Iran, a Pyrrhic ceasefire for Trump

U.S. President Donald Trump has presented the two-week ceasefire deal with Iran as a victory. He has described it in his characteristic style, with plenty of capital letters and exclamation points. But, pending the outcome of the negotiations in Islamabad, what has been achieved so far is a Pyrrhic truce. Washington’s major accomplishment is opening a maritime passage that wasn’t closed before the start of the offensive; along the way, it has offended its allies, damaged its international image, depleted its ammunition stockpiles, and turned its own public opinion against it.

In his announcement, Trump framed the pause in hostilities as a concession, almost as a favor, to the Pakistani mediators, given that he was just an hour and a half away from ordering a massive attack on Iranian civilian infrastructure. He described it as an act of magnanimity because — as he wrote on social media — “we have already met and exceeded all Military objectives, and are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning Longterm PEACE with Iran.”

The details suggest, however, that Tehran will emerge with the better deal. The talks, as Trump himself has admitted, will be based on the Islamic Republic’s plan, not the 15-point U.S. proposal. It is also unclear on what terms Iran will open the Strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic.

Tehran enters the truce with its enriched uranium underground, but untouched. The regime remains in power and in control of the country, despite the White House occupant’s insistence that a complete transformation has taken place. Iran’s capacity to inflict damage on the enemy was demonstrated last week with the downing of an F-16 fighter jet, which forced the United States to launch a risky rescue mission involving 155 aircraft and “hundreds” of personnel, as Trump stated at a press conference on Monday. In that operation, the United States lost several planes and at least two helicopters, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Meanwhile, the United States has paid a very high price for a war it chose to enter into, dragged along by an Israeli leadership eager to eliminate its mortal enemy, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio admitted at the time, and as The New York Times made clear this Monday in a very detailed account of the last meeting at the White House between Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on February 11, two weeks before the war began.

The decision to attack has pitted Washington against its allies. In the case of Europe, the president’s criticism of partners who refused to cede their bases or airspace for use in the war, or to participate in a coalition to forcibly open the Strait of Hormuz, has reopened and widened the rift created by Trump’s desire to seize Greenland. That wound is now reopening: “It all began with, if you wanna know the truth, Greenland. We want Greenland. They don’t want to give it to us, and I said bye-bye,’” he mentioned, almost in passing, at a press conference this Monday. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who is visiting the White House on Wednesday, will have to employ his most conciliatory tactics to appease the U.S. president.

Relations with Asian allies have also suffered. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi was left with a tasteless joke from the U.S. president about Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor after her visit to the White House. South Korea has watched with alarm not only Trump’s complaints about the lack of cooperation in the Strait of Hormuz, but also the removal of a THAAD air defense system from its territory by U.S. forces — a system that had cost Seoul a diplomatic crisis and a multimillion-dollar trade boycott from China. The military deployment in the Persian Gulf has also diverted other military assets — ships, soldiers, ammunition — that were protecting its partners in the Pacific.

The war has also left U.S. forces in a precarious situation. As General Caine warned in pre-war White House national security team meetings, ammunition and air defense interceptors have been used that will take years to replace.

The global economy has suffered a severe blow, one from which the world’s leading power, despite Trump’s boasts about the U.S. economy being unscathed, will not be able to escape. The price of gasoline in the United States had surpassed $4 per gallon, a psychological barrier difficult to accept for a public that overwhelmingly considers this price increase the most serious consequence of the war — 69%, according to a Pew poll. Trump himself recently acknowledged the war’s unpopularity among his own voters: “The American people want to see us win and come home.”

But the highest price the United States will have to pay for this war is yet to come: the collapse of its international image in an illegal conflict of choice. The realization that the government in Washington is willing to perpetrate war crimes and its president declares himself not at all concerned.

Trump’s terrifying message on social media this Tuesday — “a whole civilization will die tonight” — is one that will not be forgotten. It leaves a lingering sense of trauma, a sense of shock, and guilt simply for having read it. “Sickening,” in the words of Volker Türk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. There it remains, for the record books: April 7, 2026, the day a U.S. president unequivocally threatened to exterminate a population of 91 million. The day Washington was shrouded in disgrace.

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