Trump wanted to cripple Iran - now he might be handing Tehran a victory - opinion

You almost have to pinch yourself watching what is unfolding between the United States and Iran.

America would no longer be threatened, extorted, or played.

After the first American attack, Trump had something concrete to show for those words: the US directly struck Iran’s nuclear facilities.

After America’s second bombing campaign, the question is far more uncomfortable: What exactly did America win?

Israel reportedly wanted to participate in the latest American strikes, but Washington did not want Israel involved. This became America’s operation, America’s targets, and America’s strategy.

That distinction matters.

Trump wanted America to take the lead. America took ownership.

Now America owns the outcome.

Iran’s regime survived. Its nuclear ambitions remain unresolved. Its missile and drone capabilities are being rebuilt. Russia and China remain sources of weapons, components, and assistance.

And now Iran has turned the Strait of Hormuz into leverage against the US.

Washington is reportedly considering gradually releasing frozen Iranian funds and providing partial sanctions relief in return for Iran allowing unrestricted, toll-free commercial passage through Hormuz.

How did America get from Trump’s demands for Iranian surrender to negotiating what Tehran receives for reopening an international waterway?

Trump says America has “total control” of Hormuz. If America has total control, why is Iran setting the price?

That is what makes this so embarrassing for America – and particularly for a president whose global brand is strength.

The danger goes much further than appearances.

Trump’s own administration has argued that denying Iran revenue is essential because Tehran uses its resources for missiles, drones, the Revolutionary Guards, and terrorist proxies.

Loosening sanctions therefore doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

Money is fungible. Economic breathing room can free Iranian resources for rebuilding missiles, strengthening Hezbollah, supporting the Houthis and Hamas, restoring military infrastructure, and potentially advancing the nuclear capabilities America just went to war to stop.

America cannot spend billions destroying Iran’s military machine and then help create the financial conditions for Iran to rebuild it.

All because Iran disrupted Hormuz? That would send a catastrophic message far beyond Tehran.

And Hamas will be watching.

The ISF is supposed to support Hamas’s disarmament, prevent terrorist infrastructure from being rebuilt, and help establish a new Palestinian police force.

What happens to the credibility of that structure if Hamas watches its patron Iran challenge America, disrupt international commerce, survive American bombing, and then potentially obtain financial concessions?

The lesson becomes dangerous:

Hold out long enough, create enough pressure, violate agreements, make the political cost painful enough, and eventually Washington may renegotiate.

That puts Israel’s immediate borders at risk – not merely from Iranian missiles hundreds of miles away, but from Hamas and other armed groups directly next door.

There is another regional development that deserves attention.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey all sit within Trump’s Board of Peace framework. Separately, Saudi Arabia has moved into a new defense arrangement with Turkey and Pakistan and is building broader regional security coalitions.

None of that automatically makes those countries enemies of Israel. Saudi Arabia has never been formally at war with Israel in the modern era, and Egypt has maintained its peace treaty with Israel for decades.

But something important has changed.

Countries Washington hoped would become pillars of a new regional order alongside Israel are increasingly coordinating among themselves, building independent security structures and pursuing interests that do not necessarily align with Jerusalem’s.

That was always the risk.

When these new structures were celebrated, the question should never have been simply whether Arab and Muslim countries were finally uniting.

The question was: Uniting around what – and ultimately, against whom?

What was presented as a framework that could surround Israel with stability can become something very different if Israel eventually feels surrounded by the framework itself.

Those concerns no longer look theoretical.

Israel increasingly finds itself questioning arrangements involving countries that were supposed to help guarantee its security, while Iran – the country America set out to weaken decisively – is demonstrating that it can still impose enormous costs on the region.

And Tehran understands the political clock.

Iran may have concluded that it does not need to defeat America militarily. It only needs to outlast Trump politically.

Which brings us to the midterms. Is Washington simply trying to get through November?

Reopen Hormuz. Stabilize oil prices. Remove Iran from the daily economic conversation. Replenish American weapons inventories. Get past the elections.

Then perhaps Trump returns to Iran with overwhelming pressure.

If that is the strategy, today’s moves may eventually make sense.

But Iran gets those same months.

It can rebuild missiles, restore air defenses, receive Russian and Chinese equipment, strengthen proxies, repair military and nuclear infrastructure, and potentially do all of it with greater economic breathing room if Washington loosens sanctions.

That is the gamble.

Trump wanted to demonstrate American dominance without Israel participating in the second campaign.

Instead, America today appears to be negotiating with the country it bombed over what that country must receive to stop disrupting global commerce.

Maybe Trump has another card. Maybe this is a tactical pause before the real endgame.

For America’s sake, one hopes so.

Because Trump’s objectives were never merely to bomb Iran; they were to prevent a nuclear Iran, cripple its missile threat, cut its terrorist proxies off from Tehran, and restore American deterrence.

Those are the standards by which victory must be measured.

Not how many bombs America dropped. Not how many buildings were destroyed. And certainly not whether Iran temporarily agrees to reopen Hormuz after being economically rewarded for closing it.

America took ownership of this second campaign. Now it must show the world what it accomplished.

Because if Iran rebuilds, Hamas learns that agreements can be tested, America’s regional partners increasingly organize around their own interests, and Washington pays Tehran to unwind a crisis Tehran helped create.

And that leaves a question that would have seemed unimaginable when America’s second attack began: Is Trump defeated – and is Iran victorious?