one before, either, and now it has an even greater incentive to get one. But nuclear issues are very complex and technical, so let\u2019s move on to Trump\u2019s comments about something less complicated: Middle Eastern politics.<\/p>\n

Once again, the president seemed unable to comprehend either the situation or his own words. No one outside of the Trump administration has yet seen the final memorandum of understanding that Trump and the Iranians have signed, least of all, according to some reports, the Israelis. If the outlines of the deal are in line with the administration\u2019s own talking points, it\u2019s bound to cause serious agita in Jerusalem: The terms reportedly require a cessation of Israeli hostilities with Hezbollah in Lebanon, a tricky condition considering that Israel was not a party to the negotiations. This is probably why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced yesterday that Israel would maintain its presence in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria for \u201cas long as necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump, in other words, is trying to deal away Israel\u2019s right to defend itself, treating it less as a sovereign country and more as a kind of 51st U.S. state run by an annoying governor who needs to get with the program. But what if Iran\u2019s proxy Hezbollah attacks Israel? According to the president, the Israelis need to calm down, and he minimized Hezbollah as \u201ca little pinprick out there that constantly rears its head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Oil Prices Might Not Go Back to Normal Anytime Soon<\/a><\/p>\n

Besides, Trump has an answer for the problem of Hezbollah: Outsource its elimination to the Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa. Trump said that he suggested to Israel to \u201clet Syria take care of Hezbollah, \u2019cause to be honest with you, I think they do a better job of doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the organization now in power in Syria, has plenty of experience fighting against Hezbollah. But Syria, a regime still trying to get its legs under it, is not going to march next door and pacify Lebanon\u2014especially not with Israel occupying parts of Syria.<\/p>\n

Trump has never shown very much concern about the conduct of Israeli military operations anywhere (including the war in Gaza, which he viewed primarily as a public-relations problem). But now that he needs to rein in Jerusalem at Tehran\u2019s behest, he has taken the position that the Israelis are causing too much damage in Lebanon. And in a stunning reminder that alliances for Trump are only expedients, he pivoted to praising al-Sharaa and criticizing Israel, saying that if Israel \u201ccan\u2019t do the job without killing everyone else, he\u2019ll do the job.\u201d<\/p>\n

This kind of flip-flop illustrates Trump\u2019s view of global politics: States are just a bunch of playing cards that he can rearrange at will, which makes watching him talk about foreign policy this way like watching someone cheating at solitaire. Even now, after many years as president, he is constantly frustrated to find out how little leverage he has when other nations refuse to abandon their own interests and do as he commands.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s comments about the Middle East may not make any sense, but one thing that has emerged in 4K clarity is that the only world leader who got pantsed worse than Trump in all of this was Netanyahu. No one should pity Israel\u2019s prime minister: He brought this situation upon himself and his nation. Netanyahu, along with the Iran-war hawks in the United States, somehow thought that he could be smart or flattering or persuasive enough to avoid the inevitable burn that comes from trusting Donald Trump. Netanyahu refused to see that Trump, when it comes to self-interest, is as predictable as a sunrise: When something he\u2019s involved with goes bad, he walks away and lets others suffer the chaos he\u2019s created.<\/p>\n

In the past, Trump has tried to conjure new circumstances by speaking them aloud and attempting to wish them into existence. His tired garble in France, however, is something different. It suggests that Trump, more than ever, is unable to fathom what\u2019s happening in the world around him and has been reduced to turning all of his previous statements upside down: A regime that was once the epitome of evil is now a reasonable partner; nuclear material that once represented an existential threat to America might now sit in Iran forever; Syria and Iran and Israel and Lebanon will now do things that they would never do, just because he wants them to.<\/p>\n

None of this makes any sense, except as desperate rationalizations from a man who cannot face facts and admit defeat. Trump has always had a tenuous relationship with the truth, but evidence is mounting that on the most important questions of war and peace, the president of the United States seems to be losing his grip on reality itself.<\/p>\n

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